Tales Of A RATT Read Online Free

Tales Of A RATT
Book: Tales Of A RATT Read Online Free
Author: Bobby Blotzer
Pages:
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found a house in Torrance. That lasted about 45 minutes, because by 1972, we were back in Jersey. In 1973, it was California again; then to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in late 1973; and finally, we were back in the Torrance area by 1974.
    In seven short years, I had lived in eight different places...and it was getting pretty damned annoying.
    Due to my lack of any real structured education, because of the constant relocation and moving around, I was always able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, even from a very young age. We were just always uprooting. Even when I got kicked out of school, they never pushed me or made me go back. That was always very weird to me. Especially now, as a dad, I can look and know I would never allow that of my children.
    I guess, for me, things started getting really weird in 1971. I was eleven, and Pete was moving us to California. A whole continent away from home. My whole life was on the east coast. Everything I knew. My memories of my father were there, although the curse of a young mind was taking hold, and his details were fading. Ronnie wasn't coming.
    Despite his cruelty and general prickishness, Ronnie was the older brother. There's stability in that for younger siblings. Carol and I unknowingly depended on him.
    It didn't matter. I didn't know much about California, except that the hippies loved the place. It was supposed to be this happy Mecca of love and bright colors and experimental drugs. Of course, it wasn't that way at all. Maybe it had been a couple of years earlier, but most of the people there didn't know fuck-all about love and peace. Their whole world was getting dumped on its ass.
    The drugs and red wine had worn off and the Woodstock generation had gone their own ways, stopping long enough to cash their reality check.
    Pete dropped us down in a world that didn't know itself. The Charles Manson "Trial of the Century" was going on, and Los Angeles wasn't the happy, shiny place that an outgoing eleven year old was hoping for.
    Even musically, everything was fucked, and nothing fit. The Beatles had split up the year before, leaving a HUGE, cavernous void. There were some flashes of hope, most of which were going to pay off before long. But in 1971, Aerosmith, Kiss, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, were just starting. And Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison were dead.
    Despite all of this down vibe in LA, I still adapted pretty quickly.
    I've always been a self-reliant kid. No one needed to hold my hand and show me the way, because I was going to find it one way or the other. Plus, I've always made fast friends. When you're in your pre-teens, and you're already posting a history of being the perineal new guy in town, these are really great tools to have.
    Adapting to LA wasn't hard. At least for me. We spent the first two months living in a hotel. The Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach was right on the water. A great place to just hang out and watch the water slap at the ends of the western world. It made for a mellow transition process for me. East coast steel town steeped in history to west coast Xanadu steeped in self-indulgence.
    And, that was that. I had found home.
    In short order, I had my first LA drug experience.
    When we moved to California, I was twelve years old and I took my first hit of acid. Carol was hanging out with some of her friends, and I was along for fun. There were a few young guys there. I was twelve, so they must have been fifteen or sixteen, which seemed really old. They were a bunch of biker wanna-be's, with the boots and chains, and the teen-angst "I hate my parents" thing going on.
    They gave me a hit of Blue Micro-Dot. Acid. Some of you who flew through the Seventies may remember this little joy ride.
    We were hanging out at the school. It was New Year's Day, so it was closed, and there wasn't another place we could go where we could drink beer and not get caught. When I took the tab, it hit me like a freight train! I remember being really fucked up and
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