December 31, 2014

Oh Brother!

In the animal kingdom, sibling rivalry translates to the survival of the fittest. When a baby eagle hatches in a nest packed with several other eggs, he will push his siblings out of the nest as soon as they emerge from their shells. Amongst some members of the shark family, larger spawns will kill and eat their smaller siblings while everyone is still hanging out in their mother’s womb! Sibling rivalry amongst rock stars isn’t quite as predatory in nature. But their outbursts and tantrums sometimes do mirror the behavioral patterns of, say, two battering mountain rams. When push comes to shove, a number of siblings in bands have made it a point to shove each other to achieve either a stronger foothold in the musical hierarchy or to eliminate their primary competition altogether.

Strangely enough, the sibling rivalry seems to be visibly apparent in the male gender of the rock species. You probably can’t picture a moment where Ann and Nancy Wilson have come to blows over chord sequences on a Heart song. No doubt, you never spotted an instance where Carnie Wilson inflicted a brutal body slam on sis Wendy.   The majority of published instances concerning rock’s seething siblings tends to lie in un-brotherly love.

Manifestation of such unseemly intolerance may occur outwardly in a single performance. This happened to be the case when the harmonic hit duo, The Everly Brothers, imploded out of nowhere in a performance on July 14, 1973. Older sibling Don had been wrestling with a nasty drug addiction throughout much of the 1960s. While his younger brother, Phil, sometimes had to carry on through a show after Don stumbled off stage, the group usually attributed the latter’s behavior to exhaustion or food poisoning. Audiences didn’t seem to mind, so long as they heard the favorites “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” and “All I Have To Do Is Dream” sung by one of their beloved brothers.

By the time the ‘70s rolled in, the Everly Brothers needed more than just dreams to keep the act alive. Funds were dwindling, and their headlining days at large venues were becoming a thing of the past. When they played the John Wayne Theater at the Knotts Berry Farm theme park in Los Angeles that July afternoon, Don was tired of keeping up the façade. He and Phil had become extremely disenchanted with each other over the previous decade. The older sibling proceeded to get drunk and insult Phil onstage during the pair’s second performance that day. Phil finally lost his temper publicly and suddenly smashed his Gibson guitar in front of horrified, family-friendly set of tourists. He retreated to the wings, leaving his inebriated brother to face the silence in the house. Don paused for a moment, then proclaimed, “The Everly Brothers died ten years ago.” The venue’s entertainment manager, Bill Hollinghead, quickly appeared onstage to stop the show. Back in the dressing room, Phil vowed to anyone within earshot, “I will never get on a stage with that man again.”

For the next 10 years, the press reported that the brothers did not see each other, except for a brief moment at their father’s funeral. Time began to heal wounds, however, and on June 30, 1983, the Everlys announced their plans for a reunion concert. On September 23rd, the boys stood before the audience at the Royal Albert Hall in London and hugged. The crowd cheered and many eyes misted. The Everly Brothers went on to be inducted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, and have toured successfully, singing those distinctive harmonies ever since.

More recently, the Scottish post-punk darlings, The Jesus and Mary Chain, also saw a falling-out of sorts between the group’s two siblings, brothers Jim and William Reid. Unlike the Everlys, the Reid brothers hadn’t exactly veiled their public persona in a squeaky-clean veneer. As William told Drum Media, “We spent the entire time between 1984 and 1990 incredibly drunk on stage.” Jim would oftentimes stumble about each venue, leering with a sneer at the boisterous audience, drunkenly slurring the lyrics to songs he read from a handwritten piece of paper. The band’s punk claim-to-fame was cemented in a riot that followed an overbooked appearance at North London Polytechnic in March 1985, the outcome of which resulted in 7,000 pounds worth of damage. Jim subsequently beat a fan over the head with a mic stand in Toronto in 1987, incurring a court date and relinquishing 500 pounds to the judge’s favorite charity.

The two boys always had a simmering love/hate relationship with each other. Jim crystallized the tension when he kidded to Option Magazine, “Actually, I’ve already killed William.” The band had just finished a grueling period of recording their 1998 album, “Munki.” “He’s under the floorboards in my bedroom, stinking up the place,” Jim continued. “Me and William are always like that when we make a record. Brothers are supposed to love each other and hate each other at the same time, and we’re no different.”

So perhaps it was no surprise when the cult favorite quintet’s primary leaders aired their dirty sibling laundry before a crowd during a tour in support of “Munki.” On September 12, 1998, they performed at Los Angeles’ House of Blues club, or rather William and his backing bandmates tried to play that night. Brother Jim was completely out of his head. He couldn’t carry a tune nor could he maintain a rhythm with his tambourine. Jim shouted at drummer Nick Saunderson to play a different song. He smacked his mic stand into equipment and began punting amps off the stage. William tried to keep the gig going despite the fact that the audience was starting to throw ice and glasses at the band, chanting “drug addicts” at them. A roadie was able to snatch Jim’s mic stand away from him, effectively stopping his destruction and lousy singing. But by the third song, older brother William had had enough and stormed off the stage. A near riot was quelled with the promise of a full refund of audience members’ entrance fees.

William virtually disappeared. The group’s label, Sub-Pop Records, issued the statement that the band was “going to continue to tour as a four-piece without William. What happens next week, the following week, or three days from now is anyone’s guess.” William eventually surfaced in Seattle, but never joined the band back on the road for the rest of the tour. Jim was quick to try to smooth over the incident to MK Ultra. “Me and William have had problems. There’s been loads of s*** building up behind the scenes. Basically we weren’t getting along. I’m saying it got nasty in Los Angeles and we went on. I’ve actually enjoyed myself on this tour, and apart from that incident at the House of Blues in LA, I’ve had a good time. I do apologize to the fans for that fiasco.”

While examples of combustible sibling rivalry, such as that of the Jesus and Mary Chain, aren’t shielded from public display, there are instances in rock where the vindictiveness takes place behind the scenes. For Tom Fogerty, he felt that his younger brother John was too much of a control freak. It was the older brother in the Fogerty family who took leadership of an early band in 1960, when Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets sang around the San Francisco Bay area. Tom and John Fogerty would spend an equal amount of time fashioning the tunes which Tom, in turn, sang lead vocals on. When the group changed their name to the more British-sounding Golliwogs, Tom was still perceived as the leader of the band. But around 1965, young John began experimenting with singing, notably on the song “Hully Gully.” By 1967, when they fashioned the group name to Creedence Clearwater Revival, John took over the lead vocals, rendering his unique sound to their first hit, “Suzie Q.”

Full of confidence and blessed with brilliant songwriting talent, John then commandeered the group’s sound, churning out ‘swamp-rock’ hits like “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and “Down on the Corner.” John also became the band’s defacto manager. Meanwhile, Tom was becoming bitter about the spotlight being focused on his younger sibling. “Creedence was together for nine years before we made it big,” he erroneously told Rolling Stone magazine, “and sixty percent of that time, I was the lead singer.” John was just as defensive about his self-appointed leadership of the outfit. “I was always a team player,” he later observed. “I had created this entity, and I was doing what a CEO today would call marketing. I was trying to present the image of a group and that we were all this band of happy lads, much like The Beatles. And so years later, I was still trying to defer to their egos and not make it look any other way. But the truth is, I would write the song and then the producer in me would take over and write the arrangements, and I would show everybody exactly how it went.”

The group’s other two band members, bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford, tried to diplomatically stay out of the brothers’ feud. “There were certainly problems between the brothers,” Stu Cook later said. “Whatever disagreements John and Tom had put aside, sibling rivalry was coming to the surface again. Doug and I used to joke that we felt like we were in a Fogerty sandwich. Caught between two brothers. They were the two slices of bread and we were the baloney in the middle getting squeezed…John thinks that he is Creedence. He describes Creedence alternately as this cartoon character or this ugly misshapen brother kept in the closet. He actually said he taught us how to play. We were as good as he was at the time.”

The strife came to a head at the turn of the decade while the band recorded their album “Pendulum.” Longtime band friend, Jake Rohrer explained to author Hank Bordowitz that Tom “viewed himself as a rock star. I also think he had a hard time being in the shadow of his younger brother who had this enormous talent, and he didn’t. That started to come about in the late fall of 1970.” The songs John wrote for “Pendulum,” like “I Wish I Could Hideaway,” were a reflection of the dark moods he felt towards his situation with CCR and specifically towards his brother. The split was inevitable. “The whole Creedence thing that was presented to the public was that John was the lead singer and wrote all the songs,” Tom observed to Rolling Stone magazine. “That wasn’t the whole history of the group, that was only one period. When it got into the later part of 1970, I wanted to contribute more to the group in terms of writing and singing, maybe singing backgrounds and doing two or three leads. John, at that point, was real afraid of changing anything.”

Tom left the group shortly thereafter and embarked on a solo career. His albums never reached the dizzying heights of the legendary records he’d performed on with Creedence Clearwater Revival. CCR soon disbanded. John Fogerty continued on a path of greater success than his older brother with the number-one charting album “Centerfield” in 1985. Tom passed away on September 6, 1990 from ailments associated with tuberculosis. John couldn’t lighten up on the controlling end of things and spent much of the 1990s in lengthy litigation prohibiting Cook and Clifford from performing under the Creedence Clearwater Revival moniker.

The Fogerty story tended to mirror one that hounded the Bachman brothers as well over the course of three decades. Former member of the Guess Who, Randy Bachman, would subsequently wind up trying to block his brothers and other bandmates from using the name of his follow-up group, Bachman-Turner Overdrive. It began in the early 1970s, after having moved on to an outfit called Brave Belt since departing the Guess Who, Randy Bachman, along with his younger siblings Robbie and Tim, and bassist C.F. Turner fashioned the lineup into Bachman-Turner Overdrive, or BTO for short, by 1972. Another Bachman brother, Gary, was the manager of the group for a short period of time. When the band recorded its second album, they severed their ties with brother Tim. “He was asked to leave,” Robbie Bachman later told interviewer Stefan Bjornshog. “He was not a BTO-caliber performer.” Guitarist Blair Thornton took his place. The band would go on to score a number one hit in 1974 with “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”

After three more successful albums, Randy’s control of material became stale by the late 1970s. In 1978, the band went into sessions for their “Freeways” album. “I did not like the tunes that were chosen to be recorded,” brother Robbie told Bjornshog. “Randy took control – and see what happened to it? – nothing. We were not included as band members. We felt like sidemen.” Musician Turner would agree with this assessment, as he made a point to have his picture taken for the album’s cover from his side as opposed to a head-on shot. The bitterness Robbie and Randy had for one another led to Randy departing the group shortly thereafter. “The problem is, business got involved and when you mix money and blood together, it gets real messy,” C.F. Turner observed.

C.F. remained the constant in the BTO lineup over the successive years. Robbie and Blair played with him until 1983. They took off as soon as Randy and Tim Bachman leapt back on board the Overdrive. “Randy Bachman wanted to settle things with Tim,” brother Robbie said of that transition. “Blair, C.F., and I own the BTO name and gear logo. They wanted to use it. I thought Blair should be invited (to stay on in the group). I wanted to share the writing and publishing four ways for all the songs. Randy did not want to. So I left.” In 1988, Robbie was back, however, playing with both of his brothers and C.F. But by the turn of the ‘90s, bickering and disputes led Randy and Tim to part ways once again with their brother. Randy continued to try to prevent Robbie from using the full name of Bachman-Turner Overdrive. But BTO has prevailed, with Robbie and C.F. bringing the hard-rocking outfit into the millenium. Time has not healed the bitter wounds. Asked by Bjornshog how he gets along with his brothers Randy and Tim these days, Robbie succinctly snapped back, “We do not talk.”

Sometimes if brothers never spoke, the high incidence of clashing consequences might be diminished. Unfortunately, two siblings in the long-running legendary band, The Kinks, have used each other as verbal pin cushions over the course of their mopey career. Ray Davies, three years older than brother Dave, was always seen as the primary leader of the band. When Ray and Dave formed a group in 1961 with childhood friend Peter Quaife and drummer John Stuart, they were known as the Ray Davies Quartet. A booking agent later came up with their provocative name, The Kinks. All it took was a little success for the two siblings to come undone. The year was 1965 and the place was America.

Having just scored a U.K. #1 hit with “You Really Got Me,” the group set out for the States. Tensions between the two brothers arose immediately. Dark stares and drinks were tossed at each other onstage. Their manager, Larry Page, became the siblings’ unofficial punching bag. By June 1965, the Kinks had to pull out of their tour after Ray and Larry traded blows backstage at the Hollywood Bowl. The boys’ angry antics resulted in their being banned from touring the U.S. for the next four years. “I really think we hurt ourselves with the constant scrapping,” Peter Quaife later observed to interviewer Martin Kalin. “I remember, early on, that the Stones and us were about of equal popularity. I knew one of us would emerge as number two behind The Beatles. There was no way either us or the Stones were going to surpass The Beatles. The Kinks knew that. But we did have a chance to surpass the Stones if we worked as a collaborative unit and cut out the bulls*** and fighting. I pulled Ray aside to talk about this, and he told me to ‘sexually fornicate’ off.”

Ray exhibited a penchant for riches and a disregard for his beloved brother. During a wild party one evening at a ‘proper’ gentleman’s manor in England, Ray offered the host the unlimited companionship of his brother Dave, if the gay man would simply turn his marvelous estate over to Ray. Although an open bi-sexual, Dave was, nonetheless, appalled that his brother would practically sell him into bedroom slavery for his own gain. As much as Dave tried to contribute to the band’s tunes, Ray usually dismissed his younger sibling’s efforts. “Dave was always insecure about his songwriting ability compared to Ray,” Peter Quaife told Martin Kalin. “He felt he would never be as good a musician as Ray was. That’s funny, considering he was always a much better guitar player than Ray.”

Dave eventually did release a 1967 hit single called “Death of a Clown.” Even though his name was on it, his brother Ray had actually written most of the song. The elder sibling used the moment to insult Dave regularly onstage. Ray would say to the audience, “I would now like to introduce my brother. The silly little sod,” Dave recalled in his autobiography. “I’d lose it and run across the stage towards (Ray) with the intention of hitting him with my guitar. He would promptly turn to the mike and say with a sarcastic grin, ‘Only joking, Dave.’ Then he’d go on, ‘You’ll have to forgive him, he’s a little uptight today. Let’s hear if for Dave ‘Death of a Clown’ Davies.” Meanwhile, Dave would seethe behind the scenes over the fact that his contributions to Kinks’ songs went unrewarded either by credit or royalty payment.

Ray threatened to quit the group many times over their 35+ years of playing. The onstage theatrics between the two brothers included several punches in their career. Reports as late as 1989 had the siblings trading blows during the making of their “U.K. Jive” album, resulting in their engineer leaving the project midway in fear. On January 13, 1982, Dave Davies reportedly had an otherworldly experience, something to do with etheric magnetism, astral malevolents, ether planes, and overall universal consciousness, through which the true nature of his brother’s ill will towards him was finally revealed. Alien ‘intelligences’ showed Dave an image of his brother as a large bush, whose branches enveloped and tore away at the younger sibling’s esteem and ideas. Horticultural allusions aside, Ray did show his true colors a year later, when he promised to include Dave as a co-writer and co-producer on their album “State of Confusion.” Ray wound up phoning the record label the night before the credits were to be printed and had Dave’s name eradicated from the liner notes.

For Dave, whose alien experience made him more reflective, he knows that his relationship with his brother will strictly be confined to business. “Ray was raised by one of our sisters, and I was raised by another – because our mother’s house was rather chaotic,” Dave observed to the New York Times. “It was music that got us together.” Songs are the reason they tolerate each other, plain and simple. “Sometimes you need tension even if it’s uncomfortable,” Dave told Record Review Magazine, “to get people to do things. So, in general, I think that the tension Ray and I have between us has been really important to the music.” As for sentiment, the brothers save it for others. In 1997, Dave recalled the scenario surrounding his 50th birthday to the Los Angeles Times. “…I was up in London, and Ray threw a surprise party for me. It was really nice of him to do that. So I went up to him and grabbed hold of him and kissed him on the cheek and his body just stiffened as if I were going to eat him or something. Then he trod out my birthday cake. It was like he really wanted to do something for me, but it irritated him to do it.”

Even when brothers share equally in the songwriting process, the mix can be combustible. For Georgia’s The Black Crowes, siblings Chris and Rich Robinson have squared off many a time over the merits of their individual contributions. “Being siblings is not easy,” Chris observed to NY Rock. “Being fellow songwriters is not easy, but being both is really a bit much.” Making music together was not always a rocky road. When the duo began performing as a folk outfit called Mr. Crowe’s Garden in 1984, lead singer Chris and younger brother, guitarist Rich were best of buddies. Forming The Black Crowes in the late ‘80s, they were propelled into the spotlight practically overnight with their phenomenal debut album “Shake Your Money Maker.” Their follow-up album, 1992’s “Southern Harmony and Musical Companion,” slammed into the number one spot on the Billboard chart.

But success led the brothers down the path of drug abuse, and in 1993, Chris took the band on a months-long detour recording a fruitless album project called “Tall” which was never released. Many arguments between the brothers ignited during those sessions and afterwards, the two siblings didn’t speak for several months. Meanwhile, their 1992 album, while a Billboard hit, was not an overall huge moneymaker. When the band regrouped in 1994, the fuse of animosity was lit. “Chris and I had some horrible fights,” Rich later related to the Sunday Times. “It started when we were making “Amorica.” It was a very paranoid time. The second record had ‘failed.’ Nirvana had created this whole new music scene that we weren’t seen to be part of. And there was a lot of drug use, a lot of cocaine-induced bulls***. It really drove a wedge between us. Just endless power struggles…We broke up four times on the tour. We booked the flights, but then we realized that we still wanted to be in the band, but we just couldn’t stand each other. Finally, I said, ‘If I don’t get my own bus and get away from that ***hole, I’m going to kill him or I’m going to leave.”

Chris described one of their typical flare-ups to Rolling Stone magazine in 1996. “It was…Rich wrote a set list right before the show, and I was gonna write it. And we just looked at each other and started beating the s*** out of each other. Every crew guy there was trying to break us up…Literally, me and Rich have fought a lot, but we have one rule: ‘You can have f***in’ body punches and f***in’ choke holds, and f***in’ throw bottles at each other, but we never crack each other in the face.” The bickering bros finally seemed to mellow when The Black Crowes began supporting superstar acts like Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones on the road around the mid-90s. “Maybe it was because we were like kids again, standing behind Keith Richards’ amps every night. It reminded us why we were doing this, and that allowed us to drop all that emotional baggage.” By the time the group began recording 1999’s “By Your Side,” the brothers Robinson actually seemed to have come to terms with their combustible behavior for the sake of their livelihood. “The difference now is that if we have a fight that’s all it is,” Chris explained to interviewer Brett Milano. “Then we’ll stay out of the studio for a couple of days. When we were kids, we’d sit there 24 hours a day and beat the hell out of each other. Now we say, ‘F*** you, I’ll see you tomorrow. I don’t have the energy to waste fighting with you.”

While it’s not exactly brotherly love, it is exemplary enough for the Robinsons to feel they have a sense of humor about their tempestuous relations. As a reflection of this renewed good nature, in May 2001, they set out on The Tour of Brotherly Love – a month-long series of concert gigs across the United States. And sharing the bill with them were rock’s most volatile siblings to date. Yes, we’re talking about none other than the brothers Gallagher of Oasis.

Mix in a hard-as-nails Manchester upbringing with a simmering brew of Irish blood, and you get an explosive sampling of the chemistry that bonds and boils the relationship between Noel and Liam. As the brash, consummate showman, younger brother Liam formed the band in 1991 and sang lead vocals. Intellectual and talented Noel watched their first performance at Manchester’s Boardwalk club on August 18th of that year, and critically suggested he should join the band. Liam took his bait, and soon, Noel was cranking out melodic, forceful songs that propelled the group into international success.

It was during the band’s first venture outside of Britain that led to their timeworn reputation of being bratty, bruising brothers. Arriving drunk to a ferry that was to shuttle the group to Holland, Liam managed to get himself thrown in the brig after assaulting a security guard on board. Oasis was turned back from the Netherlands, and Noel was furious with his irresponsible younger brother. When the two siblings sat down with Q Magazine at the Forte Crest Hotel in Glasgow on April 7, 1994, Noel immediately traded barbs with Liam.

Noel:     “Well, if you’re proud about getting thrown off ferries, then why don’t you go and support West Ham and get the f*** out of my band, and go and be a football hooligan, right? ‘Cause we’re musicians, right? We’re not football hooligans.”

Later in the interview…

Liam:     “Rock ‘n’ roll is about being yourself.”

Noel:     “No it’s not…”

Liam:     “And I went on that f***in’ boat, I had a drink; I had too much beer and I got in a fight and that was it.”

Noel:     “Rock ‘n’ roll is about music. Music. Music. Music. It’s not about you, it’s not about Oasis. It’s about the songs.”

Liam:     “No it isn’t. No it isn’t. Nah-nah, nah-nah…”

Q Magazine tried to finally lay bare the simple truth…

Q:           “The Who hated each other you know?”

Liam:     “Yeah, well I hate this bastard.”

Q:           “Is that important to you? Is that what fires this band up?”

Liam:     “Yeah. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why we’ll be the best band in the world, because I f***in’ hate that tw** there.”

This interview, along with others would be released as a single in the U.K. under the name “Wibbling Rivalry” and rise to number 52 on the chart.

Noel responded to Liam’s taunts by defining his one and only focus to Guitar Magazine later that year. “I live in my own world and in that world the only thing that really matters is music. If the Devil popped up tomorrow and said it’s a straight choice between music and relationship – be it mum, girlfriend or even Liam – I’d sign on the dotted line.” Booze, ecstasy and crystal meth would further fuel the fires when the band set out in September 1994 on an American tour. While playing the Whisky-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles, Liam constantly left the stage to sniff the meth off his amps. When Noel chastised him for all to hear, Liam smacked his brother in the head with a tambourine. Scuffling and shoving into their dressing room afterwards, Noel immediately got on a flight to San Francisco, leaving the band to wonder of his whereabouts for three days.

Recording sessions did not fare much better. While laying down the tracks “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” for their “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” album, the duo clashed verbally, resulting in Liam getting righteously soused at a corner pub. He then tried to break into the studio that night to smash Noel’s guitars. Unsuccessful, Liam corralled pub patrons back to the house for an impromptu party. Noel responded to the ruckus by whacking his brother with a cricket bat. Liam injured his foot trying to kick down a door to get at Noel. Escaping out a back window, Noel fled the scene and quit the band. Of course, a month later, he showed up amidst a rehearsal and all was forgiven.

Just before Oasis was set to tour America again in 1996, they rehearsed for a taping of MTV’s “Unplugged” program at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Again, Liam and Noel had a brutal falling out, and Liam spent the week sitting in the theater, drinking Guinness and jeering at his bandmates. He did not perform for the show. The group took off for America, and Liam chose to stay behind. A few weeks later, he arrived in the States and took up his lead vocal duties, but barely. Swilling beer and sitting around smoking cigarettes during the performances, Liam irritated Noel enough for the two to exchange punches in Buffalo, New York. Their U.S. tour was immediately cancelled, and Noel flew back to England disgusted. When asked by Melody Maker magazine what he considered would be the worst psychological torture imaginable, Noel dryly responded, “Being sat beside Liam on a 15-hour flight. It happened just the once, going to Japan or somewhere. It’s just horrible.”

As Oasis splintered and came together in the late ‘90s, the belligerence has quelled somewhat between the siblings. “Actually, Liam’s worn a lot of the fight out of me,” Noel confided to Q Magazine in 1998. “Some of the things he says and does now I can’t be bothered about. Two or three years ago, he might have got a mic stand across his head for some of the stuff he’s done in the studio. But I just can’t be f***ing arsed with it anymore. I just look at him and go, ‘Whatever, just get on with it. I’ll be down the pub when you’re finished.” Liam, for his part, has never let up. Between his arrest for cocaine possession, hitting photographers, scuffling with motorists, smacking up fans, and being named ‘Dickhead of the Year’ by New Musical Express magazine in 1998, he will continue to be the spark that sets the Gallagher feud inferno ablaze.

But petty animosity aside, the brothers of Oasis have shown that out of conflict, in the end, it’s the music that matters. It’s a lesson they could teach to some of the other acts mentioned in this article. Asked if his brother Liam ever embarrasses him, Noel defiantly stated to Q Magazine, “Never, no. I’m proud of him. He’s my kid brother.” Then with a laugh, he trenchantly quipped, “He gave me a job.”

 

© 2001 Ned Truslow

 

Comments are now closed.