Prelude: For those of you who don’t know me, I was deeply involved in the underground music subculture in various jobs for 30 years. I started out as a club bouncer at City Gardens in Trenton, NJ..one of the largest and most infamous underground music club on the East Coast. Being halfway between NYC and Philly, along with being a huge payday for bands since the club held 1500 people, every band you could possibly think of played there. You name em..I saw them. I’ve worked sound/stage, I can make a band sound great on the 32 channel house mixing board without knowing anything about music formally, my friend Andrew who was a famous audio producer here, and a celebrity when he moved to Brazil where he created a whole new genre of traditional Brazilian drum rhythms and dance beats that were mixed to bare deep drawn out heavy low tone frequencies that create a frequency wave of powerful sound that makes your organs vibrate. That actually happened to me seeing Drone Metal Gods SUNN O)) in 2005. He named it “Dronebeat” and he has mixed the music of South America’s most famous artists from traditional Samba, Metal bands, and the biggest pop artists in his “Dronebeat” sound. It made him wealthy beyond belief and I wish I had a link to a YouTube video for you to hear his work, but Andrew has an army of lawyers making sure you have to pay to hear his art. It’s not even on iTunes or any other streaming services. Andrew is an example of a few artists that are fighting the streaming and downloading model to get paid for his art instead of having to be on tour 300 days a year to make money.
But this post isn’t about Andrew…this post is about a true international bigger than life renaissance man of the 80s and 90s...my pal Theo the master of ceremonies with the Midas touch. Whatever he was involved in turned to gold. The issue was Theo’s family came from oooold european aristocracy money. He was so rich that money had no value to him..whatever he desired he just opened up his briefcase, the only punk rocker I ever saw with his own security detail to carry his briefcase, he ended up becoming desensitized to all the drugs and sex with the most beautiful women..just the whole lifestyle after more than a decade playing the rockstar game, that he had an epiphany and began looking for something intriguing with a real honest simple lifestyle to blow an unlimited amount of money on.
This is not the first time I’ve seen it happen with an ultra rich celebrity man..you can only screw so many elite hookers and do pure pharmaceutical blow, made by a Swedish pharmaceutical company his family OWNED, every night for so long before you become bored with the trappings unlimited wealth can provide for an unrepentant sinner. I was introduced at a Shimmy Disc party in Manhattan to this character who was so charismatic his energy filled the room. Theo was a man who was naturally larger than life..he was Ziggy Stardust, Elvis Presley, Hunter S Thompson, and Oscar Wilde all rolled into life. Just for hobbies, he became a record producer, a self taught audio mixer/engineer, he invented many instrument effects stomp boxes and racks that he owns patents for, he was the unofficial mayor of Amsterdam, but most of all, Theo was a highly intelligent and far too wild and mischievous a guy just to be just staid, blue suited, first born heir from an old European family as rich as the Rothschilds. He was born funky..a natural musician..and his father doted on him and let him live like a bird that can’t be caged They owned an extensive variety companies that built everything from military weapons, children’s toys, to large pharmaceutical giants. Money meant nothing to him and he spent unimaginable amounts of it to throw lavish parties in odd places like famous old castles, a rooftop corporate suite on top of a skyscraper in Berlin, He threw a disco party at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, and another where he rented out a whole exclusive spa island called Canouan in the Grenadine Islands that is known as the billionaire playground. Apparently pissing off a whole bunch of rich, but no where close to “Theo Rich” people who were told the island was booked..the whole island right in the middle of the busy season. Oh the stories I heard about Theo talking shite when he met one of those who were loud complainers to Island officials. It must be nice to shite all over Zuckerberg or Bezos types because you can buy them ten times over. I’ve experienced many exclusive things not available to everyone, but I can’t even conceptualize how that must feel. Probably glorious to a kid who grew up dirt poor in Detroit. Theo would just give out huge amounts of cash to his friends as gifts of friendship, but when he tried to do that with me I flatly refused. He couldn’t understand until I explained it to him that if I took his money we would no longer be equal guys with respect for each other, I‘d become just another one of his sycophants, and even though he‘d claim differently, he would lose respect for me as my own man. Theo has no idea what it is to be blue collar, but he eventually got it and said he knew I was a man to be admired for my strong values.
In 1993 he paid for my local group of my friends that worked with/for my friends Mtv famous band. all the stage/sound crew and other support staff that all knew Theo as much as anyone could know him..the real him. we all made the trip over in first class (I have never been in first class since) as special guests to what he said would be his pièce de résistance party, his Magnus Opus, hosted at his family’s chalet on the side of some mountain a decent drive from Amsterdam.. He rented out 4 huge buses filled with a menagerie of the best freaks the Netherlands had to offer, I’d say was a bit of a heavy lean on young women with that wild glint in their eyes. 5 hours later we are in some idyllic looking old european village located in a valley surrounded by decent sized mountainous terrain.
it was a place called Willingen, that had the best ski resort in Germany. I remembered the name because of the events of the weekend at his family’s Chalet are burned in my mind forever. We had to take a cable car to reach the chalet which was gigantic. Before the party began Theo grabbed the PA mic and spoke first to his Netherland friends in Dutch (I guess? I have no clue what they speak), and then to his other guests from English speaking countries, about 1/2 of the 250 or 300+ of Theo’s friends there, announcing that this was his last party of sin and debauchery he will ever host in his life. He said he is bored to death being Theo and all that it entailed. He was moving to Auckland, New Zealand first to settle in, then he planned to by a huge tract of farmland to raise sheep and pursue other interests he had as a child, before the money, notoriety, and rockstar trappings clouded his vision and led him astray. I yelled out a quote from Slapshot, “You can only drink and f*** so much eh Theo?” and he answered to the crowd “Yes! Yes! That’s it exactly!” repeating my quote for all to hear.
he said “that’s it, welcome to Theo’s Swansong Soiree of Sin! Please indulge yourselves in everything here to your heart’s content. All the young ladies her are single models ready to get down with anyone..all you have to do is pick one that turns you on and ask. Well.. get to it! I wanna see some nakedness and the glass dining room table filled with rails of cocaine! DJ…hit us with the jams man!” I remember it all so clearly…it’s amazing what events you can remember with total recall. What happened that night was pure bacchanalia. My friends band played as well as 3 other MTV famous underground bands you’d recognize. (I’ve learned to very very careful with actual names the hard way..so excuse my vagueness..you never know what people will do with specific information).. I‘d estimate Theo paid 160,000$ in 1993 money just on the bands alone. Dont know what he paid for the army beautiful aspiring models who were everywhere wearing expensive next to nothing covered designer dresses or already down to expensive French lace lingerie. I was there in Doc Martin’s, extremely worn 501s with ripped knees from wear, a weathered Motörhead shirt, and a black leather biker vest that said Goddamned Independent in embroidered outlaw biker club patch banners on the back, as I was a rider back then in a county full of 3 large and dangerous outlaw biker gangs. I wore that vest out of necessity back then to identify myself as not part of the business between the 3. Half of our crew got dressed up and looked like a stoner metal band wearing groomsmen suits..lol..they looked so ridiculous! I wish I still had the cd I had all my old pics on..I think on of my exes stole and destroyed it…I have that effect on women sometimes.
I wish I could go into detail about that weekend, but I’m keeping my stories strictly pg-13 from now on just to be safe. Many people have told me to start a blog, but to have a blog that fits my purpose to publish and archive my stories, the cost is about 500+ dollars a year to create and maintain. No thanks, the marginal cost far out weighs the marginal benefit for me to spend that much money just to write. I’ll just keep writing until I have enough to publish a collection of my best most shocking true stories. For the people who don’t know me, everything I write actually happened in the 80s and up to the mid 90s in a wild time for me and for America. Don’t believe the propaganda, the 80s was a decade fueled by cocaine being everywhere and a bit of dysfunctional dystopian social stuff that made people just say “Eff it” and drop out into the underground subculture in droves, driven by a strange time of an America still teetering on the edge of serious problems with an economy still in deep recession, while the “Yuppie” culture was propagandized as common across America to manufacture the illusion that the economy was growing rapidly due to political change. The 80s sucked..and when things suck people want to party to forget their troubles..and party we did.
True to his word, Theo disappeared soon after his last waltz and nobody ever saw him again until 2014, when my friend in the MTV band received a postcard picture of a man with a long greying beard holding a shepherd’s staff in a lush green field amongst a bunch of sheep, without any writing on the card. We both immediately knew it was Theo..and he looked fat and happy with a big smile on his face. Of course I was happy for my friend, but I was a bit envious as well. I have a dream life too..about five acres out in the sticks with a small house for me and the dogs, and a big 4 bay steel garage in the back where I can work on my favorite cars from the 60s and classic bikes I’ve always wanted..like a Vincent Black Shadow or another Kawasaki 1979 kz1000, “The Widowmaker”, that the New Jersey state police seized from me and I never got it back. I just don’t have gobs of money to make it a reality. Before my disability on was far on my way to making y dream a reality, but all the drs bills, the emergency intestinal surgery for peptic ulcers cost me 50 grand after Blue Cross coverage. After 12 years of depleting my savings on medical stuff, I barely have enough left to live on once I’m by myself. My plan is just to live off the interest and my disability funds..enough to house myself and live frugally but be comfortable as well. It’s funny how life can change you. 15 years ago I was making a lot of money but spending a lot on frivolous things I didn’t need. Now, I don’t by shite, I live in tough work clothing that’ll last forever, and other than a new hoodie every couple of years. I buy food, pay my bills, and fill my tank..that’s it. I used to be obsessed with getting rich, now I couldn’t care less. Funny how life works.
I don’t know, I know Theo and my futurist friend Will who both have more money than god and no idea what to do with it. As a poor kid who used to have to tape his cleats together to make them survive another season because I couldn’t afford a new pair, that mentality just seems totally irrational to me. I know exactly what I’d do with my money and it doesn’t involve treating it like fire kindling. I never said anything to Theo because I knew him..but not as close to how I know Will…who I give a rash of crap to for being irresponsible with his millions. At least he listened to me and got involved with philanthropy and he’s creating a scholarship at MIT for underprivileged students. When he told me, he was so proud of himself, the only thing I said was a sarcastic dry reply of “It’s a start”. He already has an ego problem and I’m not gonna feed it.
That’s it. Sorry this Argus story is not as salacious and scandalous as previous ones I’m known for. I’m trying to clean things up so I don‘t get suspended here as well..lol. Hope you’ll all enjoyed it.
- Argus
www.nfldraftbuzz.com
www.espn.com
rivals.rivals.com
Login to view embedded media
