"C'mon you guys. I've got a car."
"What fuckin' car, man?" The Bear asked. "You gotta get a grip on that acid, man. We came in some kind of airplane, remember?''
"That black limousine there. Get in it."
"Whose is it?"
"Fuck if I know. I swiped it. It was sitting out there with the keys in the ignition so I took it. Now let's get the hell out of here before anyone stops us."
The Bear with a fan that jumped onstage during the performance
The band thought this was just great. Our manager was becoming one of the guys. The acid has kicked in and he's committing grand theft auto.
I hustled Diane and Linda into the limo too. Somewhere in there, Felix Pappalardi from Mountain had joined us and we started off down the exit road behind the stage, packed solid with parked cars. We rode up to each one in our stolen limo, followed by the roadies in the equipment truck, and called for volunteers.
"Hey man, we're the Canned Heat. We've gotta get outta here. Help us move this car, okay?"
The crowd was glad to give us a hand. One by one, they helped us push cars off the road and onto the grass. Sometimes a big crowd of us actually picked up the cars and moved them. It was a long night--about 8 when we started, and midnight before we got to a clear road.
In Middletown, New York, we stopped at a Holiday Inn, claimed we were another band that had reservations and took their rooms. The hallway was a long, narrow party, filled with musicians spilling over from the festival, passing joints and bottles up and down like a bucket brigade.
Linda went to the bar for some beers. Janis Joplin was hitting the Southern Comfort with her band at one table and Ravi Shankar was at another, drinking tea or whatever sitar players drink. Linda came back with the beers and went off to shower in Alan's room, figuring she'd be safe there. She was right about that too.
Diane was having a great time. I was whispering in her ear that we should go up to my room.
She gave me this long, quiet look.
"We won't do anything I don't want to? You promise?''
"What is it you don't want to do?''
"I'm not sure any more. That's the scary part.''
"I promise. Just stay with me.''
In my room, I slipped her out of her shorts, jumped out of my clothes and we curled under the covers. I was rubbing against her. I made my move.
"Don't.''
I held back. We kissed some more. I had a hard-on that would have gone through a plate of armor.
"Don't. No. Just stop there.''
When I started to pull back, she kissed me again. Hard. It was agony.
I got my hand between her legs. She recoiled and curled up in a ball. I pulled back. She locked her mouth on the side of my neck, then swirled her tongue around the inside of my ear.
She was gasping and crying and she had her fingers dug into my back. And every time I tried to get in she would pull back.
We came so close so many times that I could have just taken her if I was a little more forceful. But that has never been my style. I don't like to push my way in. I like women to give themselves to me on their own. It is the greatest compliment a man can get.
We spent all night like that. We kissed until our lips swelled up and our mouths were sore. We threw ourselves into each other, her twisting away at the last moment. By morning I was crazy with exhaustion; from everything that had happened to the band, pushing cars, lack of sleep, and blue balls.
But it was worth it. I could not forget Diane, and don't think I ever will. I kept in touch from the road. Eventually I did make love to her, but it was not that night. Not at Woodstock.
And by then, I was not the first.
We said good-bye in the hotel lobby and before noon the rest of the band and I were back in another airplane, heads flopped on our shoulders, zonked out cold with fatigue, flying to Atlantic City. Another day, another gig. But I had changed my mind.
Woodstock. It wasn't such a bad idea. Glad I went.
2 - THE EARLY YEARS
"Don't forget. Your body is your limitation. The answer = Yoga.
"Love, Noreen
If Noreen Reilly and Alan hadn't turned me on to yoga, I'm sure I wouldn't be alive today. You can't spend your life abusing your body and not expect it to catch up with you.
Noreen was also a wizard at astrology. I gave her all the necessary details: born Adolfo Hector de la Parra Prantl, Mexico City, February 8, 1946, 1:20 in the morning.
A few days later, she handed me astrological charts that turned out to be surprisingly accurate. According to the stars,
I'm a lover of peace and harmony.
•In my quiet way I get what I want and make the other fellow like it.
•In youth stubbornness, but with maturity a fixedness of purpose.
•My strong point is organization.
•I have all the qualities necessary to be a good leader--except the desire to be one.
•My father's line shows material achievements.
•I'm attracted to 'wimmen' (she used to make fun of my accent) and I'm quite unconventional in regard to sexual matters." Not bad for someone who had only known me days and the majority of that time was spent tripping on acid.
I was named after my maternal grandfather Adolfo Prantl, a stern, aristocratic Austrian and a very staunch, ultra-conservative Catholic. I must have inherited my sense of order from him and it's one of the reasons I like traveling in Germany. Offenses aren't just prohibited; there are degrees of how forbidden something is: breaking the law may be verboten (forbidden) or in some cases strikt verboten (strictly forbidden) and if it's really terrible, it's strengstens verboten (absolutely forbidden).
Don Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican dictator who coined the phrase: "Poor Mexico, so far away from God and so close to the United States," invited my grandfather to move to Mexico to help organize customs and the import/export laws.
Don Adolfo's mother and his brother Jacob came with him and he waited to marry until his mother died. A handsome aristocrat who walked with a gold-headed antique black cane, he was never seen without a tie on his high-neck shirt, an embodiment of 19th century values. My chief memory of him is sitting in his smoking jacket, reading a book. He was a great architect and some of his buildings have been declared historical. After 100 years and all the earthquakes in Mexico City, the Prantl buildings are still standing.
One sign of affluence Adolfo refused to acquire was an automobile. The house had a four-car garage, but he didn't believe in them. I guess the environmentalists would have loved my grandfather.
When he was in his forties, he wanted a bride who was untouched by the world and by temptation. What better place to look than a convent. Pilar Baguena was 16 or 17, and had fair skin, brown eyes, and long blonde hair. Her parents, originally from Spain, were both dead and the convent was a safe haven for such a young girl alone. She was a gifted painter and recited poetry. I have some of the letters my grandfather wrote to her; they are very beautiful, very romantic. They really did live happily every after. Relationships like that don't exist any more. In the United States, society is very hung up on age, but in Europe a man twenty years older than a woman is no big deal and in Latin America, it's even less of an issue.
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