The lamps remind me of a youthful crazy time. My freshman year in college, I came back in May and worked at a Toyota dealership doing lot maintenance, dealer trades, and new and used car prep. I worked 10 hours a day Monday thru Friday, and six hours on Saturday, and six hours on sunday. It paid for my college. I loved the Job, but six of my friends decided that one of our friends who did not get a job would work at a "Head Shop" which the six of us called the six lives of Mr. Moog. We all took our tax refunds, and one of our buddies had inherited some money and he put 2k into it for about a 4k investment. We leased a basement in a commercial building and we remodeled it. We bought albums, posters, incense, zap comics, waterbeds, and even got into some sound systems which quickly in 1971 the store became a hit and we would all help out, but our one friend pretty much ran it. A person came in with plastic slag, and would supply us with the sculptures which were basically the end of a run, and they looked good in the black light room and people bought them as soon as we had them in stock.......we also were selling lava lamps as quick as we stocked them......the store actually gave us plenty of party money, and the one guy made a nice living off the store for a couple of years. The Partners would just take the profit out in albums as we could buy them through the wholesaler at a discount, and the jobless guy had a job.
I would get done with work at around 6:30pm, I would then drive over to the local Jr. college and I was taking a full load from Monday thru thursday 7pm until 10, and then when I got done with school, I would meet a tennis buddy and we would play tennis until they turned the lights off at 11. Well, about half way through the summer, I noticed I was being followed. It became real obvious when they would turn the lights off at the tennis court and this car with two adult males was in the parking lot.
Well about half way through the summer and after being followed, the local police department, and sheriff's office executed a search warrant claiming that zap comic books were porno. Well, they claimed a seventeen year old had bought a zap comic book and it was porno. The real reason for the search was they were looking for pot, as the one guy we got the job for was a heavy pot smoker. Well they found no drugs......most of the six partners had been in the same boy scout troop and were all hardworking smart kids, and were not into drugs that much......Well, I go ballistic. I realize that they took the zap comic books which was part of our inventory. There was absolutely NOTHING porno about zap comics.....sure they were gross and pushed the envelope, but they were also artistic. I go like a crazy person and ask for the chief of police.....I am a 19 year old kid, but I was well read and knew my rights and did not have a fear in my body as I was strong, hardworking , and right. The police chief starts yelling at me about the zaps being porno, and then opens the damn comic book and shows me where a cop is portrayed as a pig, and is shot in the head as everybody cheers.....I mean the police chief goes ballistic and starts yelling thinking he was going to scare a 19 year old kid....hell my dad was dead when I was 10, and I ate bullies for lunch when I started screaming back about the first amendment and the right to creative license, and that just did not make a comic book porn, and that if he wants to look like a fricking fool in the media, I am going to leave his office and spend an hour with a well known journalist who wrote a column.....he stopped in his tracks....he realized what every bully comes to realize.....he was about to get his asz kicked....We both started talking in conversational tones, and I told him we both knew they were looking for drugs, and that they were looking at "mike" for the same, and the warrant was bogus. I promised him the other partners would keep an eye on MIke and keep a clean store, but give us the zap comic books back, and we will only sell them to 18 year olds.......he gave the comics back, no charges were ever filed, and I found out the assistant chief whose son I worked with at a dodge dealership had put in the good word for me as he son later became secret service........well the reason I tell this story, is the slag sculptures were in the same retail display as the zap comics........oh what a life's journey. I knew pretty much who I would be after that confrontation......and it sure was not going to be a retailer for plastic slag.
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