On the Toys?...Really?

I had a thought just now and I figured I would write about it…that’s pretty much how I do this blog. I am sitting here on the couch watching my wife and son play Monopoly (he is winning…3 railroads, utility companies and houses a plenty!)…he’s a pretty sharp little dude for a five year old…anyway, here’s my thought …and I want you to post your answer also in the comments section…If you could go back in life and change one event from your past…what would it be? And I don’t mean the day somebody died or anything like that…I mean one thing you had some control over and made the wrong decision.


For me, there are two mistakes I have made that I would definitely change…I guess I should be careful saying that, because the changes would probably mean that my son wouldn’t have been born…but I’m going to assume he still would have been and continue on with two quick stories.

Change #1…When I was about 18 years old, I was making rap music in Detroit…surprisingly, we were getting pretty popular thanks to the help of another local group called “Insane Clown Posse”. ..they would have us doing shows with them every couple of months and they were pretty big shows…at least 1500-2500 people per venue…So one week they asked us to play a few shows…the first one in Detroit, then Grand Rapids, followed by Flint and possibly Cleveland…So we (my 2 partners and I) were fired up…We start off with the Detroit show and the next day hop into my 1985 Mercury Cougar and head out to Grand Rapids…the shows are fantastic…the crowds are great and we were having fun…The next night we drive to Flint in a couple of cars (about 10 of us drove up there)…So we do the show and I decide to leave early and drive home…physically beat from a pretty long weekend…The offer was left open from Insane Clown Posse to travel to Cleveland the next night and do the fourth show, but said if we didn’t want to it was “no big deal”…To this day I don’t know why I decided not to go to Cleveland (I didn’t think my car would make it and I wanted to hang out with Tina for the day)…To make a long story short…another group called House of Krazees did go to Cleveland and ended up getting a record deal out of it…When the door opens…walk through it!

Change #2…New Year’s Eve 1999…about 8 of us decide to go to The Palace of Auburn Hills for a J. Geils concert…we had a suite, plenty of drinks and figured if the power was going out for Y2K (what a joke) at least the drums would still be able to play! So I walk out of the suite to get some food from the concourse and who do I see? The Insane Clown Posse!…So I walk up to them and say “What up Joe and Joey?”…thankfully they recognize me and ask me what I’ve been up to and if I’m still writing music…Now, at this time I was half-assing the music thing, but I told them “Hell yeah I’m still writing music…real good music!” (you have to sell yourself right?)...So Joe tells me he’d love to hear it and gives me his cell number…he says “Get a demo together and drop it off to me at the studio next week”…So the first thing I did when I woke up on January 1st, 2000 was put together a demo for them…I dropped it off at their studio and he called me a few days later and says “Hey, we liked your shit…but we’d like to hear something recorded with our producer (the Detroit legend…Mike Clark)”…he also says that I can record a solo demo or one with both of my partners…I debated on that for a minute and decided that not only was the music better with all of us, but we all had the same dream and this was the chance that all of us had been waiting for…so I called them! They are both on board and we record two of the best songs we have ever written and submit our demo to them…Insane Clown Posse love it and tell us they want to sign us to a record deal!!! This was one of the greatest days of my life…and I’ve had a lot of great days, but imagine the feeling I got when I heard that I was going to be a professional musician…this was my passion and it was all I’d ever seen myself doing in life!

So here was the plan for this deal…We would be picked up by a limo and driven to their house for a screening of their new movie…after the movie, we would sit down and hammer out a preliminary record deal and then in the next month or so start recording an album (there was more to it than that, but this is the cliff notes)…My partner and I were to be picked up by the limo at Mike Clark’s house at 3ish…In the meantime, we went to, of all places the bowling alley (my partner was black and this was the first time I’d ever seen a black dude bowl and he beat me…I think because he was dating a polish girl at the time and it must have rubbed off on him)…we picked the bowling alley because they had beer and he wanted to celebrate a little (a lot) before hand…So we bowl and he drinks!...Enter the limo…

We have a fun ride out to Novi (about 35 minutes) and the drinks are still flowing…For the record, I had maybe one beer at the bowling alley and that was it…this was an important day for me and I wasn’t committed to celebrating until the deal was done! So we get to the house…there’s about 40 people or so there…all of the record company guys…the dudes from House of Krazees and some random friends and family of ICP…The drinks are still flowing and my partner is getting pretty drunk at this point…Where is our other partner you ask? Working…but he’s going to meet us there later (and he does)…So our other partner arrives and the premier of this movie is about to start…He and I find a cozy spot on the lower level of the house (it was a tri-level) to watch it and we lose track of our drunk partner…we figure he’s semi passed out somewhere and will sober up by the end of the movie…wrong!

About 20 minutes into the flick I get a tap on my shoulder…it’s Mike Clark…the producer…He tells me we have to get our partner out of the house immediately! I ask him why and he says “He’s too fu**ed up and is out on the porch with a bloody lip and ripped clothes”…I’m blown away, but not surprised after seeing all of the drinking…So my first thought is make sure he’s ok and get him out of there (after all…he’s my friend and I’m more concerned about him being ok than seeing the movie)…My worry though is why is he beat up?…When I get outside, I can tell that something bad had happened and I could see in the eyes of the record company guys that the deal is in big jeopardy…I ask Joe (whose house it was) “What happened?”…at this point I’m not sure I want to hear the answer and I was right…He says “I’m standing in my living room and your boy walks right past me, opens up a closet filled with my nephew’s toys and pisses all over the floor and the toys”…”WHAT?...IMPOSSIBLE” I thought…of all the things I expected to hear…this was not even a possibility nor a consideration…Needless to say we leave the house and our dreams of becoming rock stars are left in a puddle of piss in the closet of the Insane Clown Posse!

So what could I change about this? I did nothing wrong, right?...Wrong! I shouldn’t have let him drink one drop that day…I blame myself…However, I didn’t hold a grudge for too long…after all, my friendship was worth more to me than a record deal (it’s crazy to say that, but true) and I do have a good story to tell for the rest of my life.

Maybe one day I’ll get another shot…but, I’ll do it solo!

So what would you change? One moment in life that you could take back...



See Ya…KC