The Naked, the Dead & the Sued

Contents

1 – An Extreme Elvis is a Naked Elvis

2 – George Harrison’s San Diego House Hunt

3 – Judge Judy VS the Belly Up Tavern

4 – Backstage Rider of the Week: Amy Grant Appears 10-22 in Escondido – let’s peek at her contract requirements…

5 – Backstage Rider Collection: Deep Inside 50 Star Dressing Rooms

6 – Backstage Rider on the Storm: He Removes the Brown M&Ms

7 – Backstage Raider: He Mooches Meals from Rock Stars

8 – GigSanDiego.com – New Local Musician Resource, courtesy Ike Turner drummer Bill Ray

9 – Judas Priest’s “Nostradamus” – my prediction….

EXTREME ELVIS = NAKED ELVIS

Extreme Elvis doesn’t play San Diego much any more. “I’m banned from all the clubs in town. They booted me off the stage at one place [Brick By Brick] after about five minutes. As soon as they saw my d-ck, in fact.”

Extreme Elvis tends to perform in the nude. Not a pretty sight, judging from the press photos showing the nearly 300 pound EE onstage wearing a pompadour and wraparound shades, his spangled jumpsuit around his knees, holding a mike with one hand and using his other hand to fondle a somewhat underwhelming endowment - as he urinates into the audience.

Other than San Francisco (“There’s still a few places there willing to take a chance on me”), EE has trouble getting gigs in most cities. “LA is crazy. The first time we played there, a fan came right up to the edge of the stage and opened his mouth to receive my piss. He then filled up his cheeks and sprayed my golden nectar like a fine mist all over the band. My keyboard player quit a couple weeks later.”

“The third time I played LA, it was opening for the Butthole Surfers at the Viper Room. The club faxed me this contract the day before the show that had all sorts of lame rules, including no piss of course and no male nudity…so I signed the contract and then played the show. Last song of the night, I pissed all over the contract and they 86d me. They tried to arrest me, but the cops let me off with a warning.”

Extreme Elvis sometimes supplements his meager performance income by interviewing bands for indie zines like Burn My Eye. After chatting with members of the Locust, EE offered a harsh summation of the San Diego angst rockers. “I had never heard of them before. Controversial? Why? They seemed pretty hung up on their images. Like anorexic teenage girls or aging Hollywood divas. Here they were doing the all-ages show circuit, touring with riot grrls, Bratmobile and selling tons of stylish merch. Where's the controversy? They struck me as a bunch of guys who would all end up settling down, buying homes and starting Radiohead tribute bands in five or ten years. F-ck those guys!”

THE CELEBRITY HOUSE HUNTER

“I am the Breadman, he is the Walrus, goo goo ka joob…”

Real estate broker Jeff Paiste has squired several famous musicians around San Diego in their search for decent digs to lease or rent, including Bread frontman David Gates and the late George Harrison.

“Gates is a real regular country kind of guy,” says Paiste, who once showed a north county house to the ‘70s crooner. Bread scored over a dozen top 40 hits, including “If,” “Diary,” “Everything I Own” and “Baby I’m-A Want You.” Gates still tours with a band he sometimes bills as “Bread,” and it was a local gig that inspired him to take up residence in San Diego.

“He was at 4th & B [July 12 1997] and I met him backstage. I was just there to see the show and I waited around to meet him after the show, to get him to sign one of my Bread albums. I told him I sell real estate in the area and he said ‘Cool, I was just saying that this would be a great place to own a house,’ so I gave him my business card.” He says the singer came to town to check out homes several times, eventually settling on a 7-room two story house.

Paiste also once drove the late George Harrison around San Diego, in search of another Blue Jay Way for the former Beatle to rest between Golden Slumbers.

“He was actually staying on a yacht, moored in the harbor, I think it was Eric Clapton’s [ship]. He used to come here once in awhile to meditate at Swami’s in Encinitas [aka the Self Realization Fellowship Center, a Hare Krishna concern near Swami’s Beach] and he was thinking about actually buying a house here. He said Swami’s is his favorite place to meditate outside his [UK] home and in India.”

Paiste met with Harrison at the center on K Street in 2001, before driving the former mop-top around site-seeing for houses. “He walked me through this incredible tropical garden, with koi ponds and a view of the ocean where you can look down and actually see dolphins swimming. There were a bunch of people in robes, with the ponytail on their heads, sitting on benches with their eyes closed. They looked dead but they were only meditating.”

“Inside the place, I saw another guy sitting really really still, and I said to George ‘Man, that must take practice, to sit so motionless.’ He told me ‘That’s a wax dummy, he’s not alive.’”

Harrison thought so highly of the Encinitas center that he sometimes lived on the grounds while visiting North County sitar mentor Ravi Shankar and he also donated a portion of proceeds from the 2002 re-release of his song “My Sweet Lord” to the organization. “He wanted a house within a few miles of Swami’s, but there was nothing available. We looked a few places in La Jolla but he didn’t like anything.”

Asked if he found Harrison to be the “regular guy” David Gates was, Paiste says “Well, not really. He didn’t say much, except to bitch about this or that, about traffic, about the houses, about the side of the road.”

The side of the road?

“Yeah, he couldn’t believe all the trash people throw out of their cars. We were on the highway and saw a couch on the curb, then a chair and then some busted up furniture. George looked really disgusted and said ‘You should drive the homeless around and pick this stuff up, furnish an apartment for them.’”

JUDGE JUDY VS THE BELLY UP TAVERN

So I was watching an afternoon repeat of Judge Judy (I like it when she yells at dumbasses), and lo and behold the episode involved the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. It was the case of “Beauty and the Bouncers” ----

“Erin Ackerman says nightclub owner David Hodges owes for an assault committed by bouncers at his club,” said the narrator. “David says Erin was drunk and belligerent.” (Ever notice how the case intros use first names? I suspect that’s because so many family members with the same last name sue each other….)

The Belly Up’s owner at the time, David Hodges, was defending himself against a suit brought by a female patron who claimed bouncers forcibly removed her from the bar with no cause, pulling down her halter top and exposing her breasts in the process.

Ackerman, a 30-ish blonde wearing a woman’s business suit with her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, admitted sharing a bottle of wine over dinner with friends before going to the club, but denied being intoxicated or drinking at the Belly Up.

“It was actually so crowded, I couldn’t find my way to the bar, let alone order a drink.” She said she decided the bar was “way too overwhelmingly crowded for me…I was headed toward the exit when two to three men approached me from behind…they wrestled me to the ground, and picked me up by my ankles and my wrists and carried me out the front door. During the struggle, unfortunately my tube top had slid down around my waist…my whole upper body was exposed.”

Ackerman claimed to have “minor scrapes and bruises all over my body,” but could produce no photos of her injuries. She filed a report with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department “not even two days later.”

“Was it at the suggestion of your lawyer that you called and made this sheriff’s report?” asked the adjudicating Judy.

“I do not recall…”

“Sure you do,” interrupted Judge Judy. Ackerman admitted that she later saw a chiropractor about possible injury to her back. “The chiropractor you went to…was recommended by your attorney,” the judge stated rather than asked.

When the woman acknowledged this, Judge Judy turned to her bailiff and commented “It’s almost like I have a crystal ball.”

Tavern owner Hodges was accompanied by a club employee and an “independent witness” named Joe Taylor, a patron on the night in question who claimed no personal acquaintance with Hodges. Taylor said he heard “a ruckus,” saw a bouncer telling the plaintiff “You can’t go around shoving people” and the plaintiff “basically turned to him and told him to go [expletive deleted] himself…he put his hand on her arm and said ‘you have to leave the premises’…and she started to swing.”

Taylor testified that two more bouncers intervened and “she was fighting so hard she slipped and she went down onto the ground on her back. She was kicking and trying to punch, scratching, and that’s when she was exposed on her top.” He said Ackerman was picked up and carried to the front door.

Judge Sheindlin noted that Ackerman’s own police report acknowledged that she was “buzzed” at the time. The plaintiff denied that the security guard spoke to her or asked her to leave and said “I did not swear within the club.”

Hodges then produced a witness to testify about Ackerman’s alleged intoxication, while Ackerman’s witness said that bouncers grabbed her from behind without stating who they were or why she was being ejected.

Judge Sheindlin next read aloud from a police report filed by a deputy police officer who spoke with the plaintiff outside the bar shortly after the alleged assault. The deputy stated “Ackerman was very drunk, she smelled strongly of alcoholic beverages, her movements were slow and uncoordinated and her speech was slurred.” The report also said that police considered arresting her that evening for being drunk in public.

“Miss Ackerman, you don’t have a case,” announced the Judge. “You can’t hold your alcohol, you shouldn’t drink alcohol…you behaved badly and that’s what happened, you got thrown out. Live with it. Goodbye.”

Ackerman’s lawsuit against David Hodges and the Belly Up Tavern was dismissed.

“I just wasn’t comfortable that they got away with manhandling me the way they did so I tried to make a point out of it,” Ackerman said in the walkout interview. “I wasn’t at fault, whether I was drunk or not…I should have been treated a little differently.”

Hodges had his own take. “I think people forget what they did under the influence of alcohol.”

(NOTE: A look through court records indicates the disposition of this case took place in 2003)

RELATED BLOG LINKS: "Lawsuits - Lawyers, Songs, and Money" -- 3-part series detailing Southern CA lawsuits involving venues, performers, patrons, etc. Includes separate feature covering rock stars who've been arrested in San Diego thru the years. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/mar/28/more-local-music-lawsuits-plus-celebs-busted-in-sd/

Concert Security Wars: Battle of the Bouncers -- San Diego security firms fight (AND SUE) for their right to bounce you! http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/apr/24/concert-security-wars-battle-of-the-bouncers/

BACKSTAGE THIS WEEK: AMY GRANT

10-22: ESCONDIDO CENTER FOR THE ARTS

When Amy Grant appears at Escondido’s Center for the Arts on Wednesday, October 22, “Authorized guests shall be held in the front of the house until they can be escorted to a designated area, to be agreed upon on the day of the show.”

Grant’s dressing room requirements include a fresh fruit tray, two bottles of Mountain Valley spring water (“please do not ice”), a selection of sodas (Coca-Cola, Sprite, Diet Pepsi), four large china mugs, and a bouquet of fresh cut flowers.

According to a cancellation clause, “Artist reserves the right to cancel this engagement prior to the playdate, for scheduling of major television broadcasts, major motion picture filming, a live theatrical production, a video production, and a[nother] major concert tour, foreign or domestic.”

At this writing, ticketsnow.com is selling seats in orchestra row P for $364.00 each.

"Backstage Rider Collection" - Deep inside 50 star dressing rooms! http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/aug/25/backstage-contract-collection-ii-rock-star-diploma/

"Backstage Rider on the Storm: He Removes the Brown M&Ms" Or "Ray Charles Demands a Chicken Fried Steak," an interview with the Backstage Rider who fulfills celeb contracts at Humphrey's, the Catamaran, and other San Diego music venues. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/aug/25/backstage-contract-collection-ii-rock-star-diploma/

"Backstage Raider: He Mooches Meals from Rock Stars" - How one local practically lived off backstage buffets! http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/aug/25/backstage-contract-collection-ii-rock-star-diploma/

 "Loading In at Local Venues - the Inside Scoop" - Local musicians web resource, courtesy of Ike Turner drummer Bill Ray. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/aug/25/backstage-contract-collection-ii-rock-star-diploma/

"Judas Priest: Nostradamus" - Remember when kids crashed the gates at SDSU, just to see Priest? A lot's changed since then - my predictions... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/aug/25/backstage-contract-collection-ii-rock-star-diploma/

Like this blog? Here are some related links:

OVERHEARD IN SAN DIEGO - Several years' worth of this comic strip, which debuted in the Reader in 1996: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/overheard-san-diego/

FAMOUS FORMER NEIGHBORS - Over 100 comic strips online, with mini-bios of famous San Diegans: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/famous-former-neighbors/

SAN DIEGO READER MUSIC MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/sandiegoreadermusic

JAY ALLEN SANFORD MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/jayallensanford