It is strange how most of Moonie’s friends are celebrities in their own right (apart from me of course). There are plenty of other musos, film people and other show biz types who have a close clan around them of people they know from way back. And these are the people they can rely on, who they know aren’t interested in them just because of the fame or the money. In the time I know him, Moonie appears to have no one like this and, apart from the other geezers in the band, does not seem to have anyone from his childhood or his schooldays. For a time I consider that this is on account of Moonie has such a large ego that he can only rub along with bigshots, but eventually I come to the conclusion that it is not quite as simple as that.
Moonie’s rise to fame, and fortune does isolate him. It’s no use the average, punter saying:
‘I should be so lucky! All that money!’ But the average punter can no more handle this situation than Moonie can. The reason why there’s such a high casualty rate among stars is that most of them start off as average geezers—or bints—and they are just not equipped for the job, nor for the life they are just about forced to live.
Once they make it to the top they are expected to live in a certain kind of way. They can’t win. If Moonie decides to stay quietly at home with the Mrs, not that he ever does, he will be accused of being a skinflint and boring. If he goes out and about a bit, taking a few bevvies here and there, it is very hard not to go over the top and end up with a booze problem. Say he decides to knock off at midnight and go on home to kip. Then everyone will moan:
‘Ah, come on Moonie, don’t give us all that going to kip bollocks.’ Bearing all this in mind I soon see why it is only possible for Keith to rub along with people who have a similar problem, i.e. they are rich, famous and slightly bananas.
The main two of these people are Harry Nilsson, the singer, and Ringo Starr, former drummer with a popular singing act. There is a period around 1973 when these three are virtually inseparable and go around everywhere like the Three Musketeers. Most of the time I go along too, on account of Moonie must have someone along to drive him, plus he seems to like to have me around at all times in case he runs out of money. Then he can use my American Express card.
Moonie first becomes friendly with Ringo when they are both involved in the movie That’ll Be The Day. Ringo’s part in this movie is to play a Teddy. Boy, and he is most convincing in this role, what with the drape jacket, the thick crêpe-soled brothel creepers, the bootlace tie and the slick greased quiff in the barnet. Of course, Ringo is old enough to be a Ted first time round and for all I know this is exactly what he is when he is younger. Moonie, as I mention elsewhere, plays the drummer in a rock and roll band. I play a guitarist in the band, which is faintly hysterical as I am more likely to pick out a time on a tennis racket than I am to understand the workings of a guitar, and another roadie who goes by the name of Mick Double, who has similar musical ability to my own, pretends on bass. The pianist is a geezer called John Hawken, who is once with The Nashville Teens and who is quite a red-hot whizz of the keyboards. Graham Bond, formerly boss of the Graham Bond Organisation, is on saxophone.
Now this Graham Bond, who very sadly later checks in his clogs and is part of that great rock and roll band in the sky, is a very weird, funny and interesting dude. He is a huge fat fellow who is most influential in British rock around the mid-sixties and is one of the few players who really can play. He is primarily an artist of the keyboard, although he starts his career as a jazz saxophonist and is highly regarded in that sphere.
Not only is he double fat, but he is also well into dope, black and white magic, mysticism and one thing and another. He takes up these interests like other people take up hobbies and at the time we are filming That’ll Be The Day, Graham Bond is considerably into Bhuddism.
One morning I go with Moonie to get Bondie ready for the day’s action. Now, on this movie, Moonie has a ball acting as roadie for the make-believe band that features in the film. He has many laughs organising everything and generally behaving very much unlike the superstar and very much like the runaround. He makes a great show of getting everyone to their places on set, with equipment and fairly straight in the head.
So we hammer on Bondie’s door at seven o’clock in the morning, which is not the time to be rousing up a rock and roll musician but, to our relief, Bondies shouts out:
‘Come in!’
So we go in and we find him sitting in his bath. However, he is making very little use of the soap and the face flannel. No, what he is doing is reading a giant book which I later discover to be the Buddhist equivalent of The Bible. Moreover, Bondie is taking large tokes on an ornate opium pipe. Well, for all I know this may be a large and integral part of the Buddhist religion and if it is it sounds to me as if this Buddhism may be a lot more fun than Christianity as purveyed by the famous Church of England, well-known landlords and businessmen. Mind you, there are not many things that are less fun than the C of E.
While we are standing there in Bondie’s bathroom, the conversation goes something like this:
‘Hi, man, how’re you doing?’ asks Moonie.
‘OK, man, OK. Yeah, I’m just doing my religion, man,’ answers Bondie.
‘Yeah,’ says Moonie. ‘Want me to scrub your back while you’re doing it?’
‘Hey no, man,’ says Bondie, all indignant. ‘Don’t fuck about man, I mean like I’m in serious trouble. Like I’ve got to pray to the East, man, and I don’t know which way is East!’
‘Well,’ says Moonie, ‘I tell you what—I do know that East Kilburn’s over that way.’ And he points vaguely toward the corner of the bathroom.
‘Wow, man, that’s great. That’s fantastic. East Kilburn. I never knew that, man.’ And with that old Bondie starts heaving himself out of the bath. What with him being pretty hefty and not too slim around the derby—in fact Bondie would walk the finals of the Buddha look-alike competition—he needs both hands for this extrication. Consequently his Buddhist Bible book drops—PLOP—right into the bathwater where it disappears under the somewhat murky surface. At this Bondie seems quite upset and crest-fallen.
‘Oh shit, man, now I’m really going to have to do some praying!’
Anyway, like I say, Ringo is on this movie and although he is quite quiet for the first few days it soon turns out that he and Moonie are kindred spirits, not to say blood brothers. It is not entirely surprising that alcohol of one sort or another is connected with the start of their friendship, which begins one day on the set when we all have to hang around for an entire day to shoot a couple of scenes with the movie band. It is extremely taters, brass and all round very cold indeed, and as soon as each take is done and we have a few moments to spare we shoot off to try and warm up in the dressing room. One time, Ringo walks in and starts on the first of what seems to be an endless supply of miniature brandies, and I have to say that Ringo is most generous with these miniatures and they are dealt out all over the place. This is the time that Moonie and Ringo start to get into each other, rapping away like two old biddies at a flower show. What transpires is that they both have a similar sense of humour—and here I am referring to words rather than carryings on—which is weird, offbeat and very British, not to say English. Ringo is very fond of Monty Python, a television programme that is much in demand at this time, and Moonie finds this very pleasant because the Python team are his favourite comics. So Moonie and Ringo sit there bunnying like there is no tomorrow and though I cannot recall the detail of this bunnying I do remember pissing myself with laughter at their loony sayings.
The movie is concerned with the early days of rock and roll in England and during this period many punters dress in the Teddy Boy or Rocker style. It is strange that both these styles still survive and all around Britain there are active groups of Teds and Rockers—especially Rockers, probably because Rockers’ gear, leather jackets, jeans and big boots, is still the best gear for motorcycling, which is what Rockers love to do above everything else. Naturally there is a ready supply of Rocker gear all around the film set. Moonie, Ringo and me proceed to don same and sally out to the local pubs and high spots, which are not very high at that.
What I neglect to mention is that this movie is shot, or at least this bit of it is shot, in the Isle of Wight, which is a small island off the South Coast of England and is famous on account of it is said to be exactly the right size to accommodate the entire population of the world, if you will give each member of this population just eighteen square inches in which to live, which is not large enough for me and certainly several sizes too small for the likes of Ringo or Moonie. It is on this island that, a few years ago, Dylan stars in a rock festival. But I have to say that even though this little island is the venue of several rock shows, the Isle of Wight is by no means the swingingest place in the world. It tends not to be very lively at all and, in fact, in the liveliness stakes this island is liable to come in behind Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and just ahead of the suburbs of Peking. So when all three of us appear in the local hostelries and watering places, all done up so that we look like Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones in triplicate, the local citizens are not delighted.
In fact they seem about to shit themselves. And they do this to such an extent that our exercise turns out to be not very entertaining. As soon as we walk into any place, the locals are suddenly schtum for a few moments, before breaking into extremely agitated and private bunny. But they make very sure that they do not make any comment about the three bikers who appear to them to be the worst incarnation of a trio of Hell’s Angels. We have a good, but certainly not legendary evening, but by the time we get back to the hotel Moonie and Ringo seem to cement a friendship very firmly and this friendship lasts until the day Moonie ups and dies.
Through Ringo, Moonie meets Harry Nilsson, a meeting that leads to the three of them becoming a legendary bunch of loons. It is strange, really, to think that although Moonie always has the reputation of being a major prankster and Ringo’s exploits reach the public’s ear from time to time, no one thinks of Harry Nilsson as anything other than a singer/ songwriter with a leaning toward romantic and even slightly soppy songs. After all, one of his biggest successes is A Little Nilsson in the Night, which is his version of many standards such as Makin’ Whoopee and so on.
But, as I later find out, Harry Nilsson is not only a lunatic of the first order but also a highly intelligent geezer who knows a great deal more about what is what than the average singer—let alone the average rock star. Later, of course, he gets into writing plays and films and all sorts of other things that are generally reckoned to display the presence of brains in the head. A while ago he has a musical entertainment named The Point running at the Mermaid Theatre in London, which is not a place known to put on anything knocked up by the average moron.
Ringo introduces Moonie to Nilsson at a time when Apple Films are producing a movie called Son of Dracula, which has Nilsson in it plus, of course, he writes the musical score. By an amazing and original stroke of casting genius, Moonie is roped in to play the part of a drummer in a rock and roll band, which, of course, he is able to do fairly convincingly with just a little rehearsal. When Moonie and Nilsson meet up it does not take them very long to discover that they both have a taste for hard liquor and for anything else that may be going—especially if laughs are also involved.
In the beginning, though, Moonie does have a further and ulterior motive for hanging out with Harry Nilsson and this reason is that Moonie fancies Nilsson’s bird. This is about the time that Moonie splits with Kim, and though he is knocking off some model bint this liaison is not sufficiently exciting to prevent him from attempting to parlay his way into Nilsson’s chick’s knickers at the earliest opportunity, if not before. This is one of the rare occasions that he does not get his wish, and he gives up the attempt because he gets to like Nilsson too much and does not wish to interfere with his love life.
Speaking of love life, Moonie, Nilsson and Ringo have this in common, that they each have plenty of problems on the domestic front. Ringo is parted from his wife, Maureen. Harry is divorced from his first wife. And Moonie, well Moonie is not only split from Kim but does not have anywhere to live either. This last problem is taken care of when Nilsson invites Keith to move in with him in a very nice pad in Mayfair, very handy indeed for the Playboy Club, the Inn on the Park and many other watering places.
Over the course of the next few years, Moonie, Ringo and Nilsson inspire memorable evenings and I have to confess that I never see three guys who are more on the same wavelength. I myself am by no means the slowest person in the world, but I have to admit that Moonie, Ringo and Harry Nilsson frequently leave me behind in the bunny stakes—especially when they get into the Monty Python schtick. But the great advantage to Moonie is that Ringo and Harry are perfect foils to him. Moonie is always full of mad ideas of one sort or another and whereas most people react to such ideas by saying ‘Oh yeah?’ or even taking the piss—assuming they are either very fast runners indeed or have a car with its engine running waiting outside for them—Ringo and Harry encourage Moonie to develop these ideas because they are very funny and demonstrate Moonie’s quite extraordinary imagination.
One evening at Nilsson’s Moonie stops the proceedings with this remark:
‘Dear boys, I wish you to know that one of my latest inventions has just been patented.’ Now the thing is that when Moonie makes a statement like this it is very hard to disbelieve him. He seems perfectly logical and calm and is very, very convincing. Many people are taken in and there are many instances when Keith enthralls audiences with stories as to how he makes himself a zillionaire in mining shares, how he owns hotels up and down the country, how he invents various devices that will solve the problems of the world, how he has films in production and so on and so forth. So when Moonie mentions this latest invention, Ringo and Harry, though they do not necessarily believe it, are very happy to have Keith describe same invention. They know that at the very least they are about to be entertained. So Ringo replies:
‘Yeah? What’s that, then, Keith?’
‘It is a hovercraft,’ says Keith. ‘A hovercraft that carries 1600 people. It’s got a swimming pool, a billiard room and a cinema. Now, as you know, the problem with billiards on board a ship, or in a hovercraft like this, is that as the ship moves the billiard balls tend to roll about. But the point is that my invention, dear boys, my invention eliminates the rolling billiard balls by means of an intermittent magnetic force field that is linked to waves sensors. As the hovercraft approaches the waves, the sensors measure the exact movement that the waves will cause. Do you follow me, Dougal? Then, by means of a real time computer link up, the magnetic force field is applied to the billiard table in such a way as to automatically compensate for the movements the waves will cause. Thus,’ finishes Moonie triumphantly, ‘the billiard balls stay in position while the table moves.’
Naturally, we are all struck dumb by this description and while we are silent Moonie’s eyes gleam, just like the mad professor in all those B movies. Before any of us can speak, he continues:
‘Ah, you will say, if the force field holds the balls still, how do you play them? The point is, dear boys, that in the end of the cues I have placed a small microswitch that—just for a fraction of a second cancels that part of the force field holding the ball about to be played. Simple, when you know how.’
Moonie is truly hypnotic when he carries on in this manner though, of course, he is not world famous for inventing hovercrafts, or even automatic toasters or electric mousetraps. When Moonie gets an idea like this, he is forced to attempt to convince everyone in sight that it is strictly kosher and very serious. And if there is no one in sight, then he will telephone anyone in the world who he thinks of and will start to give them the blag, even if these people live on the other side of the world and it is their night-time. On one occasion when we are in an airport hotel near Manchester and are rather depressed at the quality of the two hookers we line up for the night’s entertainment, Moonie has an idea for a film and nothing will do but he must telephone Steve McQueen, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Tony Curtis about this idea. Now if you or I attempt such telephoning, we will not even get through to Hollywood, let alone to the name stars. In fact, if you or I are phoning from Manchester, we will be lucky if we even manage to get out of Manchester. But Moonie is somehow able to talk his way right into these stars’ homes (though of course he knows Steve McQueen vaguely even at this time, which is before he winds up living next door to McQueen on Malibu Beach). And when he gets through to them, he makes them listen to his script and despite the fact that he has the best part of several bottles of champagne inside him, Moonie is able to be most articulate and convincing about the project and Tony Curtis, Steve McQueen and Zsa Zsa Gabor are most interested indeed in the scheme—especially Zsa Zsa Gabor, but then I expect she is hankering after further diamonds and is a bit short of a bob or two to purchase such.
Well, of course, Moonie does not have to make a telephone call across the Atlantic to rev up Nilsson and Ringo about his hovercraft but the same principle applies and they are most fascinated even if they do not understand too much about the intermittent magnetic force field. Eventually, however, they manage to escape from their own silence and begin to ask Moonie for further details. Ringo asks, in that peculiar accent which people brought up in Liverpool, England, are liable to obtain:
‘Well, Moonie, what sort of uniforms are the crew of this hovercraft going to wear?’ And Moonie can answer this one without batting an eyelid.
‘My dear boy, I’ve already signed up Ossie Clark and he is designing the uniforms even now.’ It never occurs to us to question all this spiel.
No, we ask for more and more information, which Moonie is able to provide—right down to the cost of the billiard balls, who will supply the cut glass decanters, which company is contracted to do the catering and what the menus will have on them.
Eventually Ringo asks:
‘What about a group for the ballroom?’ Moonie stops for a moment.
‘Ah, dear boy,’ he says. ‘I must admit that I had not thought about the group for the ballroom. We’ll just have to form our own. You and me on drums. Harry on vocals. We’ll see if Elton can sit in on keyboards. Eric on guitar and if we pull in Entwistle as well, that’ll be about it. Right?’ And the next thing we know is that Moonie is all set to phone Elton John, Eric Clapton and John Entwistle right away. But while he is looking for the telephone, he sees that his glass is empty and, by the time he discovers the bottle and tips the contents into his glass, the hovercraft scheme is completely forgotten.
The point is that Moonie makes us almost believe him when he talks of such things simply because while he is talking about them he really believes in them. This is maybe why he can do things that must kill anyone else. He believes that he is indestructible and because he believes this he can perform stunts that most people cannot even contemplate, and come away unscathed.
Like, for example, when he walks through a plate glass window at the house in Chertsey. At the time he is carrying a gun and the hole left in the window exactly fits the silhouette of a man with a gun—rather like those Warner Bros cartoons. Or another time when he has a row with the band and jumps off the end of Brighton Pier, smack dab into the sea, which is by no means calm at this time. Now Moonie is certainly not Mark Spitz when it comes to swimming and when he leaps into the English Channel, which is extremely cold, the rest of the party with him shit themselves and rush off to find the nearest lifesaver.
Well, these two lifesaver guys, who are most butch indeed, have some trouble struggling out to where Moonie hits the briny and when they get there they can find no trace of him. So they plough their way back to the beach and they find this quite a struggle too—but, when they arrive back on Brighton Beach, who is waiting there to greet them but Keith Moon himself.
‘Most kind of you, dear boys. Most kind—but I’m perfectly all right, as you can see.’
During the time Moonie, Ringo and Harry Nilsson are together they have a great deal of free time to booze away, dope away, have it away and generally behave like juvenile miscreants—which, I may say, I join in with with plenty of enthusiasm of my own. I doubt if at this time Moonie is working more than sixty days a year and, having no hobbies whatsoever, other than abusing his body, he is usually quite hot to trot. The daily routine that becomes established is this: rise between noon and one o’clock. Make breakfast (in Moonie’s case, of course, it’s usually me who makes it). Off to the Inn on the Park, or somewhere, for champagne cocktails. Round about this time, we meet up with Harry. Then it’s off to the Apple Offices in Savile Row, and there we spend the afternoon with Ringo, boozing, fooling around and generally shooting the breeze.
It is now about five-thirty in the evening, which is when the pubs in the West End of London open their doors for business so, of course, we repair to the nearest one of the several hostelries we use, and indulge in a game of darts and a few bevvies. Especially a few bevvies. Then it is time for something to eat, so we find a restaurant, at which we stay till somewhere about one in the morning, by which time We are ready for an expedition to Tramp.
It may occur to you that this is indeed a tedious routine, but of course bouts of raving in this manner are interspersed with bouts of doing nothing much at all. At these times Moonie takes to his bed with endless Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, and I take my rest and recreation by nipping off to see my folks, spending time with my girlfriend and catching up on the news of my various mates.
When we do hit the town, believe you me things get to be mighty expensive. For a start, at the time of which I speak, three or four people cannot entertain themselves properly at Tramp without spending three or four hundred pounds. And that’s without the rest of the day’s food and drink quota. Mind you, there are degrees of entertainment. When Ringo, Nilsson and Moonie are together, the correct degree is to be able, when time for the champagne breakfast comes round, to just about see enough to propel a forkful of scrambled egg to a region somewhere round about the mouth.
But the five or six hundred pounds a day that we consume is money well spent in so far as it buys us a very good time indeed, especially in Tramp—though I admit that that place does operate a somewhat exclusive and biased policy when it comes to its treatment of those punters who try to wander in off the street. But Tramp tolerates the bad behaviour of rock stars and is particularly liberal toward those who are prepared to spray their money around the place.
If you do not know Tramp, let me explain that it is a club in Jermyn Street and, for a while, it is certainly the place to go if you are rich and famous. Or at least rich. Some people, such as George Best the famous footballer, practically live there, and if you are someone who likes to be thought of as someone, the day you look in the scandal sheets and do not see yourself entering or exiting Tramp with some flashy bint attached firmly to your person is the day you seriously consider two final tequila sunrises and sticking your head in the gas oven.
When I look back on it, I cannot understand why this place is so popular. It is dark, sweaty and very cramped. At all times it contains a very high proportion of extremely tedious people of low intelligence, most of whom have voices that cut diamonds quicker than any laser beam.
However, there you are. Such is the way of fashion, and who am I to say that Hooray Henries and Hangers On of one sort or another cannot have fun in the way in which they wish to have fun, even if they are being ripped off left right and centre, and especially centre. And, like I say, in my time I enjoy many a good time at this peculiar place.
In Moonie’s case, many legendary things come off in Tramp—mostly his clothes. One time I arrive there with Moonie absolutely stark bollock naked and spreadeagled on the bonnet of his Corniche. This particular evening starts off in The Pheasantry, which is another club but this time in the King’s Road and Moonie decides that it is my place to drive the Roller to Tramp with him naked on the bonnet. Now this is a distance of some couple of miles, right through the West End of London, which is by no means under-populated. But, of course, I begin the drive, aiming the car by lining up the two most prominent things I can see, which are the car’s silver mascot and Moonie’s hairy arsehole, and pointing them in such a way that I hope to avoid most other drivers on the road at this time of night.
Moonie keeps himself from rolling off the bonnet by clinging on to the silver mascot and wedging his feet against the windscreen, so that we are able to arrive before the doorman at Tramp in reasonable order. Not unnaturally, he is quite surprised to see two of his clientele arrive at the club in this way but he recovers his composure rapidly and, when I slip him a couple of quid, he scoots off to park the jam jar. Moonie then enters the club, where he is at least persuaded to don a pair of underpants. The first person we see upon entering the eating section of the club, which is off to one side, is Mick Jagger who has with him, as far as I recall, Bianca. Moonie strolls over.
‘Hello, my dears,’ he says and with no further ado he rips off the underpants. Thus the king rock star of them all and his dusky spouse are treated to an extreme close up of the Moon dong waving about their Steak Dianes. Well, I am not saying that I never see anyone move faster, but Mick is up and out of the place in 10 seconds flat—though not before he has to put up with a great deal of assault and battery on his ears from La Bianca. Personally, I believe that this show of shock is somewhat unnecessary and that Bianca seems a very snotty lady, but I concede that the Moon dong is not everyone’s first choice in side dishes.
One of the best periods of this friendship between Moonie, Ringo and Harry Nilsson is when Nilsson requests Moonie to play upon his album Pussycats, to be produced by John Lennon. This is before Keith sets up the house in Malibu and the gig necessitates flights to California, where Harry arranges a suite in the Beverley Wilshire hotel in LA. We take the suite over directly from Bob Dylan—though I only mention this because I am a Bob Dylan fan and get quite a kick out of sleeping in the same bed as this hero—but only after the hero has vacated the bed, of course.
Meanwhile, Nilsson, John Lennon and Ringo hire a beach house in Santa Monica, a house which is extremely well appointed and comfortable in every room. It once belongs to the Kennedys, of presidential and large sums of moolaw fame, and it is apparently where they invite Marilyn Monroe, among others, to view their etchings and indulge in private performances. This probably accounts for the comfort in every room. I do not mean to imply that I necessarily believe in the mud that people sling at Marilyn and the Kennedys, but if there is any truth in this mud at all, then this house is where it sticks.
It is not long before Nilsson, Lennon and Ringo invite Moonie to stay in the house with them, which suits me because I am left with the entire Beverley Wilshire suite and I find this much to my taste.
A daily routine now begins whereby I drive out to the studio every day to meet Moonie and his mates. We complete the session and then we repair to the beach house for epic partying. Moonie is perpetually out of his box, and also his tree and is generally quite starry-eyed every single day. It is just as well that he is not the only drummer on the session and, for all I know, this is the main reason Nilsson has Jim Keltner, one of the best respected session rock and roll drummers in the world, performing alongside Moonie. Sometimes they alternate and sometimes they play together. On one track, which is Rock Around The Clock, they play together along with Ringo too, and this punishment of the skins is really something to hear. In fact, the entire track is something to hear, and this particular version of Rock Around The Clock is a very high speed version indeed; here is the reason:
It all starts because Moonie is a very flash geezer. Whereas Jim Keltner plays an ordinary, standard size drum kit, and Ringo too, as anyone who ever watches The Beatles will confirm, likes a very standard kit. Moonie likes to play on a kit that is just about twice the size of anyone else’s and, of course, it is me that has to provide this oversize unit for him. In fact, he tells me to find the biggest fucking drum kit in the world—bigger, even, than his usual array. So I phone around the place and the third call is lucky. They will do an eighteen drum unit and, moreover, they are able to deliver it right away, free of charge. No payment is involved because it is standard practice in the business for famous rock stars to be provided with their instruments free of charge—provided they consent to a couple of publicity shots, which most of them do—many of them being so out of it anyway that they do not know that these shots are being taken. They probably think that the flashlights are in their heads, and try to remember not to have that particular medicine next time round.
Well here is the set up, with Moonie sitting behind a drum kit large enough to house a colony of midgets, Ringo in the middle and Jim Keltner off to the other side. Now Moonie is, as everyone who has half a brain, one eye and an ear will tell you, one of the greatest drummers of all time, but even Moonie becomes tense and nervous if he feels that he is up for comparison with anyone else, and Keltner and Ringo are fair competition. So Moonie orders up a couple of Amyl Nitrates to help him along. It so happens that in my medicine box I have a very large supply of Amyl, supplied by our friendly and understanding doctor in LA—the one who needs the money —so I snap one phial under Moonie’s hooter and he inhales the fumes gladly. Of course, Ringo clocks this treatment and speaks:
‘Hey, Dougal, what about us then?’ So I zip round to Ringo and snap a phial for him. Then it seems to me that it will be rude to ignore Jim Keltner, so I give him a quick blast. Then I realise that the other musicians may well be offended, and not able to perform to the best of their ability, if they do not have some medicine too. So I snap a phial for Jesse Ed Davis, who plays the guitar on this session, and then hurry around everyone else in sight doing my best impression of The Flying Doctor.
Recording another album in the great rock and roll myth is no longer a matter of into the studio, wham-bam-thank-you-mam-here’s-another-hit-already-give-me-the-loot-and-let’s-piss-off. No, what with the synthesisers, the oscillators, the vibrillators, the scintillators and I do not know what all else, there is so much technology around that something is bound to go up the pictures every two seconds. And it does on this session. Which means that the entire recording is held up a few moments. Which, in turn, means that I have to snap another Amyl for Moonie, and yet further Amyls for everyone else present.
So, by the time they get to play, there is more speeding around than in the Indianapolis 500.
And when the one-two-three-four comes, well there is no holding these dudes. They play like they all have just one minute to live. Moonie thrashes away at his giant kit, looking like nothing less than Bruce Lee putting down a pack of yobboes. Ringo is hammering away like the mad carpenter in that Swiss fairy tale, and Jim Keltner is committing rapid machine gun fire on his skins too. Of course the rest of the band is forced to keep up with this trot, and their fingers are working at their instruments quick enough to set the sparks flying. In fact, to hear them you will think that each musician must have at least four hands, and on each hand he must have at least double the usual complement of fingers and digits. Rock Around The Clock is operating faster than The Flight of the Bumble Bee and it seems to me to turn out pretty well.
I can see that Lennon, up in the control box, is loving every minute of it, laughing and smiling, and he eventually decides to leave the track as it is on the final album.
Personally I think that Dr Lax and The Amyls ought to have a credit on this album, but maybe that is a dangerous idea at that.
I have to digress briefly from Moonie here to say that Pussycats is one of the high spots of my life, because it is through this album that I meet Lennon. Now John Lennon, for me, is one of the all time heroes and legends. However you look at it, and no matter whether you hate the whole rock scene and everything it stands for, there is no question but that Lennon and McCartney, and Lennon especially, influence an entire generation.
And from that original influence the waves and ripples spread far and wide until practically everyone in the world who isn’t deaf, dumb and living in a concrete box three yards thick, is affected. Of course, I exclude those who are unfortunate enough to be locked in behind barbed wire in the depths of Siberia and also those who are more concerned with what they will eat for the next few days than which record they will buy. But that’s show business. Sing as you go. Lennon and McCartney are not responsible for the design of the world.
So for me to meet John Lennon is similar to a genuine and devout Catholic meeting The Pope. I am nervous at first, though it soon turns out that he is a nice, relaxed, sort of bloke and quite one of the lads. I personally never see him awkward or hoity toity such as many people claim he is. Far from it—he is a great laugh in the studio and a considerable hand in the partying afterwards. He loves Moonie’s drumming and rates Keith as one of the all time greats. In fact, he and Keith strike up quite a friendship and spend some time together. Later, The Who play a gig in New York, which is where Lennon lives, and he intends to attend the gig. But then he phones up to say he cannot make it but can we meet up later—which we do. We go round to his hotel suite and there we meet Chris Charlesworth, the Melody Maker journalist. This evening is very special because Lennon spends much time talking about the early days of The Beatles in Liverpool and Germany.
Well, there is no doubt that of all Moonie’s mates, Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr are two of the best. But as I say, Moonie really does not have that many proper friends, perhaps because he does not show such people that he needs and rates them as much as they like him. I recall one time in LA Ringo sets up a Thanksgiving Dinner and invites Moonie, Harry and me, among others. Now this is an event that me and Moonie greatly look forward to but at the last moment Moonie decides he is just not in the mood. He won’t go. So I have to tell Ringo that when Ringo telephones to ask just where the hell we are. And, naturally, Ringo is most upset. The point is, though, that people like Nilsson and Ringo, are like co-stars in Moonie’s personal movie. That is how he sees them, not just as friends who may give and may need help. Certainly, they measure up to him in general craziness, capacity for stimulants of one sort or another and the ability to put the shits up normal people. Maybe that is all Moonie ever wants in a mate.
There are times when Moonie even manages to piss Nilsson and Ringo off—quite aside from incidents like the Thanksgiving Dinner. On several occasions I see them shy away from some particularly outrageous Moon prank, perhaps because Nilsson and Ringo have at least some—however minimal—capacity for embarrassment.
Personally I think that this is one of the keys to Moonie: he is impossible to embarrass. I cannot recall ever seeing him embarrassed, whatever the situation. No matter how much disapproval is showered upon him.
Mind you, there are several people who can match Moonie when it comes to being un-embarrassed. One of them is Viv Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, another great eccentric and another of life’s unembarrassables.
Moonie always loves the Bonzo Dog Band and if you ever hear their records or catch their act, then you will instantly know why. In many respects they are the forerunners of Monty Python type humour. Stanshall is one of the band’s originators, and in his own way is quite as extreme a lunatic as Moonie. He has a similar and total disregard for domestic arrangements. At this time his lounge contains nothing whatsoever in it except a sofa, a television set and a fish tank full of tropical fish. One time I am sitting there with the television on, but watching the fish because they are infinitely more entertaining than ninety per cent of television, when Moonie and Stanshall burst in wearing Nazi uniforms, complete with medals, armbands and the whole thing. For a second or two it gives me the fright of all time, and the tropical fish do not seem too happy either. But after a while, they sally forth into the streets. At first, they cause very little comment, for it is well known that the great British public tend to turn a blind eye to eccentricity, mugging and rape. This apathy makes Moonie and Stanshall feel quite unloved and dissatisfied and they decide that what is required for their uniforms to be properly appreciated is a Germanic atmosphere. Now it is really quite difficult to find Germanic atmosphere in London, England, where you do not find many geezers hanging around in lederhosen. Or if you do they are by no means German but are perverts who like to wear tight leather shorts and are looking for people of similar mind in order to exchange slaps upon each other’s bottoms.
At this time, German bierkellers have a short vogue in London, and this is where Moonie and Viv Stanshall go in their Nazi uniforms. They shout a few Sieg Heils and Donner und Blitzens, which do not go down too well with either the punters or the barmen. But what gets them turfed out effortlessly is when they rant on about Englisch Schweinhunds.
However, they are still not satisfied with the effects of these uniforms and so they go right over the top and decide to visit Golders Green, which is an area of London well-known for having a great many front wheelers living there. Many of these Jewish persons are such as Hitler and loonies force to flee from Germany, Poland and elsewhere. It is not an area of rich people either, and there are many shopkeepers, bakers, delicatessens, that specialise in the Jewish way of life and they are horrified and appalled when two high-ranking Nazi officers appear in their shops and demand goods in heavy German accents. But they overstep the mark when they descend on a little bakery and scream for German bread. The proprietress, who is a Jewish lady of quite impressive density, especially around the hips and in the forearms, scurries from behind her counter and chases them up the street, screaming at them and inflicting considerable damage on them by boffing them with various heavy duty baker’s products.
This may seem to be a somewhat tasteless performance and you may feel that they deserve all the damage they get from the heavy duty bakeress. I agree, but add that Moonie is not motivated in any way by malice. I do not think that he considers even for a second that Jewish ladies will be deeply offended by his appearance in Nazi uniform. It is just another way of sending up the straights, and he is reckless as to the implications.
This is, in fact, one of the very few times that I ever see anyone delivering, or attempting to deliver, physical violence to Moonie’s person. He has an uncanny knack of avoiding retribution. A way about him which disarms virtually all of the victims of his pranks and japes.
In fact, I only recall one time that anyone really puts Moonie down and that person is Peter Townshend. What happens is this. Moonie is taking the piss out of Townshend and he won’t let up. At first, everyone laughs. But then, one by one, the people standing about—and there are a lot of them because we are about to go into a recording session—go quiet and only Moonie’s voice breaks the silence. He is really lacing into Townshend and is sneering at many of the things that Peter Townshend holds quite dear. Eventually, Townshend simply stands up and lands a massive swing right on Moonie’s button. Moonie does an immediate Cyril Lord, out flat on the deck and Townshend marches off to the studio as if nothing happens at all. Moonie clambers up and scurries after him and, to tell you the truth, I am expecting him to spin Townshend round and give him a good boffing. But no, far from it. What he does is sidle round Townshend and rather abjectly apologise.
‘Sometimes you just go too far, Keith,’ is all Townshend says and that is the end of it.
But apart from this, like I say, Moonie is never, never embarrassed. He really doesn’t give a rabbit’s fuok what anyone thinks about him.
When you’re like that, well then you’re really on your own. And I reckon that this is what Moonie knows and lives with.
No one can deny that Moonie has a soft spot for anyone who is really in the crap. Tramps. Bums. Oldies. Inadequates of one sort or another. I remember one time when we are driving back from a Rock Festival at Crystal Palace and we are in the AC 428. As we are zipping into town and about to cross the river, Moonie naturally starts to consider where we may partake of a few bevvies and enjoy a shindig. After all, Moonie is the compère at the Rock Festival, and these things are hard work, especially when they require a certain amount of laying around on the grass and sampling various stimulants, so what with one thing and another we are ready for a spot of alcohol. The next thing I know, Moonie turns to me and says:
‘Here, man, I know a good pub round here.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. At Waterloo. It’s where all the down-and-outs go.’
Terrific, I think.
Anyway, nothing will do for Moonie but we have to go there, although I try to persuade him to call into at least half a dozen healthier places en route. Not that I have anything against winos and such but, firstly, they make me think too much for comfort—I mean I could be like that one day—and, secondly, after a hard day at a Rock Festival what you need is somewhere to sit in comfort and get the head together. A nice middle-class gaff with a few stockbrokers sipping at their Martinis is about right for me. But, of course, Moonie is the guvnor and I am his man, so it’s off to Waterloo we go.
Just as we pull up to the pub, we see these four geezers sitting by the railway arches. And these are really bums. I mean, they are fucked. Meths bottles in brown paper bags. Red eyes. Plenty of filthy beard. Matted barnet. Stinking clothes. Man, these guys are really evil. Prototype winos. And I am feeling very uncomfortable indeed at the sight of them. But Keith looks out at them and the next thing I know they are shouting:
‘Hey Keith! How are you doing, Keith?’ and suchlike, although much of what they say is unintelligible to me and sounds more like a traveller in the desert dying of thirst. But Moonie really perks up:
‘Hallo, chaps,’ he says, ‘just the chaps I was looking for. Come on in for a few bevvies.’ So then the prototype bums all come and cluster round the car and what emerges is that they are all banned from this pub.
I brighten up at this, but then I feel somewhat sorry for the bum geezers, being as this pub is once one of the few places where they can buy a quart of cider when they have a few bob, which is not very often. So when Moonie says ‘Oh, fuck them. Come on, lads, I’ll sort it all out’ I go along with it and feel quite righteous about the whole thing.
So we all stroll into the pub and I suppose we do appear a right crew, what with Moonie in a £2,000 fur coat, me with long fair hair and immaculate denim gear and these four derelicts who look like something out of a TV documentary on the deprived. At this time of day there are quite a few suits scattered about, and some of these suits are with their wives or whatever, and they seem somewhat less than overjoyed to see us come into their little snuggery. In fact, I am beginning to feel as welcome as Attila the Hun, but Moonie doesn’t give a damn. He just marches straight up to the bar, hails the barman, who is also the landlord, and slaps a hundred green notes on the bartop.
Now the landlord is in a real quandary. I mean, here we are with four definite undesirables—but what makes them desirable is one hundred very desirable green notes which are obviously heading toward the till if the landlord plays his cards right. At one stage, I think that the disgust is going to win especially as our four mates are all sniggering and rolling around and are already making themselves quite offensive. But in the end, of course, the mazuma talks and even though the landlord stands there looking like someone repossesses his truss only a few seconds back, when Moonie orders treble brandies all round he springs to the optic like a good one. Mind you, I do not particularly care for the way he slaps the glasses down. There seems to me to be a touch of the petulant strop in the gesture.
We park ourselves at a table and start getting stuck into the brandies. The winos are all well chuffed and they’re chatting away to Moonie and he is chatting away back and everything in the garden is hunky dory. Of course, Moonie is often in this pub and frequently buys this crowd of sad cases drinks, so they think that the sun shines right out of his drumstool. Now what you must understand about this number is that there is no patronising going on. When Moonie is with these geezers he is absolutely natural and unselfconscious. It’s as if they are just another bunch of average guys meeting for a few ales and it seems to me that Moonie is genuinely interested in these geezers. I do not mean interested in the social worker’s way, with all that goodness leaking from every pore. No, once we move on, Moonie will forget these geezers until the next time we are passing near to the pub. But while he is actually talking to them, it appears to me that he is interested in them as people and that is why the conversation flows so freely, with me, to tell you the truth, feeling a bit of a spare prick at a wedding.
Now of course there may be very many other elements in this little episode—which, anyway, is not ended yet. It may be that Moonie is enjoying putting the wind up the straight suits and their little ladies but, by and large, the act seems quite straight to me and, I recall, Moonie frequently says to me that he is more likely to end up on the Embankment, which is where all the down-and-outs kip, than see his fortieth birthday live.
Half an hour isn’t past before we knock off the first lot of brandies and are well into the second. This injection of relatively pure liquor into the winos’ meths-riddled systems, is having a quite remarkable effect and, quite soon, the winos are blowing raspberries at the stockbroker suits and making remarks that are not entirely in keeping with the style the brewery wishes to project in their pub. But, because they are good solid middle-class Britishers, these stockbroker suits ignore the down-and-outs and make like they do not exist in the slightest. They just continue to gab about stocks and shares and bulls and bears and all this and that. So then Moonie leaps up and orders yet another handful of very large brandies, but the landlord is now looking like thunder and he says to Moonie:
‘After this drink, I want you lot out. Understand?’
Now this is a very grave mistake and I am sure that if he knows whom he addresses, the landlord will not speak in this manner at all.
But Moonie does not say anything, although the entire pub is now quiet and it is more like a bad scene from a Western than it is an English pub. However, I can see that Moonie’s eyes are suddenly very beady and that they are fixed upon the tray on which the landlord is placing the drinks as he draws them from the optic. And just when the round is sitting there, all neat and wonderful and ready to be downed our gullets, Moonie lifts the tray, catapults the full glasses against the wall behind the bar, which is very full indeed of bottles and glasses and suchlike, and then bongs the landlord over the head with the tray, which makes a very satisfactory metallic ‘DING!’ indeed.
Instant chaos.
The winos all stamp and cheer. The landlord commences to shout copper. The suits set up a considerable beef, too, with their ladies saying such things as ‘Disgraceful’ and ‘Disgusting’. One of the larger suits approaches Moonie and attempts to apprehend him but Moonie, though he is by no means a large man, threatens to commit grievous bodily harm upon the suit’s brain, if he has one, and emphasises his point by waving an ice bucket at him. So the suit backs off muttering.
Of course, I’m over to the bar like a shot, anticipating big trouble because you never can tell with Moonie. Sometimes he makes a very big issue out of things, and wishes to see it through come what may. Other times, he just lets things go. On this occasion there’s a few moments when we stand by the bar and everyone is frozen. Moonie has the ice bucket to hand and I am quite prepared to commence throwing a few knuckle sandwiches if necessary. The landlord is making vaguely threatening sounds about the police being called, but even he does not seem over-enthusiastic.
Then Moonie just says:
‘Bollocks. Let’s get out of here.’
Funnily enough, in all the confusion, the pile of one hundred notes is still up there on the bar, tucked up by the cash till. So, looking the landlord straight in the eye, I reach across and grab Moonie’s money. Then we gather up the entourage and leave the Hole in the Wall. As we leave, the derelicts have the time of their lives, hurling abuse at one and all and shaking their rather puny fists at the suits and the landlord. I do not suppose they often have the chance to make themselves felt in this way and especially not with a famous rock star on their side.
Once outside, the winos are all for slinging a few bricks and what have you through the window, but Moonie says to them:
‘No, fuck it, lads. Those bastards aren’t worth it.’ Then he gives them the rest of the cash that I rescue from the bar and we slide into the 428 and leave the area.
Well of course the next day I’m fully expecting to see in the papers as how four trambos are arrested trying to break into the Playboy Club waving bundles of fivers, but when I flick through the dailies there is nothing in them at all so I figure that the trambos must just spend the money on medical alcohol and I hope that they are not completely dead by now. On the other hand Moonie and me only run out of gas on the way back to Chertsey—and, of course, neither of us has got any dough on our whereabouts thanks to Moonie giving it all to the winos. So what we have to do is leave Moonie’s extremely expensive fur coat at the gas station as collateral. And even then the geezer there only lets us have a gallon.
Still, that’s how it is with Moonie. Money and him stick together only marginally longer than it takes an Arab to cycle through Golders Green. He gives it away, throws it away, loses it and, for all I know, wipes his arse with it if there’s nothing else handy. It is the same with all his possessions, in fact.
Now when he wants something, he has to have it immediately. Like on the spot. Even if it means borrowing the mazuma from whoever is unluckly enough to be within grabbing distance at the time. On the other hand, once he gets hold of whatever it is he wants to get hold of, he is only interested in it for a few days. He plays with it, then he forgets all about it. I do not mean by this that he is like a small child at Christmas, spoilt with too many toys—although obviously something like this does enter into it. No, what I mean is that he really does not need much to live on or with. Because this is a geezer who, if he is not out on the piss, or wreaking havoc here and there, spends most of his time at home in bed watching TV and listening to Jan & Dean on the stereo. And this is certainly not the high life as I understand it. I am sure he does not ever stop to think about it, but what I believe is that the experience of things is far more important to Moonie than the possession of things. True, this is very easy to say when you are talking of someone who has enough ackers to buy virtually anything and anyone in the world. Nevertheless I think it is the truth, and, in his own way, Moonie is an ascetic.
To show you what I mean, let me tell you about one time in Atlanta when Moonie buys a really gorgeous Rolex watch and has to pay at least 5,000 dollars for it. It has diamonds set all round the dial and all in all it does look a picture. What happens on the afternoon he buys it is that nothing will do but he wants to go ice skating, and the next thing we know it’s off down the ice rink, hire the skates and fall flat on our bums. At this stage, Moonie realises that on his wrist he has 5,000 dollars worth of wristwatch, so what does he do but find the nearest chick and give her the watch to hold for him and what does she do, of course, but take it on the toes with same watch. What is more, Moonie is quite aggrieved that this bint should disappear with his watch because all he does is to trust her. It never occurs to him to ask the receptionist to take care of it for him.
All right, you can say, that is just a flash rock star with more money than sense. But Moonie reports this loss to the local cops and they, all credit to them, find the chick and the watch after a couple of days. But Moonie asks them not to take any proceedings against the bird which, I suppose, does count for something.
More than that, I several times see Moonie giving things away when he does not know that anyone is witnessing the giving and from this I deduce that his giving under these circumstances is 100% genuine and is not done so that everyone will say what a truly wonderful person he is. After all, no one who wishes to be thought of as truly wonderful behaves in the manner of Keith Moon.
There is a time in London once when Moonie and Kim and me and my lady, Jill, all go out to the movies one night. It is a double horror bill at the Odeon in the King’s Road, Chelsea. We clock the first movie, which is all about bints who turn into lizards at the drop of a hat and who, quite honestly are better looking as lizards than they are as bints. Next, we’re half way through the second movie when I look round and realise that there is no sign of Moonie. I do not worry at this stage as I calculate that he goes to take a leak but, when after half an hour, there is still no sign of my employer, then I begin to feel concerned. Mind you, I still would not do too much about it but for the fact that Kim is starting to become somewhat agitated, so we all decide that we should abandon the movie and find Moonie.
Once we are out of the cinema, we split up after arranging to meet back outside the foyer. Each of us goes to a different pub because it is a pound to a pinch of shit that Keith is in a pub—assuming, that is, that he is not in the slammer. I am assigned in this plan to check the Six Bells, which is a pub with a bit of a disco attached to it and is quite famous in the fifties when traditional jazz is all the rage.
I stroll into the Bells and have a good look around, checking out all the punters as carefully as I can without appearing too nosey and, of course, I take a special interest in the birds present because, although Kim is with Moonie tonight, that is not a guarantee that he will not look elsewhere for a bit of pulling, especially if he has a few bevvies. But on this occasion I cannot see Moonie anywhere and I am about to call it a day when I see a very scruffy geezer indeed wearing three overcoats and sitting in a dark corner. And who is with this scruffy geezer but Keith Moon, just returning from the bar with a couple of drinks. Now this is a fairly surprising sight, what with the scruff’s boots being tied up with string, his cap being greasier than a Greek salad and his beard full up with last year’s Salvation Army Christmas dinner. So I decide not to make myself known as soon as I see them but to watch from a distance, and this is what happens.
Moonie and the scruff are chatting away about the government and politics, although what Moonie knows about politics you can write on a midget’s shirt button. As they’re talking the scruff starts to rummage around in his pockets, which takes a fair effort when you consider that he has three overcoats in which to rummage. After some time, his eyes take on that triumphant look and he eventually comes up with a filthy old sock which he holds up to his face. I think to myself bloody hell, he’s going to blow his nose in it but what it is is not a sock at all but one of those very old-fashioned rope lighter things, with a piece of rope passing through a gunmetal tube with a wick and a flint attached. What happens is that you twirl the flint-wheel, and with a bit of luck the rope eventually catches fire and you can light your cigarette with it—if, that is, you still have the energy to smoke the cigarette once you’ve got the rope on fire.
The scruff starts to twirl the flint wheel and a few feeble sparks fly here and there, none of them too near the rope which is meant to be ignited. I can see, and Moonie can see, that there is no way this lighter is going to light the scruff’s cigarette and the entire operation is somewhat pathetic to behold. After a decent interval of time, Moonie outs with his lighter, which is solid gold and Dunhill and must be worth at least a couple of hundred quid, and gives the old boy fire for his cigarette.
Well you can see that the old scruff is quite taken by Moonie’s Dunhill, so what does Moonie do? Only grabs the scruff’s mitt, presses the Dunhill into it and says:
‘Look, I don’t give a fuck whether you keep this or flog it. I don’t mind what you do with it.’ Then he reaches out and takes the old scruff’s rope-and-flint contraption and continues ‘Let me take your lighter. It is worth more to me because this is a memorable evening for me.’
I have to confess that I am somewhat ashamed to be earwigging on this conversation because this is one of those private moments that are nobody else’s business. So I sidle away and then go back to Moonie pretending that I only just enter the pub and am very pleased to find him. By the time I do this, the old scruff stuffs the Dunhill away as quickly as possible, hardly daring to believe his luck, and Moonie says not a word to me about the exchange. He just drinks up, says goodbye to the scruff and leaves the pub with me.
A similar happening to this, but not nearly so private, occurred when we once run into an American guy in Old Compton Street, Soho. This is in the very early days when the band’s managers have a small office in Curzon Street. Now there are no decent pubs near Curzon Street so what you have to do for a good bevvy is wander off toward Soho and this is something we find ourselves doing fairly regularly. This time we’re in a pub called the Admiral Duncan and in comes this American guy who is dressed entirely like a tramp. I say that he is dressed this way because despite the clothes, it does not seem to me that he is a tramp proper. For a start he is quite young—about 30—and he does not have that hopeless look about his face.
He comes up the bar where we’re standing, that’s me, Moonie and the geezer who is doing all Moonie’s chauffeuring at the timen and he orders up a drink. Moonie, hearing the guy’s strong American accent, asks him where he is from and, before we know what is happening, there is a conversation going on. This geezer explains to Moon:
‘No, I am not a tramp. I am a hobo.’ It seems that he spends many years travelling the world and whichever interesting place you can think of, this hobo is there one time or another—or at least says he is. You may gather by now that Moonie is quite a romantic at heart and he is genuinely impressed by all this talk of foreign parts and it is clear to me that he really takes a shine to this hobo.
I take quite a shine to him too, not least because he does pay for his round of drinks, even if he is paying for it with what seems to be like his last few quid in the world.
By the time chucking-out time comes, we are all having a great time and do not feel inclined to return to the office in Curzon Street, and Moonie wishes to visit the Playboy Club and to take this hobo geezer with him. Despite his protests, and it does seem that he does not wish to seem like a hanger-on, we all jump into the limo and drive up to Park Lane. At this stage I can hear you ask how we are going to get a bloke dressed up like a tramp into the Playboy Club because although the Playboy Club is by no means the most exclusive place in the world it does not encourage tramps among its members. But, of course, the only reason that the Playboy Club does not encourage tramps among its members is that tramps are not apt to have too much ready spending cash and if they do tramps will be most welcome to become Playboy Club members and, no doubt, the bunnies too will grow accustomed to the smell of trambo clothing—and even get to like it.
Yes, it is quite remarkable what the judicious application of relatively small sums of cash money can achieve and within no time at all we are well inside the Playboy Club, complete with American hobo. And once inside the disco, we proceed to give our friend an extremely fine meal which includes a great deal of champagne and not a little brandy to help it down. From what I recall, which is not entirely crystal clear, there is also a vast quantity of Turkish Delight involved and all this is served by very enthusiastic bunnies who flutter around and give the famous rock star much attention, despite his scruffy friend.
During the course of our conversation it turns out that our newly found mate plans to sleep out rough tonight on account of having nowhere to stay and no money to purchase sheets and blankets, let alone a bed. So Keith has a quiet word with the limo chauffeur, who glides off with hardly a cocked eyebrow in Moonie’s direction.
When the times come to split and our hobo is saying thanks very much and so on and so forth, but goodbye all the same, Moonie suddenly says:
‘No, no, dear boy. You’re coming with us. A few brandies, that’s what we all need.’ And nothing will do but we must follow Moonie down the street where the limo and the chauffeur are walting for us. We pile into the car and drive all of three hundred yards down the road before pulling up at the forecourt of the Inn on the Park, which may not be quite the most expensive hotel in London but will certainly do until the most expensive has a few free rooms. Whatever else, this is not a hotel in which you will expect to rub shoulders, or anything else much, with hobos such as our American mate.
It transpires that what comes off here is that Moonie only goes and sends the chauffeur to this hotel to book a room for the scruff—and not just any room at that, but the Wellington Suite, so called on account of this is the room in which the management would like the Duke of Wellington to kip if they can find him, which of course they cannot as he is dead several hundred years.
Now, just in case you’re wondering how easy it is to get a real Al genuine trambo into the Inn on the Park, especially remembering that we have some difficulty in same manoeuvre at the Playboy Club and require the distribution of several dirty notes around the place, let me tell you that I am truly amazed at the civility with which Moonie and the scruff are greeted by one and all at this rather ugly modern hotel. But then it only takes me a few moments to remember that Moonie and his mates stay many times at this Inn and, although they destroy the fixtures and much of the fabric each time they stay, what they do do well is to lubricate the palms of the flunkeys with great efficiency and always pay for whatever damage and mayhem they cause. Readies in the pocket have a most wonderfully soothing effect on all types of groveller and flunkey and Moonie only has to poke his hooter round the door in Reception to be surrounded by many uniformed geezers, mostly Irish and Spanish, making with the:
‘Tis yourself Mr Moon and very good to see you to be sure, to be sure. And that.’ and:
‘Mr Moon! Is very hood to see you ahain. I ope you are estay long?’ Then the manager himself appears and he adds:
‘Mr Moon, sir. What a pleasure. How is your good wife? Your mother? Dog? Parrot? Cat?’
The upshot of all this crawling is that a flunkey is summoned to take the American scruff up to his room, though the flunkey is marginally surprised that the hobo has no suitcases with him. We all follow and I have to tell you this, that I stay in some of the best hotels in the world in my time with The Who, but I do not stay in many accommodations that beat the Inn on the Park for sheer expensiveness. There is plenty of super luxury in the Wellington Suite, with no little period furniture and a giant four poster bed that even impresses Moonie, and I can see him eyeing it as if to say:
‘How can I get this bed out of here and down to my gaff in Chertsey?’
This bed is not much smaller than the USS America and at each corner there is a bloody great brass cannon, presumably to make the Duke of Wellington feel at home when and if he clocks in.
We put the hobo into this bed and that really is all there is to this particular episode in Moonie’s life—except that, about a week after these events, the office receives a letter from the hobo, and this is quite likely the only thank you letter Moonie ever receives in his thirty-odd years—though many people who should know much better owe him a fucking sight more than thank you letters. In the letter the hobo says that he writes to the Daily Express, which is a large and ailing British daily newspaper, but the Daily Express does not publish this letter or follow it up in any way, which may be because the newspaper is about dead on its feet or may be because no one at the Daily Express can believe that the story is true.
Which, of course, it is.