Bear's Lair

Record Haven was a fun and freakish place. Before I worked there, I used to shop there in my teens back in the day since they had used records and 8-track tape trade-ins. These people took anything, as long as you had the $2 trade-in fee it did not matter. My grandmother would give me a used 8-tracks for Christmas like "The Best Of The Partridge Family", or one of those cheesey bootleg tapes of "todays top hits #4" where the signals are overloaded and the music is unlistenable. I would say thanks and take them to Record Haven and trade them in. One of these visits I got introduced to Bob who was the big cheese on the punk rock scene in 1978. To decribe the guy, think of wicked Uncle Ernie with a hairy unibrow and big scary bug eyes and not all burners fireing. This guy appealed to me when I seen him crouched under the counter gazing at these 3 stoner boys who were in there to buy the latest by Ted Nugent & Kansas. Bob's greeting "hello mongoloids, wattayawant?" while staring them down crouching behind the counter with those crazed eyes. When they left, he put on the B52's Private Idaho and started pogoing around the store, whooping out loud in victory. That day I bought I bought the first Devo 45 and we hit it off talking about posers and bands we liked. One of my fond memeories of him was watching him flip out. Bob became a mentor to me corupting my already warped fragile mind. I would grab my father's Burt Kaempfert & Russ Morgan 8-tracks that he listened to once and tossed aside since he could NOT figure out how to work the stereo, and trade them in for Zappa and Who 8-Tracks, and talk shop with Bob for a hour or so.

One of these days he was expecting a 25 count box of records from Tone. Yes...it was a celebatory time since it was the release day of the Cichilids debut album "Be True To Your School", Bob was the producer and manager of the Cichlids. The Cichlids were the first (and only) rock band signed to Miami's TK Records who were known as a Disco label. To set the scene, there was a small crowd in the store. The UPS truck came and dropped off the box and Bob was like a child on his birthday. Bob was talking in his semi cartoony voice "this is our first album on Gator Rock Records, Henry Stone promised us our own label". Bob opened the box and pulled out the first album and smiled at first, but he flipped it over all of that changed. You can see the steam builing up in his head looking for escape. Then he exploded "THEY PUT US ON BOLD! THE MOTHERFUCKER LIED! HE PUT US ON BOLD! WERE NOTHING BUT A TAX SHELTER". Poor Bob lost his mind. Then he was flinging albums across the room snapping the strings on the dusty mobiles that have been hanging since the late 60's. Records were flying, people were ducking from the records that were sailing around the room. "WERE A TAX SHELTER, THAT BASTARD PUT US ON THE SAME LABEL AS GREG & DUANE ALLMAN, I WAS SCREWED". We used to have this sheepish guy who only wanted to talk to Irv since he thought that he was the only one qualified to fix 8-track tapes. This guy made the mistake of stading there asking for Irv, then Bob stomped up to this poor soul, held the corner of a Cichlids record to this guy's throat yelling "OUT! OUT! OUT!" marching him backwards out the door, I thought the guy was going to have a cardiac out of terror. People were picking up the albums in the parking lot wandering what the stink was about. We were cleaning up the mess in the store before Irv came back. Bob was cool but had serious anger management issues to deal with.

Another Bob story:

Irv got some promo goods from the CBS rep, all for ELO's "Discovery" album. Irv's son collected ELO and wanted the items when his father was done with them so they agreed. There was a counter standee about a 18" tall, a large 5' standup, and a cardboard sabre sword that was supposed to hang from the ceiling that read "Electric Light Orchestra's Discovery on Jet Records". The 2 standups were of this arabian nights looking guy. Irv looked at Bob and Skunkwoman then said "don't let nothing happen to these because my son wants them, understand!". They both nodded yes and Irv left. Then Bob grabs the cardboard sabre and gives the little Ali Baba counter standup a menacing glare and says "I don't like your looks". Then he swings the sword like a batter going for a home run hit, the standee goes flying off the counter onto the floor. It's head is only held by a tiny piece of paper. Irv is coming back in because he forgot something. Bob is freaking out "get me the tape, get me the tape". He gets the tape and wraps a good quarter inch of the transparent stuff around it's neck. The little standee has a neck brace but it's head flopped down. Irv saw it and exploded "I CAN'T LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR 5 MINUTES BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH!" (when Irv got excited, his words sounded like buh buh buh buh since he talked fast). Poor Bob was walking around the store muttering obsenities for the rest of the night. I worked with Bob for a short while when he tried to go country when punk died (or went mainstream) managing Larry Joe Miller and Charlie Pickett. After that died out, Bob moved to New York. Steve & Gary took over but left after awile. Then Skunkwoman worked there, she wasn't much fun just sat there smoking those cheap cigarettes which burned my eyes.

Record Haven chronics:

There were a few customers that would come in that I would somewhat dread. Gene would come in blabbering a mile a minute slobbering while he talked, he would ramble on at 78 RPM till he was gasping for air. Gene has to be one of the dumbest MF's who ever lived. First of all he lost eight weeks of severence pay when he walked off the job with 3 hours to go to smoke a joint with some friends when Richards Department Store folded in the mid-70's. Around the same time, some dealer gave him a box of Mescaline caps to watch while he was dodging the feds. Doofus Gene ate the box and fried his brains in the process. His family was out of the movie "Spider Baby" . He had a younger brother who wanted nothing to do with him and his mother and acted embassased when he was around. Gene lived with his mother who was running a puppy mill in her utility room, she had a head like a Almaden bottle with two big flapping jowls and 2 teeth in her bottom jaw like a bulldog. When his mother would greet you, she would always talk about her bowel problems (example: I went to the mall, then I had a diareah attack). When she called his name is was like "Ashheeeeenn" or "Adge'ne" since she had only 2 teeth. When I first went to his house I was very nervous, the place smelled like old stale urine. He had his 90 year old grandmother sitting by the front door who was plain creepy since she resembled a mummy, there was always a full decathator bag sitting right by her feet, that plus the smell of the dogs made you thankful for fresh air. When the old lady died his mother yelled out "there goes her social security check". Gene was a card. He was also schitzo from eating those Mescaline caps like M&Ms, you looked at him the wrong way and he would pull a mechete on you. We used to refer to him as "the Barking Pumpkin" since he only had a few teeth left in his mouth and only a few braincells left from eating a box of hallucinegens like they were peanuts. When he got pissed he would literly bark (I'm getting mad, I'm getting mad...woof!). You could stick a candle in his head and watch his eyes glow like a Jack-o-lantern, That's why he was refered to as "The Barking Pumpkin" and this was in 1979. He was arreseted for molesting a 3 year girl a few years later, you see that's what hallucinagens will do to you.

Put him and Sigurd in the same room and the 2 can drive a same man insane. Sigurd is a 10 year old boy trapped in a 30 year old man's body, he's also known as "the world's most annoying person". When you address him by his first name, he would get offended and respond "my name is Sigurd Edmund Huggman the III. We used to refer to him as "Huggies" since he acted like a big baby. What happens when you cross Spongebob Squarepants with Poindexter from Revenge Of The Nerds, and cross pollonate him with Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, you get Sigurd.

He pissed off Bob off once. Sigurd was going though his anoying act rejecting special ordered albums because the lettering on the spines were off, tiny invisible creases and arguing over trivial things. Bob grabbed a ballpeen hammer and knocked Sigurd down. Then Bob was on top of Sigurd tapping on his front teeth with the hammer saying "don't move Sigurd of I'll knock your teeth down your throat" while Huggies layed there motionless in terror tinking on his front teeth with the ballpeen hammer, tink tink tink huh huh huh tink tink tink huh huh huh, you get the picture. Sigurd would bring out the worst in people.

Stan and Cal, Two butt-buddies who are Sigurd's friends. You had to see these 2 in action. Once they were having a lover's quarrel and in the process tossing each others collectable albums on the street before State Road 7 which is a main drag. This went on for a hour or so. Me and Skunkwoman watched these 2 going at it frizbeeing rare collectable records in the street while they screamed like girls. It was funnier when a car ran over it. Sigurd wanted to be Cal to the point where they dressed identical and had the same color and hair style. The picture on Cal's driver's licene has him bald on one side and full hair with beard on the other, I guess the South Florida heat baked his brain (or he was eating psychedelic peanuts with Gene). Stan was a con-man, always trying to sell resealed trashed records as new. I don't remember how many times we kicked him out. He even tried that in the North Miami store. He worked at Lane Bryant and had access to their shrink wrap machine. Stan though he was a great drummer and had business cards made up that read "Former Drummer With Art Blakey" (I have one somewhere), yes...he played tom-tom on the testes to Blues March in his bedroom. I found out later that he sat in with him on Conga for 1 song when he played Musician's Exchange in Ft. Lauderdale. It would have sounded better if the wording on the card read "Percusionist".

A few more stories......

Tiny Tim came in back in 1981, the poor guy was working at Hemmingways on US1 as a doorman. He came in looking for new tunes for his act. Before that, Gary came by with a bag of weed and rolled a doobie. Then me, Gary, and Skunkwoman smoked it in the bathroom. I don't know what it was or what was in there but I was more than wrecked. All I remember was this overweight guy with fire engine red hair wearing a lavender prom jacket with huge lapels with his pants were dragging on the ground. I thought I was hallucinating "oh fuck...am I seeing things or am I seeing Tiny Tim". He opened the door and shouted out "Hello all you happy people". I thought to myself "Oh fuck, it is Tiny Tim". He was asking about "what's new and hot" and suggested a few things, I sobered up quick. Skunkwoman started feeling ill during the whole time and layed down on the trade 8-track racks moaning in pain. I asked him about his appearence in the 1968 Beatles Fan Club Record and he replied that it was recorded in George Harrison's bedroom, pretty nice guy. Tiny kept going behind the counter grabbing the phone making long distance calls to his manager which pissed off Skunkwoman but was not in any shape to stop him since she was rolling in agony over a McDonalds hamburger she ate. He picked out his 3 cassettes and was ready to check out (Street Songs by Rick James, the balloon album by Air Supply, and a 3rd tape that I don't remember). Gary kept yelling stuff at him like "I heard your mother almost caved in your scull with a hammer" and "I heard that Miss Vicky dumped you because she caught you in bed with some little boys". Tiny was getting nervous, we were telling Gary to shut up since Tiny Tim was ready to walk out into his waiting cab. Tiny paid for the tapes and left. My first brush with a celeb in a record store and not the last either.

After I left Record Haven, I used to pop in there on my days off to watch the usual antics. I was there with Skunkwoman when this angry guy barged in the door. Skunkwoman asked him "may I help you?". The guy talked in a foreign accent and was hard to understand he yelled out "where's Lou, I'm going to kick his ass". She responded "why?". The giant metal guy from another country responded "he's pushing Def Leppard and not us". Then he yelled out that "he was from Krokus", who were opening for Blue Oyster Cult at the Hollywood Sportatorium. I never knew why he came there to beat up Lou since they are on ARISTA in the US and he was a rep for Polygram, or because the local fans prefered Def Leppard and Record Haven at that time was metal central. OK which was a better record: Long Stick Goes Boom or Photograph?

First of all Record haven was located in a large stripmall. Next to the store was a laudramat. This girl used to work there and came in regulary for tapes. The laudramat was open all night and was wide open, the place had no back door. There were these 2 stoner guys (think of 2 burnt Beavis & Butt-head types with mullets) who used to hang around there all the time looking for money so they could get wasted. When the girl left to do her personal business, the 2 guys opened up a panel in the drop ceiling and crawled in. They wanted to burgalarise the ceramics store that was next to us. These 2 clowns were crawling around in the ceiling when they thought they hit the ceramics store. They opened up the ceiling to take a peek, wrong place we have 15 feet to go..........CRASH! right into Record Haven. The weight of the 2 fools made the drop ceiling give way. I remember going to work and seeing a good six foot of ceiling missing by the used LP bins in the back of the store. Irv told me what happened. The silent alarm was triggered and the police came within a minute and arrested them both.