Brown ribbon, its shiny surface spinning, a neon crimson bead the size of an insect eye
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| dress from “Gilligan’s Island” and an aerial mobile featuring craft from “Independence
Day.” Love Hewitt returned in May to donate a large fish hook from a horror film she just filmed in Wilmington, and Billy Baldwin donated an starcraft model from his sci-fi thriller “Virus,” which began filming Jan. 30 by Universal Pictures with producer Gale Anne Hurd (“Aliens”). “An alien life form lives in the engine of this droid,” Baldwin said. The crew of a tugboat finds refuge on board a Soviet research vessel, the crew of which has been annihilated by an alien life form. The droid has about 60 moving parts and was created by Steve Johnson’s XFX Team. I sold a story on the press conference Baldwin attended to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal and had to cajole the editor into send me a $30 check. Even before it opened, Planet Hollywood allowed its wait personnel to practice during a charity event which helped raise more than $10,000 for the United Way of Horry County. The staff dressed up in 60s garb the opening weekend of “Austin Powers.” The restaurant boom continued in Myrtle Beach Sunday, May 4 as The Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi and John Goodman) and James Brown kicked off the grand opening of House of Blues at Barefoot Landing. Gov. David Beasley attended the Jan. 24 sneak preview of NASCAR Cafe, which attracted Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and others to the venue off U.S. 17 Bypass across from Broadway At The Beach, which already has a Hard Rock Cafe and an IMAX Theatre. In June 1997 Ripley’s Sea Aquarium at Broadway At The Beach was scheduled to open its $36 million attraction with sharks, moray eels, piranhas and exotic tropical animals with 74,000 square feet, a $1.5 million research facility for acclimation and 600,000 gallons of water. Why wouldn’t someone want to attend a Planet Hollywood party though? I rented a $90 tux for that fete. What a durned waste. It was hot as hell. People with the press were packed like sardines inside a fence, and there was no water, no sodas and no reprieve from this barnyard cattle drive. There was no water, no bathroom breaks and hot as hell. As it seemed the heat would make me succumb, through the barrier I caught a glimpse of a set of white tennis shoes treading on the crimson V.I.P. carpet as I snapped photos on my new job from a crowded fenced-in press pen and Bruce Willis sang onstage. I focused. Occupying the shoes was the Florence Morning News managing editor who had fired me. I have forgiven him, and I pray for him out of Southern Baptist guilt, even though I considered selling my Eagle Scout badge while unemployed. He did the right thing. ******************* Two mysterious helicopters dopplered over the horizon, circling the House of Blues North Myrtle Beach at Barefoot Landing May 4, 1997 with blue floodlights and a bullhorn crackling “ARMED AND DANGEROUS!” The newest and largest (57,000 square feet) House of Blues had a grand opening May 3 with Buddy Guy performing and a special premiere concert May 4 with The Blues Brothers, James Brown and special guests. Since then, the movie stars and bands have been drawing big crowds. Chuttering, backfiring choppers roared through blue smoke to the front gate and inside as James Belushi, on a BMW Beamer, Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman and HOB founder Isaac Tigrett thundered in with GOP Gov. David Beasley who wore leather garb, tanning bed sunglasses and a cigar, having scored a Harley recently from his wife as a present. Six-year-old Lucas Pisano of Martha’s Vineyard, dressed in sunshades and a black suit, played a harmonica Saturday night as people pitched bills into his hat. “His mother is Judy Belushi-Pisano,” said his nanny Kerri Quigley. “He’s the greatest. He’s Judy’s second husband’s son.” I wrote that Aykroyd told me that the fellow who chugged in on a three-wheeler with James Brown was a bad dude. Blues guitarist Koko Robetcho of New Orleans swigged at a Tabasco bottle between numbers in the 300-seat restaurant. “Yeah, I like that man,” Robetcho said in a Cajun twang. “It’s nice. This is our first time here. It’s a beautiful place. This is bigger than the one in Los Angeles.” Inside the 2,000-seat venue Buddy Guy’s guitarist almost upstaged his boss as Guy ripped through Jimi Hendrix’s “Strange Brew,” the Allmans’ “Southbound” and “Fever.” Goodman, Belushi and Aykroyd performed an abbreviated show out-of-costume as The Blues Brothers Saturday, singing “Sweet Home Chicago.” A cab driver said Goodman tipped him $10 for a $3 ride from Windy Hill to HOB. “He didn’t have nobody with him. He said he liked taking cabs because he doesn’t like drawing attention,” the cabby said. “He’s a nice guy. He’s down-to-earth.” The Blues Brothers Show Sunday featured several songs off the movie soundtrack with Steve Cropper, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Donald “Duck” Dunn, “Blue” Lou Marini and others. Eddie Floyd emerged from backstage to rouse with “Knock On Wood” and Cropper’s “6-3-4-5-7-8-9.” The crowd went berserk when actor/singer Travis Tritt joined the band on guitar. Impatient fans booed waiting on Brown, tugging at the quilt curtain and peeking up its skirt from 12:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. when the Godfather of Soul finally emerged, performing until about 2:30 a.m. “THE SOUUUULLL GENERAL!” crooned Brown’s announcer who later draped a s sparkling cape over Brown for the ersatz ending. Aykroyd was dancing on the bar upstairs with his wife, actress Donna Dixon. Brown’s soulful “It’s A Man’s World” was captivating; “Living In America” featured go-go girls wrapped in red, white and blue. Brown was presented a large, glowing birthday cake by Belushi, Goodman and Aykroyd in mid-show. With little sleep The Blues Brothers met celebrity golfers Monday morning at Glen Dornoch Golf Links near Calabash for The Blues Brothers Smokin’ Tees Celebrity Golf Classic in association with The International House of Blues Foundation, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Callaway Golf Inc. Pony-tailed Alice Cooper (6 handicap) was wearing leather - on his hands, nailing a sailing drive in the longest drive contest, won by Rudy Gatlin of The Gatlin Brothers Theatre in Myrtle Beach. “I’ve got a live album coming out next month,” said Cooper. “And a European tour and an Australian tour, so I’m still working.” There was a chunky Gil Gerard (“Buck Rogers”), a trim, svelte Peter Weller (“Robocop”), sexy Elke Sommer swinging and looking marvelous in yellow, Edwin Moses drilling his ball, Alan Thicke, Joey Pantoliano “Bound,” John Michael Montgomery, former Charlotte mayoral candidate and WAYS DJ Jay Thomas (“Ink”), Fred “The Hammer” Williamson yelling “HAMMERTIME!” before slicing; and Jim Colbert, the Senior PGA tour’s top money winner giving a one-hour clinic. Colbert bitched at me once at the Senior Tour at The Dunes for interrupting his practice session. The night before opening night I approached Robocop in the courtyard of House of Blues and asked for a photograph. A woman took my camera and began to shoot. I produced my handy trusty microcassette tape recorder and asked, “What is your next movie about?” Weller put his drink down at his hips, and his eyes got really squinty, like he was out of his Robocop outfit. “Don’t do that,” he said gruffly. I holstered the recorder. The charity event benefits the John Belushi Scholarship Fund, the T.J. Martell Foundation, the Tiger Woods Foundation and the International House of Blues Foundation. I had interviewed Tommy Chong at radio station WKZQ a few weeks before, and I asked him what he thought about Cheech and golf. At the House of Blues Smokin’ Tees tournament I told Richard “Cheech” Marin (“Nash Bridges”) about Tommy’s recent comment about his hobby being a “sissy sport,” Marin responded, “What would he know?” The story I wrote on Chong had a sidebar. I called some cops and asked them what they thought about Chong’s upcoming club appearance, and it was a perfect balance. Chong just laughed the next week when he heard the tale. Father Guido Sarducci performed a “blessing of the balls” before the longest drive contest, saying he had called the Vatican. “Things kind of got screwed up. The Pope answered the phone, and he’s kind of hard of hearing. He said, ‘G,’ you’ve got to go to the Blue House and bless some balls. I found out it was the House of Blues and felt a whole lot better. Make sure and keep the correct score. Every time you lie, that’s about two cents, and believe it or not, that adds up after a while.” Some stars skulled balls; others connected, like Robert Loggia (“Independence Day”) and Edwin Moses. Aykroyd said he doesn’t play golf but was an excellent cart mechanic and “shaft advisor.” He talked about the Blues Brothers movie was to begin shooting in June but will not star Belushi because of a scheduling conflict. “Well, Elwood gets out of jail 18 years later,” said Aykroyd. “Then he’s on a quest to find his family and in the process gets the band back together and plays a battle of the bands down in New Orleans, a witch queen’s battle of the bands contest. We’re shooting it all in Canada, and we’re shooting Canada for Chicago, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana, so we’re not worried about that. You know, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was not shot in Oz, but shot on the sound stages of MGM, and “Casablanca’ was shot in Hollywood, so we feel we can pull it off up there. We have excellent location managers.” Belushi, having smoked more cigars than you’ve got fingers, had logged no shuteye by Monday morning (“a couple of hours.”) It took a while to interview him. “Do you mind? We’re having a conversation here,” he scolded me. “I’ll talk to you after we finish.” Okay man. Fifteen minutes later, he did a 180 and said, “Okay. Thanks for waiting.” “It was wild. Last night was wild,” Belushi said. “It was one of the most exciting openings we’ve had because it’s the largest house, and the audience was so responsive.” Belushi had several films in the works including one release coming in September. “It’s called ‘Criminal Intent,’ said Belushi. “It’s myself, Tupac Shakur, Dennis Quaid, James Earl Jones and Gary Cole. There’s a lot of people in this movie. I’ve got one on HBO coming out called ‘Retroactive’ in June. And I’ve got this ABC TV series called ‘Total Security.’” Belushi was proud of the John Belushi Scholarship Fund. “It’s been going on for about 10 years,” he said. “What we do is put some kids through school, the High School of Performing Arts in Chicago and a college in our hometown. The scholarship goes to kids who are not necessarily the brightest, but aren’t necessarily the poorest, the guys and the girls that the scholarship can give them some confidence and turn them around a little bit.” Goodman talked about the end of “Roseanne.” He was smoking a butt and in tennis shoes sans the socks. “I hated to see it go, but I guess it was about time,” Goodman said. “She accomplished a lot in nine years. I mean, it’s amazing it stayed on that long.” Goodman working with David Byrne on “True Stories” was fun. “It was great. David’s a very creative person,” he said. “He’s out there.” House of Blues founder and chief executive officer Isaac Burton Tigrett II, 48, was proud before the opening. The outsider art of S.C. artists, Howard Finster, Prophet Blackmon, Herbert Singleton, Jimmie Lee Sudduth, W.C. Rice, Missionary Mary Proctor, Ed Mumma, Sybil Gibson, Purvis Young, Archie Bryon, Sam McMillan, Willie White, Prophet Royal Robertson and others are featured at the venue. You couldn’t find any black employees at the venue. “It’s extraordinary,” Tigrett said of the art form. “I grew up in an African-American community, and this art is what I’ve been around my whole life. It’s fantastic. These are untrained artists, rural folks. They don’t have agents. They don’t have galleries. They just pick up whatever they can find and create.” Tigrett said he was living in England when he met Aykroyd through some friends. “We had a couple of conversations on the phone together, and then Belushi died. Dan asked if he could come over and hang. So he flew over to England the day after the funeral, and we stayed together for three or four months.” At 22 he started the first Hard Rock Cafe in London on Hyde Park Corner. Tigrett still owns a 1928 train carriage, Car 50, a family legacy which features carved teak panels from a Bangalore, India maharaja’s 400-year-old palace. It once belonged to Louisiana Gov. Huey “Kingfish” Long. “This is a bizarre phenomenon,” Tigrett said of Myrtle Beach. “I think the most unique statistic is that they say 90 percent of the people drive here, which is fantastic.” House of Blues locations included Cambridge, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Chicago and North Myrtle Beach with one which was set for Orlando that fall 1997. The House of Blues is the most recent of a slew of theme restaurants to open on the Grand Strand, which the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce says is the second most popular tourist destination, second only to Orlando. In only the last six months Myrtle Beach had grand openings of NASCAR Cafe, Official All-Star Cafe with Tiger Woods and Planet Hollywood’s grand opening plus the $35 million Ripley’s Sea Aquarium opening behind the Hard Rock Cafe at Broadway At The Beach, which features an IMAX Theatre and The Palace. On May 7 ZZ Top (“From Dusk Till Dawn” soundtrack) rocked from “Rhythmeen,” and I was on the front row taking shots at House of Blues; Keanu Reaves and Dogstar, who opened the Hard Rock, have performed here. On one Saturday night at House of Blues Bo Diddley strutted and even played drums. “Dum-ta-dumdum-dum-dum” - his classic guitar riff with “the Bo Diddley beat” has influenced American music. Sitting in a chair with a bad back, the bluesman played “Bo Diddley Is Crazy” and a string of his hits. Born Elias Bates Dec. 30, 1928 in McComb, Miss., the former boxer was raised by his mother Ethel’s first cousin Gussie McDaniel who took him to Chicago. He performed for JFK in 1962 at the White House. Harry Wayne Casey (K.C.) shook his bootie recently, talking about his estate in Chapel Hill and his appearance on “Oprah.” “It was pretty cool. I’ve been on so many television shows,” he said as a WBTW-TV 13 crew lost its live 6 p.m. feed and I snapped his photo. “We’re working on a new album. Hopefully it will be finished this year.” Whenever you do a story, always say in there that the Myrtle Beach Grand Strand area is second in the country in tourism, second only to Orlando, Fla. That’s the way to stay in cahoots with the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. Boy, there’s the infinitadi. The hospitality association, ugh. Don’t piss them off. I did a piece on how packed and crowded the House of Blues was on opening night, the same day the fire permit was approved. ******************* As the S.C. Press Association let us break for lunch in Columbia during a legislative workshop, I scooted with Peter from the Florence paper to a gathering at the Episcopal Church downtown where Peter Horry, the dude this county was named after, is buried. All these preachers got together for a photo op supporting the governor for coming out against the Confederate flag flying above the statehouse across the street. Everybody I’d meet I’d ask about the flag. I ask everybody about the flag. Before his trip to House of Blues June 17, 1997, I asked Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington about the flag and what it’s like playing the Southern national anthem and the unofficial state song. When Rossington plays “Freebird,” it’s still a good feeling. When I met him onstage at the sound check, he had beer on his breath at 4 p.m. The show was great. “Oh man, it’s great. We wrote that a long time ago, and we’ve been playing it for 25 or 30 years, I guess. It’s still thrilling and great. Everybody loves it. It was a song we put out at the right time. It hit so good. It’s really just a love song with a lot of guitars in it.” Rossington was pleased with “Freebird-The Movie,” which debuted on VH-1 the night Charlie Daniels was playing last year at The Palace. “It’s real sentimental to us,” said Rossington. Curtis Lowe from “The Ballad of Curtis Lowe,” was actually Shorty Medlocke, Rickey’s dad, he noted. “We used to go and watch him play his guitar. We’d get Coke bottles to collect them to get gas to drive over there. We’d eat dinner sometimes, and he’d play on the porch all night long for us. There’s a lot of Curtis Lowes in the world.” “Gimme Three Steps” was written about a night at W West Tavern in West Jacksonville, Fla. where Van Zant asked a girl to dance. “Me and Allen were still only 16,” said Gary. “We couldn’t get in or nothing. Some guy came up to him and said he’d give him a couple of second to leave. So he took it as three steps and took off. It was a true story really. It was funny.” The band hits bass ponds near gigs these days, he said, to relax, and others play golf. Manager Paul Abraham gets into NASCAR racing, he said. Rossington still listens to the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. At Jacksonville, Florida’s Robert E. Lee High School - “I didn’t go too long till Leonard Skinner got ahold of me.” The band was first “My Backyard.” Van Zant and Rossington attended Robert E. Lee High, immortalizing Leonard Skinner, a gym teacher who hated long hair. “It was fun. I kind of miss going to the reunions,” he said. With the Confederate flag issue in South Carolina, Rossington explained the band and its relationship to the flag. “That’s just a sign we used back when we were labeled Southern rock’n’roll, you know. We started that with the Rebel flag because we were from the South. We didn’t mean nothing racial or no disrespect to anybody. I still look at it, as not a racial thing. It’s not for black people or nothing, it’s just that we’re from the South. We were a Southern band, and we were proud of it. It was just Southern pride, really. We just thought, let’s put up the Rebel flag and show ‘em we’re from the South.” October 20, 1977 - sputtering, a private plane engine freezes over a swamp near Gillsburg, Miss. en route to a Louisiana University gig as the last drops of fuel burn, and singer Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Gaines’ sister Cassie Gaines were killed with several crew members. I had seen them in Charlotte and Greensboro shortly before the crash. Freebird Foundation Inc. was founded in 1990 to honor the late Ronnie Van Zant, the foundation raised money to build the Ronnie Van Zant Memorial Park near Lake Asbury, Fla., the Ronnie Van Zant Teen Center and for scholarships, I found out. Lynyrd Skynyrd now included Leon Wilkeson, Billy Powell, Johnny Van Zant, Owen Hale, Hughie Thomasson, Rickey Medlocke, Carol Chase, Dale Krantz-Rossington and Gary Rossington. The band’s new album “Twenty” featured a duet between the Van Zant brothers on “Travelin’ Man,” and when Ronnie’s voice came from the speakers at the sound check, it gave me goose pimples. Also performing with Lynyrd Skynyrd was Paul Rodgers, formerly of Free and Bad Company, and I hated to split, but my friends from Laurinburg were excited about going backstage to meet Skynyrd, and I couldn’t let them down. During the interview with Gary Rossington, I taped it, and immediately afterward I called my friend at Rockwell in Maxton, N.C. to play the message. “Hey man, David. It’s nice to talk to you. This is Gary.” Imagine working in a factory and a phone call comes in, and it’s the lead guitar player from the greatest band the South has ever produced. My camping buddy was working first shift at Rockwell where they make truck transmission parts or something. The campfire’s crackling embers fade now; everyone’s passed out in their tents, and he gives me some good advice: “Bullard, you better leave that frigging whorehouse alone or somebody’s going to kill you.” ********************* TO: MARK@fellowjournalist sounds like you like having your cat back...big time.....nice company....you need to think about what you’re going to do when you have to put your cat to sleep, and i suggest you get another one, immediately afterward.....i’d like to have a cat.... diane’s cousin had a black one that was 18 that had to be put to sleep this week and it cost me 2 bucks for diane to buy a card to send to that blooming cat which used to pee and crap all over the old landlord’s house, causing me inexplicable desperation in wondering if we would be charged when moving out.... To: Bulltim@aol.com oh, they didn’t! they dropped her like Khomeni? we were joking about that in the newsroom yesterday! they literally dropped her? no. say, no. my joke for the day: woke up at 4 a.m. by the cat drinking from my BIG cup of a.m. bed stand water. told her to stop and rolled over. she knocked it over into the bed. had to sleep on 4 inches of bed width. laundry day. it’s a wonderful life. m- To Alex: (now running Free Times, an alternative in Columbia. He did a bust-ass piece beside my whorehouse story in POINT on a Spartanburg prostitution ring and about the cops there.) From: Tim, myrtle beach herald, have a web page, nothing but links. been there 2 years, got married 2 years ago. not a narc. unreformed unemployed hack, fixing to finish a book on that story, however, in hopes that it will 1. bring me satisfaction that my work has been recognized and 2$. it was rough being unemployed. my jaw hit the floor when i heard it had been busted though...last time i saw you was at palmetto project fiasco when you were with becci. she needs a hamburger. i suppose you are correct in calling me a narc. brett said, “raise hell.” i most certainly did. they shipped my old boss to ga., dalton paper...i am still very mad. getting it out of my system by writing however. i will narc to my heart’s delight when somebody calls my answering machine and says with a slow, southern drawl, a male voice, “you’re dead. you hear me? you’re a dead man.” forgetting to leave you name on a message like this is a cursory mistake in p.c. social manners, according to leticia baldridge. the web page of the new paper looked great. hope it’s going good. we have a transvestite running for city council in myrtle. isn’t that lovely? as a democrat, of course. horry county politics is horrendously vicious. DUCK! roads issue is turning humans into sycophants. asphalt cowboys are shooting the cattle. gamecocks just lost. oh my, to ga. will send you stuff. later. tim
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