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The title song , TRUE STORY, is explicitly that. It combines a long ago visit to California as well as my life as a committed, bell-bottomed hippie.

The first was a trip I made after graduation ‘cross country with two classmates from Yale. Bought weed in the Haight (duh) and when we hit Disneyland (before it got cartoon corporate), I hid in the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse and smoked it up. Cops wandered below, oblivious. Fought off paranoia, and had a laugh. Something about ‘illegal’ made all highs higher.

Two years later, visiting a friend in Santa Barbara, I dropped acid with his brother at the end of an endless dock that reached out into the widescreen Pacific. Curled around the pilings were bouncy Portuguese Men O’ War, reflecting afternoon sunlight in bubbly rainbow colors. I ‘heard’ them trash-talking me in ‘jelly speak’. Seriously. Next day I was arrested for shop lifting. I dressed up in a three piece suit (absurd camouflage) and spent the night in the slammer. I called my Dad. He went ballistic. His ‘homo son’ in prison?! But he quieted down and flew my friend Harlow out to rescue me. We drove back to Philly in my Chevy panel truck non-stop high on meth. (Written up in my first book, THE PARAGRAPHS - ‘Speed Bump’.)

I did spend many ‘homeless’ years hitch-hiking all over the place. It was safe back then, in the 60’s, at least for dudes. You found friends, floors to crash, and got drugs ‘laid on ya’. A nomad’s life. Loved every second.

About the Doors:

The first time I ever got noticeably high from pot was listening to ‘Light My Fire’ over and over again. Their music and that song in particular was weed to my enhanced brain. I built a light box, put on their records, lay on the floor and drifted into orbit. My adopted and drug-soaked lifestyle during those glorious, soon dismantled, years of flower power and the love generation sadly devolved into what is now blamed as Boomer Blowout.

No regrets.

About the other songs. Never a fan of ‘this is a song about…’ even though I’m guilty of saying that shit at shows, and going off on a non-sequitur tangent. Maybe if I do it here, I won’t have to do it there:

lyrics

TRUE STORY

well i gotta figure out
just what it’s gonna take
w the fire in my belly
on a w coast trip
takin’ acid by the ocean
w a kid
from santa barbara

oh oh oh

well i’d tell ya if i could
but i can’t be sure
that the jelly fish
were laughin’
at me
and i’d bet a million dollars
they was talkin’ trash
in french
s’il vous plait

oh oh oh

i believe
in flower power
man i love
the doors

well i stole a pack of gum
in super market
in a three piece suit
try to look real straight
but they busted me hard
n i landed
in jail
my dad was pissed

oh oh oh

i still got high
on a bus t disneyland
smoked it up in tree house
hidin’ from the pigs
bell bottom jeans
a dirty badge of honor
a hitchhiking kid
on a fast train
t nowhere
oh man
i loved it so
true story, dude
i’m telling’ ya

well i gotta figure out
just what it’s gonna take
w the fire in my belly
on a w coast trip
well i gotta figure out
just what it’s gonna take
w the fire in my belly
on a w coast trip
takin’ acid by the ocean
w a kid
from santa barbara

credits

from TRUE STORY, released April 19, 2023
Drawing of Holden Caulfield by Grace York

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Rick Berlin (now playing w/ THE NICKEL & DIME BAND) image

Rick Berlin (now playing w/ THE NICKEL & DIME BAND) Jamaica Plain

A giant on the Boston music scene. His colorful songwriting + strong stage presence have influenced countless other artists since the early 1970s. He continues to make music w/ intelligence + integrity, building an international reputation around his knotty, singular piano playing, straight-from-the-heart singing and a style of character-based songwriting that's drawn comparisons to Waits + Cohen ... more

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