Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Stairway to Heaven..

I got myself a book....you can guess which one if you pay attention to my title...It's an updated edition of one of LED ZEPPELIN biography...This one written by their tour manager.

While I was reading I came across this funny passage that made me laugh..Can't help but not share it with you...It was simply funny and I tried not to laugh out loud and not wake up everyone around me....Here what made me laugh...I'll just quote the whole thing that is type some of it considering that I'm fast at it anyway hehehe:

"One harrowing ride from Spokane to Seattle almost put an early end to that tour-and to Led Zeppelin - just a few days after the band had arrived in the States. We had just finished performance at the Gonzaga Gym in Spokane and were about to depart for the Spokane airport for the flight that would eventually take us to Los Angeles. But an Arctic blizzard had moved into the region and was increasing in intensity. Our flight and every other flight out of Spokane was canceled.
We were stranded and cold. The state of Washington is beautiful, but being stuck there in Siberia-like weather, including eight inches of snow, is not how we had planned to spend New Year's Day, particularly since the band had a gig scheduled at the Whiskey a Go Go in L.A. on January 2.
'Get us out of this f*cking deep freeze!' Robert (Plant) shouted at me (road manager). 'Charter us a plane if you have to!"
'Charter you a plane!?' I screamed back. 'And who's gonna pay for it? Should we take it out of your damn wages?!'
After a couple of frentic phone calls, I found out that we could catch a flight from Seattle to L.A.- if we could just get the rented LTD through the storm to the Seattle airport. As a native of London, I didn't have much experience driving in snow flurries, but escaping Washington was all the motivation I needed.
The band climbed into the car and I got behind the wheel for the 200-mile drive. Kenny Pickett was by himself in the U-Haul truck. The road conditions started out bad- slush and snowbanks- and it only deteriorated. As we slipped and slid, the visibility became worse. And I was becoming more anxious. 'Do you guys have your wills made out?' I nervously joked. No one laughed.
To try and calm myself, I reached into the backseat and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. I handed it to Bonzo and said,'Open it! Quick! I need something to relax me!' We passed the bottle around, and everyone had a few swigs.
At about the halfway point, the road conditions became almost impossible. Through the strom up ahead. I could see some state police cars parked with their red lights flashing. They had erected roadblocks. 'Shit,' I thought ' These bastards better not be turning us around.'
As we came to a stop, a cop on foot approached our car. I cracked the car window, and he yelled at us, 'The Snoqualmie Pass is impossible. It's just snowing too hard. Take the exit off the highway and turn around.'
In the time it took me to drive off the highway, however, I had already decided to keep heading for Seattle. Maybe the whiskey had given me some extra courage, but when we got to the top of the exit ramp, I announced, 'We're gonna f*ckin' go down the other side of the ramp and get back on the highway. I don't care what those cops say. They're never going to be able to see us or catch us.'
I drove around the cloverlead and back onto the highway, and we continued on to Seattle. I felt victorious, like I had put one over on the state police. But after just few minutes, I realized that maybe the cops had been right.
Sheets of snow alternated with torrents of rain and hail. The winds were ferocious. We were the only car on the highway. Parts of the road were caked with ice, and the car was skidding from lane to lane. If conditions got any worse, I could have turned off ignition and just let the car slide all the way to Seattle.
By this point, I was really scared. But I didn't dare let the band know that. Because Jimmy and I had worked together in the past, he had condifence in me and figured-probably erroneously- that I knew what I was doing. He also was struggling with the Hong Kong flue and didn't have much energy to complain about anything.
The rest of the band, however, was absolutely terrified with my driving particularly during the hairpin curves. They had every reason to be. At one point, we approached a long, narrow suspension bridge that was actually swaying in the wind gusts. If we had taken a vote in the car, we wouldn't have gone any further, in fact, by that point, I was finally almost ready to turn around.
We started across the bridge. I could feel it trembling beneath us, and my heartbeat quickened. We were so closed to the edge-and to a drop of about 100 feet- that Bonzo and Robert became absolutely frantic.
'Richard, you f*cking asshole, you're about to get us killed,' Robert shrieked, grabbing the bottle of whiskey from John Paul's hands.
'Oh, my God,' screamed Bonzo. 'Can't you pull over until this storm ends?'
I shouted back, 'Shut up, you f*ckers, just drink some more whiskey.'
In fear and frustration, I pressed the accelerator to the floor and the car bolted ahead. Within another minute, we were safely on the other side of the bridge. Another mile up the road, I stopped the car, I needed to wipe the windshiled-an relive myself of some of the booze I had drunk. It was cold so I was working fast-but obviously not fast enough. As I peed into some nearby bushes, the car started to slide backwards on the icy road. The emercengy break was on, but the car was somehow skidding toward a precipice and fifty-foot drop.
The boys were screaming. Perhaps their lives were flashing in front of them. Mine was.
Somehow, while furiously zipping my fly, I managed to dive back into the car and jerk the steering wheel. Robert had dove into the front seat and was feverishly pressing on the break pedal with his hands. Miraculously, we brought the car to a halt before it took flight.
Robert was absolutely livid, 'I'm gonna get you fired Cole,' he shouted in exasperation, 'Either that, or I'm gonna kill you.'
Eventually, we made it to the Seattle airport.."

That's all for now....lol

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