Ronnie’s ‘Pie Story’ A friend of mine died earlier this year (2005)… Ron Nakamrua… great guitarist, a man of great generosity and humor…
He and I went ‘way back’ as they say. He figures largely in my ‘
Reflections On The Garcia’
http://normaly.blogspot.com/2005/08/reflections-on-garciaan-essay_19.html This bit of business was one of his favorite stories and he often begged me to recount it, and at one time we even made it into a song like a talking blues… Got to thinking about him and that story so I thought I’d share it because I know he’d like me to tell it one more time…
Once upon a time Ronnie, I, Jimmie (Jimbo) Carmichael and Dan Swetlik were in a little almost-jug band called ‘
Polecat’. We played Grateful Dead stuff, a little Eagles, things like that…
Ronnie played lead guitar on his marvelous Martin D-35, Jim handled most of the vocals and Dan played bass and sang harmony. I was playing Dobro for the group and we were several cuts above a garage band, making little gigs here and there and getting together for rehearsals, alternating between Dan or at Jimbo’s house. We had a lot of stories to tell… One day I’ll tell about the time Jim lost the band truck in San Francisco but today I’ll tell you Ronnie’s Pie Story.
Now it happened that my thirty fifth birthday was drawing nigh and being born on April first, as I was, tends to instill a certain amount of caution in a body. ‘Getting through a birthday’ has a little more meaning for me than it does for most mortals.
Little did I know my thirty fifth would have a special ‘sweetness’ to it.
We had gathered at Jimmie’s on this occasion for a rehearsal and were taking a break. It was about eight thirty or so… dark out.
Jim said “Anyone want to smoke one?” …the times being what they were, folks were known to take a little smoke of
cannabis on occasion (only for the camaraderie, of course.)
I knew I was up for it but Jim said, “We have to do it outside so’s not to smell up the house.” I should have seen this as an omen, a portend, of mischief because this had never been a concern before but it was a reasonable request.
So we went outside on a moonless night illuminated only by the back porch light.
We passed the doobie around in good fellowship, Ronnie only lightly because pot made him sleepy.
Ron then asked me if I wanted to hear a joke.
Now folks, having Ron tell you a joke was sometimes a challenge to comprehension because he would usually go into fits of laughter during the telling and be incapable of finishing the damn thing coherently. Often by the time he gasped out the punch line the joke will have lost its momentum and the punch line would go flat…
So, in spite of my protests, he starts this long rambling tale, commencing to crack up in the telling as usual but he finally seemed to be bringing it to a merciful end. There he stands, laughing his head off, while I’m waiting for the punch line. Finally, I get impatient and say:
“Let me have it.”
Ronnie looks at me in mid laugh, almost unbelievingly, and says “What?”
“I said…Let me
have it.!”
“
Okay!” said Ron with a grin of sheer delight…”You asked for it”…
And I saw, almost in stop motion, his hand come from behind his back holding a coconut cream pie which he plants
firmly in my face.
There is no experience quite like it, folks… You can watch all the old slapstick movies you want that feature such shenanigans but there is no substitute for the real event.
I remember reacting with a stunned growl, momentarily immobile but not for long. I was looking over my glasses for someone to grab and punish when the next surprise was unloaded… a bucket of water splashed on me amidships.
Ice water…
Cold! That slowed me down and a
second bucket of water at groin level stopped me gave the vandals ample time to flee. I saw one scurry over a fence and Dan virtually flew over the gate.
I was half blind and wet and cold and about as disoriented as one could be.
After a beat or two, one of the guys asked if it was safe to approach me and I said it was because I was of two minds… outraged that such had been done to my person and at the same time the realization had started to sink in that not many people had undergone such an experience. and could see it was every bit as ludicrous as it seemed when done in the movies.
The boys had planned well. They had the setup planned weeks in advance, even to the point of having a dry jumpsuit set aside so I could shower and change (and cool off a bit) allowing us to all have a great laugh, not at my expense, but at the whole project and its brilliant execution. Ronnie had thoughtfully provided some ‘sip of the day’ (Peach Brandy) to assist in the warming up process…
That is the essence of ‘Ronnie’s Pie Tale’ and it achieved the status of near myth over the years.
It
did have some negative side effects however…
We were scheduled to play at a now defunct beer and wine joint called “
The Rhinoceros’ that once existed across from the legendary Gelb Music store. It was early in the evening. The place was empty and the boys were back in the main showroom getting set up. I was in the bar drinking coffee.
Alan, one of the bartenders, brought in a familiar looking box… a pie box! I rose to my most threatening height and put on my War Face but Alan said… ”No, wait… we thought you should have a pie to
eat for your birthday.”
Well, that was an altogether different matter so I picked up the pie and took it into the main showroom intending to share it with the boys but they all scattered like mercury dropped on a linoleum floor when they saw that pie in my hands.
Right around then we went to play a gather at a rented hall at the San Mateo YMCA, when the line between fun surprise and malice blurred and started to spoil the effect.
That very night someone hit Ronnie with a chocolate cream pie. He didn’t take it well but the poor guy had no recourse to get it all off him until he got home and I’ll tell you from experience it takes a couple of showers to get the sugary-ness off.
It became dangerous to have a birthday for about a year after that. They tried to pie Dan the bass player, whose birthday was near mine by a couple of days but he avoided the pie assassins. Jimbo got blindsided at a joint called ‘
The Rusty Pelican’. Ed Donnelan, a frequent band mate, reminded me that “…the 'pie tradition' that year, cost me a bloody nose and a loose tooth as the perpetrator's of my 'pieing' neglected to dethaw the frozen banana cream prior to my molestation by dessert.”
Finally one of our number from our fan base, Rick Chatfield, got slightly injured which illustrated to the masses that your standard surprise party was a much safer and saner mode of operation. They know what they were talking about when they say ‘Kids, Don’t Try This At Home.’… and the pie in the face routine faded into the realm of legends told…
The thing I remember most about it isn’t the pie in the face as much as it was listening to Ronnie laugh because he knew what was about to happen… he loved to laugh…
