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[Luke] I remember Nasty Cathy and Russell
were out at the farm,
I'm probably 12, 13 years old,
Russell's a little bit older than me,
and every once in a while, they'd give us a drink, right?
Give us one little drink, you know?
Everything's fucking gross when you're a kid.
Beer is nasty.
Whiskey is disgusting.
But Cathy gave me a little Solo Cup
of a White Russian, which is what she drank.
She called them her milkshake.
[chuckles]
And it was the first alcohol drink
that, you know, you can actually stomach as a kid.
It's like, "I don't mind drinking this," you know?
So Russell and I were drinking White Russians in my room
while our parents were out playing cards or whatever.
And he said,
"Yeah, back when our moms worked at the Red Dog."
I was like, "Yeah, but my mom, she was just a bartender."
And he's like, "No, man. Our moms were dancers."
And I don't know if‐‐
I didn't really believe him for a second
and eventually I asked my mom,
"Did you dance at the Red Dog?"
And she eventually came clean and said, you know,
"Yeah, I did that."
Of course, now she spills it all.
[country music plays]
♪ Baby, take me Oklahome ♪
♪ Take me home, take me home again ♪
♪ Baby, take me Oklahome ♪
♪ Out of the road again ♪
♪ So if you wanna reach me ♪
♪ Come and take it real easy ♪
♪ Baby, take me Oklahome ♪
♪ Take me home, take me home again ♪
[Luke] By the time I really started
having memories as a kid,
my mom was working at the Red Dog.
The place was just full of lights,
full of neon lights, full of video game lights,
and was almost magical to me.
It was almost a treat to get to go.
I think I even remember at one point
there was a projector,
and they were projecting cartoons onto the wall for me.
[lively music playing]
[Luke] Now here I am showing cartoons to my own kids.
I love being a dad and I love getting to write songs
and perform for a living.
[man] Special thanks to Luke Dick.
Thank you, Luke. Love you, buddy.
[Luke] I count it as a small miracle.
I was able to get a good education
and now my daughter's headed off to college.
Emily's graduation.
[Luke] I'm sitting here as a dad trying to figure out
how to parent and wondering,
you know, how the fuck my mom
took me from the Red Dog to where I am now.
This must have been five or ten years ago,
I was back in Oklahoma, I was living in New York at the time.
I pointed a camera at my mom
and just started asking her
things like what was the weirdest thing
that ever happened at the Red Dog.
And so she starts giving me all these stories,
and I remember from the first time...
[Luke chuckles]
I was just, like,
nothing remotely as fucking crazy as that
has ever happened to me in my entire life.
[Luke chuckles]
And if this is the tip of the iceberg
for her lifestyle when she was 20,
I have to go back and hear more of these stories.
How much has your mom told you really?
[laughing] I don't know.
I don't know why you're doing this,
but it's not because you love me.
[Luke laughs]
She got madder and madder as this project went on.
[laughs]
[country music playing]
[Luke chuckles]
I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.
[laughs]
[country music plays]
[Luke] My mom grew up in this little farming community
in Colorado,
never really liked her home life
and wound up getting married at 15.
And I never really knew anything about it,
except she married some dude named Greg.
[Kim] I remember my best friend at the time
going, "Oh, we need to go down and buy you a sexy nightgown."
JCPenney's was the only goddamn store in town and I didn't‐‐
Back then, they didn't have no sexy nightgowns.
And I just was thinking, "For what?"
[Luke] So mom's, like, 15 and a newlywed,
and they decide to hop in my granddad's old milk truck
and go to Oklahoma City to take a construction job.
[announcer] See those tall buildings?
Well, there's a favorite slogan describing Oklahoma City
that says, "From teepees to towers" in a few short years.
[Kim] I remember this one party that we went to,
and then I was going, "All right," you know.
It was like, okay, it's a party.
It's, you know, like, being normal.
I thought we were gonna have, like,
chips and dip and shit like this.
And we go over there
and they say, you know, "You want some tea?"
You know, I thought,
"Oh, they drink what, sweet tea
or, you know, what do we have,
an iced tea or something here?"
Well, it was fucking THC.
I didn't‐‐ I thought there were, like, gonna be tea bags
in the kitchen or something like that.
Take a big old scoop of it, fucking snorted it
and it just like‐‐
I was just like...
Pfft.
And Bob goes, "Okay, we're gonna put on movies."
And it's like, "Where's the fucking popcorn?"
And, you know, that's how young I was, you know.
Well, it's fucking movies of‐‐
Sex movies, like a bang, bang, you know?
And I'm just going like...
"Yeah, of course, now I'm high."
And I'm going, "What the shit?" you know.
And it's like Pete's man walks up to the door
and he starts whatever.
And then I noticed the bathroom door come up
and I could see this light
and I turned around, and here came Bob,
which was the old man who lived in the apartment,
who was having the party, come walking out naked.
I'm telling you, this guy was fucking 60 and skinny and saggy
and came over there and sat down beside me and said,
"You're‐‐ Are you enjoying the show,
'cause you're gonna be my partner for the night."
And I'm like,
"I don't care how fucked up I get,
this ain't part of me."
And I just got up and I told Greg,
"I wanna leave now."
And he's already all over somebody.
So I just went out in the milk truck
and fell asleep
and let them have their little party of sex.
I just didn't know what the fuck that was.
[announcer] There's always something going on
in Oklahoma City,
something new and constructive
adding to the pleasure of folks who live here.
[Kim] All I remember is that I went in there,
and there was three or four girls,
and they're dancing and shit
and now you need to get in the dance contest above all.
And I still had baby fat on me at the time.
I mean, I was 14, 15 years old, so I was‐‐
I felt I was pudgy, but I could dance.
I knew I could dance.
So I went and invested three dollars in a pair of pasties
and the next week I went up there and‐‐
Like old music,
like the Isley Brothers
and shit like that was on the jukebox,
which was right up my alley.
You know, that's‐‐ that was all sex music to me,
and I could act like I was doing sex.
I really didn't know how to do sex, but I‐‐
I sure acted like I could.
So I went‐‐ I ended up going out there, I won the dance contest.
[applause]
They asked me if I wanted a job.
I didn't even have a fucking ID, you know, hell yeah.
His job was over, and he wasn't finding anything, you know.
I went down and got, you know.
I just told him, "I'm divorcing you."
And he said, "I'll send you home to your mom's,
you're not even old enough to live on your own.
"I've been supporting you, motherfucker.
And I've got to, you know‐‐"
I mean, we actually had stub‐‐ paycheck stubs.
"You know, where's your paycheck stub, son of a bitch?
No, you're living up my ass, you know."
So, yeah, fuck you.
Fuck you.
[country music plays]
[Luke] So was the Red Dog a pretty popular place?
[all] Oh, yeah.
Real popular.
Hell, I've been up all over the world.
Hell, the Red Dog, pretty much a landmark.
[Connie] Nationwide.
Anybody came to Oklahoma City, they came to Red Dog.
[Randy] It started out an automotive alignment shop,
and that's where they came up with the sunken bar,
because that's where the cars used to drive out over the pit.
They just built a little stem wall
and built the bar in the pit.
Have you ever seen Silkwood?
You see that part in the movie where they go?
Curtis is out working late, huh?
Out partying at Red Dog.
Come on, Wesley.
We had a big old boom in the early '80s.
[old newsflash music]
[reporter] Oklahoma City number one was a gusher.
When he had the oil workers coming to town,
they were coming to town to have a good time.
[old newsflash music]
And sometimes they got a little crazy,
and we had to go in and try to control some of it.
And we would go into the Red Dog at least once a night probably.
I mean, they‐‐ they had drown night in there
on Wednesday night, and you pay three dollars at the door
and just could get hammered until you couldn't even walk.
When you're 14 or 15 playing the Red Dog,
that will gotta get you going, man.
[playing the guitar] I like the show business thing.
You know.
My dad used to drive me there.
He'd come in and hang out way too long,
you know, primping my style.
I better come in and check things out.
Yeah, I better come in and make sure
everything is all right here, son.
Yeah, my old dad, God bless him.
[playing the guitar]
The dancing girls were called Go‐go girls at the time.
I think they got started mostly out in California,
in maybe San Francisco.
Go‐go girls got real popular and they were easy to find.
The farm girls come to the big city
here in Oklahoma City
imagining they're gonna get rich.
Anyone that grew up in Oklahoma, if they hear my last name,
they immediately jump to,
"Oh, Ray Mackey, you know, Red Dog,"
you know, and‐‐ and‐‐
You know, I've never been able to be a stranger
anywhere in Oklahoma to people that grew up here.
They feel like they know me.
They feel like they know my father.
Every single one of them has a crazy story,
of stuff that happened here.
Ray Mackey, he was always in
for short legs, blonde hair and big tits.
It's a wonder they got any other girls in there
because that's all he ever wanted,
was blond hair, big tits, and short legs.
[woman] Remember when he used to have the pictures of everybody?
He'd have some dancers go out to the lake
and be on a boat topless and then he chose slides.
[Connie] Yes, he'd play him at the Red Dog going all night
of the people he had out on his boat.
[Kim] I could imagine this thing
going around and around in circles
with, like, these little things with girls with tits,
girls with tits, girls with tits.
That's all they were‐‐
and bikini bottoms, girls with tits,
Ray's girls with tits.
Anything went, you know, bare bones, man.
That place was sin.
God bless it.
[chuckles]
Back then, driver's license didn't even have
pictures on them in Oklahoma.
Ten bucks, you could fucking buy an ID.
You know, it made me old enough to work there.
You had to be 18 at the time, you know.
And I thought you can either fuck around
and get really fucked up and not give a shit
or you could make some money.
I am helping take care of my four younger brothers
and sisters plus two cousins.
My mom and dad are both working their tails off,
but I don't see it that way.
I see it as I'm having to do this stuff,
I'm not being able to be a kid.
Well, I'll just show them, I'll go be an adult.
I left, I ran away.
And that was my first introduction to the Red Dog.
They said, "You ought to get a job here."
And I did dance that time,
but I was really scared and nervous.
I mean, this is a huge place.
How many square foot would you say the Red Dog is?
8,000? 10,000 square foot?
Two bars, bikers everywhere.
‐[Luke] And how old are you? ‐I'm 14 years old.
[chuckles]
It was a little scary.
[Tiny] Our operation on the south side
got shut down by the police.
I needed a job, you know, bouncer bartender
and there I found the Red Dog Saloon.
I asked him if he needed a bouncer,
and he said, "No, we got a bouncer."
So I walked over to him and said,
"Hey, man, you are the bouncer here?"
And he said, "Yeah."
And about that time, I dropped him, pow.
I turned and hollered,
"Hey, man, you guys need a bouncer.
This dude's laying down on the job."
And that's how I got most of my bouncing jobs.
I would go knock their bouncer out
and take his fucking job.
I needed a job.
I was out of a job.
I wouldn't dance.
[chuckles]
I was too bashful and I wouldn't dance,
but I worked the bar.
The lady that worked with me, she worked topless.
I wouldn't work topless, I was too embarrassed.
I had real long hair and these big glasses, you know.
And when I wear my hair in a ponytail,
the guys would say, "Wonder Woman, get me a beer."
[chuckles]
I knew the guy that managed the place.
His name was Ron Hollis.
We were into cars.
So it was easy to go up there
and sit and talk with an old buddy
and look at the pretty girls dancing and‐‐
And he goes, "Well, I need a bartender."
I thought, what the heck, I'm not doing anything else,
so I'll give it a shot.
I was already drinking a lot.
Started testing out other drugs and other things and‐‐
and it was a party atmosphere.
Our drug intake increased.
We were looking for ways to make money,
and they were asking me why I didn't dance,
and I said, "Oh I can't dance."
And they got me really drunk and threw me up on stage.
As long as I was drunk, it was fun.
[Luke] So did you enjoy working there?
Yeah, I had a blast, man.
[Luke] What was it like?
Fast.
Everything all the time.
[laughs]
Literally.
Everything all the time.
And there's a little business that opened up
with the brothers called Hermatic Workshop.
Unusual Things For The Head and Shed.
We custom catered to unusual things.
And your mom and Tigger both wanted tattoos.
You know, coming back then, it was illegal to tattoo.
So...
[Luke] Do you know how he got his name?
No. no, I just knew him as Tiny.
That's all I knew.
He goes, "What do you want?"
And I said, "I want a butterfly."
I thought‐‐ I don't‐‐
I don't know, probably at that time in my life,
I thought that was freedom or some happy‐ass bullshit.
You take your pencil, and you take your single needle,
and you take you some thread,
and you latch the needle to the pencil with the thread.
I'm just gonna put this out there,
that it was like a fucking a prison tattoo.
[Tiny] You take your ink and you dip that needle in it,
you come over to tattoo and you just...
Like this, one prick at a time.
By hand.
I went over that night, and it took him forever.
Until the whole tattoo is done.
And it hurt but‐‐
She held still real good.
If she would have... like this all over the place,
it would have took longer, but she's a little toughie, man.
I was so fucked up on downers, I'm sure downers and booze.
She hung right in there and didn't make no complaints
or scream or whine or‐‐
Then, "Okay, you'll have to come back tomorrow
to get the color put in it," you know.
Like, oh, yay, this is gonna even take longer.
But I did, I went back, had the color put in it.
We thought it was fucking great, you know, but, you know,
over the years as I looked at it, I went,
"Oh, geez, what the fuck was I doing?"
Do not put tattoos on place that when you gain weight‐‐
that it's gonna get fat, because that butterfly
has went like this over the years.
I mean, it's‐‐ it's fucked up.
I remember the first time Danny saw it.
He thought that I had a horrendous birthmark down there.
‐[Luke laughs] ‐[Kim chuckles]
But I mean, it got done and I‐‐ I don't know.
Who gave a shit, you know? Back then, who gave a shit.
That was my tattoo.
[country music plays]
[Luke] So tell me about your name.
‐About how I got my name? ‐[Luke] Uh‐huh.
[Tiny laughs]
Okay.
Uh, Angels Camp out in California,
when our club was adopted
by another club that was bigger than ours
and we was in the lake swimming naked
and I come out.
And my naked gets dribbled up inside my...
from the cold water.
And I got the name Tiny Peter.
Well, that went for about as long as I cared for it
to go about, and every time somebody said it, I'll...
I'll go for Tiny, but leave the Tiny Peter off.
It may be tiny, but I got a 250‐pound‐pile
driving ass behind it.
Just look how many name‐‐ these little girls
got my name tattooed on their ass.
[country music plays]
Those were the big, big nights.
Moneymakers for any club were the contest nights,
because the guys would get to come in
and they could see a whole variety
of new meat on stage.
We had the dance contest once a week,
and either Jeanne or Kim always won.
I mean, it was always one or the other.
"Come on, Janet, come on, you know, dance, dance."
And would go, "I don't know."
I'll go, "Well, I'll try."
So I got there and I put my outfit on and everything
and I'd start drinking.
I had to get loose before I could get up there.
[chuckles]
And so I got too loose
because when I got up there, I fell flat on my face.
Connie, Kim and Tigger were the judges
for the first male stripper contest on ladies night.
‐[Luke] How did you do? ‐I took second place
'cause I didn't take my underwear off.
Little winches.
I also pissed off all four of them.
And they're giggling, laughing,
thought they were just so fucking cute.
And then, motherfucker.
And the dude before me
really couldn't dance that well, you know.
I mean, he wouldn't do hand frame,
he wouldn't do handstands,
and he couldn't do splits, you know.
But he took his underwear off.
After that, I started taking my underwear off
and I never lost one for all them years.
And it was like a hundred dollars.
Well, back then, that was what, like a thousand dollars now.
A hundred dollars a pop or more. Not counting on‐‐
I got made more money in tips than winning the prizes.
So then we went back again, and I didn't drink as much then
and I danced completely then and I got a lot of tips.
It was lot of fun.
I was like, "Hey, I could handle this."
To me, it's about business at this point.
So dance contests, a business.
Going to the base, a business. It was all business to me.
They had one in Tulsa that paid like a thousand dollars.
So we took off to Tulsa.
Well, we got up there and still‐‐
I mean, I was still very young,
and pasties and bottoms were still what they were.
You know, you like to get there early
and kind of check out the competition
and see what's going on.
There was a girl that got up on that stage up there,
and it was like fast country and Western music.
And she had cowboy boots on, white cowboy hat, tassels,
and she had long blonde hair and she had big boobs.
She had it going on.
But I'm thinking, "Goddamn, really?
Fucking cowboy up there."
And then as music comes on and everything.
Then she starts, like, lifting her hands,
and her feet would go back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth,
and those tassels would do
anything that you could possibly want.
They could go straight up and down,
they could go from side to side.
It was...
fucking amazing watching her.
I was like looking at her
like she was some kind of goddamn genius.
I mean, really, for all intensive purposes,
she should have won.
She was the better.
I just thought it was really cool.
I thought it was cool.
I won the dance contest.
[applause]
You have to realize that I'd never been to Tulsa before.
I was younger than she was and, plus, I was nasty.
You still had to wear bottoms.
But if you got close enough to somebody
and you could grab the inner thigh of your...
and you can show them some actual skin
or something like that,
what is going to keep you from doing that if you're not shy?
Actually, when people kind of saw what I was doing,
they started bitching.
And the girls‐‐
The customers, hell, no, they ain't gonna bitch.
They like it, and I made‐‐ I was, like, grabbing money.
And I mean, I got my earnings and got the hell out of there,
and we almost got the shit beat out of us,
but I took my money and I left.
And I didn't go back up there again.
[laughs]
It's business.
That's what you call business.
Your mom in the day had really‐‐
She had long legs,
she was shapely and she had that‐‐
that bubbly personality that would‐‐
transcended in her dancing.
She was giggly and bubbly and effervescent
and game was a banty rooster for just about anything.
No fear, you know.
[chuckles]
If she couldn't handle it, she knew plenty of big motherfuckers
that all she had to do was holler, and they would help her.
She really would bounce on the stage.
The stage would bounce up and down.
It's supported by chains,
and you could see the stage was moving
because she was bouncing all over that stage.
I mean, there's an art to it. You couldn't‐‐
I mean, there were girls that would get up there
in the middle of the stage
and just stay in the middle of the stage
and do some kind of like little roundy round or whatever.
But I used that whole stage, you know.
Fuck, you got all those‐‐ That's money.
Back then, you have to remember
you were hustling for quarters for the jukebox.
That's what it took. Those jukeboxes took a quarter.
And so you'd walk around with your little paper cup
in between your dance numbers and stuff like that,
"Quarter for the jukebox, quarter for the jukebox."
‐Yeah. ‐Some of them requested
the same song over and over and over and over.
And I would get so tired of it.
They'd get paid on a Friday night
and they'd wanna hear
fucking old goddamn country and Western music, you know.
♪ Why do you roll smoke? ♪
And all that bullshit.
They liked all that 'cause they're a bunch
of fucking hee‐haws that come in.
That's when you could fucking make your money.
[Connie] What about my favorite one you did?
‐"Squeeze Box." ‐"Squeeze Box."
[Jeanne] Mama's got a squeeze box.
She turned me on when she danced to that.
Every time I hear that song, all I can see is‐‐
[Jeanne laughs]
All the local bands used to play at the Red Dog.
That was a steady account on Friday and Saturday night.
We'd pay, like, four hundred dollars a night.
That's 800 bucks, you know.
Paying everyone was easy.
Gotta love Otis.
[woman] He was so talented.
[Connie] He was so good.
[woman] Friendly and nice.
He was the best guitar player at the time that we'd ever seen.
[country music playing]
This thing doesn't play worth a shit.
I can remember music from the time
I was three or four years old being played in the house.
I remember a record player on the floor,
you couldn't step too hard or it'd skip around, you know.
And when they were gone or they'd leave,
I would gently get records out
and put them out and play in the records
that my parents listened to all the time.
Music is a part of human beings, of being human,
and my parents revered that.
I know, by the way,
they spent money only on records essentially.
And they didn't say it, right?
But in retrospect, there it is,
The carpet was 50 years old,
but the record player was brand‐new.
[Connie] She said, "Do you still remember those moves?"
And I said shit, yeah, every time that song comes on,
the whole routine goes through my head, I can't turn it off.
I see every move I'm supposed to be making
when I'm supposed to do it.
[Connie chuckles]
Forty years later.
[country music playing]
I got this grand idea.
You wanna hear? My God, it's called the Grand Idea.
I wanna make sure that you write, "The Grand Idea".
'Cause it's‐‐ it was so stupid.
‐It was. ‐[Luke laughs]
I was single, I was free, but I was 17.
But I move into this two‐bedroom garage apartment
with three guys living there.
They just thought that was the best fucking thing ever
is living with some girl that works at the fucking Red Dog,
and they were all college students.
And I could run shit off of them.
"What do you think about this? What do you think about that?
What do you think if a dancer does this?
What do you think about if a dancer does that?
One of them told me one time, "I saw a girl that shaved."
And I'm thinking, "Don't they all shave?"
You know, and he goes, "No, she shaved her pussy, Kim."
And I went, "Really?" And he said, "Yeah,"
He goes, "God, it looked great."
You know, and I got to thinking about it
and I thought, "Oh God, I just got hair."
[chuckling] You know, at 17 I thought,
"I finally got a full hair."
So I got to thinking about it and I thought,
"I bet that could be a money catcher,"
because bottoms had just come off.
And I thought, "What a money‐making machine."
[Luke] What do you mean the bottoms came off?
1976 to 1986, when total nudity was legal.
[Kim] Pasties and bottoms came off at the same time.
How ridiculous is that?
A lot of the girls just could not hardly do it.
I'm like, "Fucking, I'm into all this."
And the guys would call bugger. They called it bugger.
[chuckles]
What a terrible thing to say, but that's what it was.
They wanna see some bugger.
‐And I thought‐‐ ‐[Luke laughs]
Quit laughing.
I know you're laughing back there, fucking jackass.
[Luke laughs]
So I go to the bathroom the next morning
and I'm shaving my legs, getting ready for work
and I decide, "Okay, I'm going for it."
And I shave it.
And then I look at myself in the mirror and I realized,
"My God, what the fuck have I just done?"
Because then I looked like a 12‐year‐old.
That's all I could just look‐‐
I looked at my twat and I thought,
"It looks like I'm 12 years old.
[sighing] So I get to thinking and I got fuck this shit,
I get in the car and I run to,
I don't know, somewhere.
And I thought, what the hell can I do?
And I thought sequins.
I can make a sequin thing.
I probably bought twenty dollars
worth of different colored sequins
and painstaking took superglue and made like a strip
just so I felt like I had something on.
It was really funny 'cause I super glued them on,
and some of them stuck and some of them fell off
as the day ran on, and so it probably looked
like a tic‐tac‐toe board or some bullshit, I don't know.
By that time, I was probably fucked up.
And I "veejazzled" myself before they‐‐
before "veejazzling" or vajazzling
or whatever was in, I fucking did it.
‐[Luke laughing] ‐I fucking did it.
[country music plays]
You know, why did it have to be so demeaning?
It's like any other job‐‐ You know, maybe it isn't.
I don't know. I don't know.
You know, I don't know.
You know, to me, at the time it was.
It was nothing to be ashamed of.
It was nothing to be sorry about.
I really enjoyed dancing.
I didn't care if my clothes were on and off.
I just think‐‐ I'm still kind of I don't care.
If you don't like what you're looking at, walk away.
‐Yeah. ‐But I want respect.
The one thing that I think of is my grandmother,
who worked secretly under the table
without her husband knowing it
selling handkerchiefs
and whatever she could do,
and would tell the two kids,
"Don't tell your dad,
or I'm not gonna give you any of this money."
I can remember her putting a pair of culotte pants on
and dancing around a little bit of it
when my grandfather wasn't home and going,
"Oh, Kimberly, don't tell him."
My grandmother was a very, very proud, proud woman.
You know, I don't know that I'm really a feminist.
[Luke] Why did you shy away from that term? I'm just curious.
I don't know. 'Cause I think that I‐‐
I'm not really sure what‐‐
even really what that means or if it‐‐
all it encompasses,
you know, that you have to believe
in everything that they believe, you know.
I just‐‐ I'm who I am.
I'm who I am. I have my own beliefs.
I have trouble enough taking care of my own self,
I don't need to save the world.
It was drinking and drugging and partying.
You know, it couldn't have been 24/7,
but looking back, it seems like it was 24/7.
Sex, drugs, rock and roll.
I mean, that's just the way it was.
We'd get so many drugs as tips
that it got to be ridiculous.
It's like, "No, I don't want any more drugs."
I love Quaaludes.
Oh, God, I love Quaaludes. I love Peyote.
I love tripping. I never had a bad trip.
Well, don't get me wrong, I tried everything.
I really did. I mean, you know, you partied back then, you know.
[Connie] It was a whole lot of fun when I was doing it.
There was a whole lot of power in dancing.
But I can't imagine doing it sober.
I don't know if this is corny or not,
but we used to play the game as who's the first one to die.
Well, every time it was Kim's gone.
It was always me first.
I would try anything. I would try anything.
Why I ever did that, I don't know.
But, you know, I don't know that you stir up
heroin and speed in the same‐‐
And then, okay, well, put some little THC in it
and let's see what that does to her.
You know, I mean, for our all intensive purposes,
you know, probably‐‐
‐I've got to pee, sorry. ‐[Luke laughs]
My parents never drank or did drugs at all.
So, while they were kind of in that lifestyle,
they weren't‐‐ you know,
they weren't, like, party animals or anything.
They‐‐
You know, they enjoy fun things like everyone else,
you know, going to the lake or having nice things.
They had some‐‐ some wild parties at the house.
You know, of course, I was never there.
You know, we would go to stay with our grandparents.
The Halloween parties were always a big one.
And I would hear stories
about these Halloween parties for years.
I still hear stories about these Halloween parties
that were going on.
Well, I did a couple of those.
Only one that really got maybe a little out of hand but‐‐
I'm not ashamed of it, but, you know,
a lot of people talk about them being pretty wild.
Big, crazy, naked wild parties at the house,
you know, in the pool, in the hot tub.
Most of the all the girls would love to go.
I mean, they'd go, "Oh, yeah, pool party at Ray's?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."
Because, you know, he was‐‐ he was paying them
and they were meeting guys with money.
And...
That's all‐‐ that was all it was about, really.
We would go out. After the Red Dog closed down,
we would go to Sherlock's and we would dance there.
And it was like there was this competition
between Kim and I dancing at Sherlock's.
They were basically competitors with each other.
They both thought they were the queen of the Red Dog.
A lot of the girls wouldn't be talkative.
They would, "Do you need another drink?
Do you need a beer?"
Then they'd go on to the next table.
But your mom would carry on a conversation with them.
What I can remember is I had an old army shirt
that I'd cut sleeves off on and wearing a lot,
and that's what I remember her comment on.
I can't‐‐ I can't remember the comments,
but I remember that's what started the conversation.
He always wore the army thing that said "Dick" on it
and I thought it was kind of funny.
She wasn't the shyest.
She probably may have said, but she wasn't shy.
I didn't know whether it meant big dick or a little dick
or what kind of dick he was or I‐‐ I don't know.
We got‐‐ we'd go out and smoke a joint
and drive around or something like that around Overholser.
And we really became best buddies, you know,
and then we became lovers.
We just moved in together.
It was so quick, so fast, so...
I don't know what the fuck I was doing.
I was young, I was stupid and I was young.
I look back on it now and I think
it was all fucked up from the beginning.
He was fucked up.
I was fucked up.
Yeah, so we all‐‐ We used to get‐‐
We were using buddies.
We got to an extreme
at the very end of the relationship
just trying to hang on, I think.
He was a goddamn womanizer.
He fucked all my best friends.
He‐‐ he just fucked anybody.
She started staying at home a lot more
because she was pregnant and, you know,
and I'd missed not having her on the road with me.
And so I'd smoke an extra joint or drink an extra six pack
or whatever, you know, and then that'd escalate.
And they would feel bad for me and they'd come and say,
"I'm really sorry, but I fucked Charlie."
Uh, this is easy to tell you sitting here now 37 years later,
you know, but it was just trying to live, man, you know.
But one thing it went south for me, they went south.
We had you, and a couple of weeks later,
I got a phone call and said that,
"I'm in love with somebody else
and I'm not gonna be home anymore."
[Luke] My first memories of my biological dad,
he was living in Texas and he would come and get me
and take me to Texas for the weekend.
I would put you on the back of my motorcycle
in a little pouch, you know.
And you'd huddle down and hang on, you loved it.
And we'd come down highway 74 on that Suzuki that I traded for
and let's go visit your grandma.
And then I go back at the end of the day and pick you up,
high or not, and take you back the same way, you know.
I didn't think about high being a risk.
It's part of my life.
To have somebody who's not in your life on‐‐ on the daily,
then be such an authoritarian on the weekends
that they came to get you‐‐
Um, it was strange to me and I felt like I never‐‐
I didn't really know him. It was‐‐
I felt like it was this, you know,
kind of a dude picking me up.
It was very sad at the time,
but, you know, and fucking life goes on.
[country music plays]
And there's the story of that.
I've been a parent now for 17 years
and when I found out
that I was gonna have a kid, um...
I remember‐‐
I know exactly where I was at the time.
It was almost like vertigo or something, you know,
just your life starts switching around and you start reinventing
how your life was gonna go
and what it is to be a parent
and what it is to change a diaper and milk and food
and money and knowing that a kid is coming and not knowing
how to handle it, not knowing what you're gonna do.
And once Emily was there,
she was there and it was‐‐
She was such a perfect baby and‐‐
And you just figure it out, you know.
That's okay.
Just‐‐ just start squeezing a bunch of them off.
I stopped work once I was really showing.
I was probably five months
before I actually started showing good.
He was born three months premature.
And I'm sure it's because of all the partying,
drugs, alcohol, etcetera, that I did.
He slept at first in a boot box, because he was so small.
Seriously, in a boot box. That was his bed.
Eventually I got a bassinet,
but the rats were so bad in that apartment.
They were so bad.
I‐‐ I got the gun out‐‐ And just to see him breathe.
If you had the same problems with Josh, you know,
you watch him and watch that chest fall up and down.
We were using Dilaudid and heroin
and all this stuff that I couldn't kick.
Got pregnant during this time, didn't care,
did all that through the whole pregnancy,
had my son,
and he came out okay.
Coming from a place in my life where I didn't want any kids,
and I thought that I didn't want any kids
because I didn't wanna fuck them up.
I didn't want them to be fucked up like me.
And can I actually have children that are not fucked up like me?
You made this small little thing
and they managed to survive everything you did to them.
Every bad thing you threw at them,
they still survived.
And it was just‐‐ it was awesome to watch him.
‐Yeah. Yeah. ‐And I'm crying.
[both chuckle]
[sad music plays]
[Kim] I literally starved myself for, like, five months
and fucking went right back up there.
I had to do something.
My first actual memory of‐‐ of the Red Dog inside of it,
I was‐‐ I was really little.
Um, my mom took me up there
and she took me in and took me upstairs,
I'm staying around all these girls that were mostly naked.
I didn't know what to think of it
and I didn't really care too much
because I was a little kid.
She had to dance a couple of times and I stayed backstage
and the girls took care of me.
And I started being a little hand back there
and they were all loving me and giving me treats.
So that's, you know, that was‐‐
that's my earliest memory of the Red Dog.
I mean, our home life was pretty normal, really.
I mean, we were fairly well off at the time and, you know,
I feel like I always had everything that I wanted.
But I mean, really our home life
was completely separated from anything up here.
I don't know if I even knew it as the Red Dog.
We were just going‐‐ going to mom's work.
But I pretty much knew everybody there,
so it was a comfortable place and really felt like it was
a little bit of a playhouse or something
because I was granted
all the quarters that I wanted to,
to just go pump back into machines
and play Pac‐Man as long as I wanted to.
[Jason] If I would come in with my dad, they'd come over
and squeeze my cheeks and stuff and say,
"Oh, he's so cute," and all that, but I mean,
you know, I didn't‐‐
I wasn't interested at all and, you know,
I certainly didn't want them squeezing my cheeks or anything.
I just try to get away from them and go play some video games.
You know, when the first Pac‐Man machine came out,
I'd be over there on a bar stool at the Pac‐Man machine.
Give me a roll of quarters and I'd play Pac‐Man
until he was ready to go.
Later on, I thought that was kind of a‐‐
kind of a fucked up situation to bring your kids into and‐‐
and show them around and introduce them to, but‐‐
I mean, everybody gets raised differently
and some people still turn out all right, some people don't,
so you can't really blame your parents too much, right?
[chuckles]
And also I grew up going to church every Sunday too,
and we knew to not bring it up in church or anything.
You know, my family,
we never really saw anything wrong with any of it.
I mean, you know, I figure God‐‐ God made you that way,
could there be anything wrong with it, you know?
Just because you do what you do, doesn't make you a non‐believer.
I mean, they'd be putting their makeup on in the bathroom,
and every once in a while, you'd hear a shout out
of hallelujah every once in a while,
"Hallelujah, I hope this is a good day, baby."
You know, Jesus, help me make some money today.
So, what are you here for?
I was there to work.
Did I have a lot of friends out there?
Yes. Did I‐‐
You know, the friends were great.
But it was fucking money.
It was money, you know.
[Jeanne] I continued with the Red Dog
because the money was too darn good.
You're in the oil boom,
and it was nothing to have a thousand dollars a night.
My husband pretty much sold drugs back then.
That was his job.
I was dancing.
His job went to supply us with drugs and recreation.
So if we traveled anywhere, that his money was all for that.
Mine was strictly to pay bills.
Pay the rent, pay the bills, buy the groceries.
I mean, okay, I was married to two of the dancers.
And it's let's go up to the Red Dog
and see what's going on
because I mean, you know, that's your life.
That's your livelihood.
That's where you make your money
and you've got‐‐
Hell, I'm spending‐‐
I'm spending 12 hours a day in that damn thing,
seven days a week sometimes.
You're lucky to get a day off.
It's hard on a marriage.
It's definitely hard on a marriage.
[Luke laughs]
We used to just, you know, go party‐‐
we get off work and go partying together
and we do Tupperware parties together and, you know,
just all kinds of stuff.
Me and Jeanne lived together for a little while.
We had a really good time then.
Once in a while, we'd go to the male strippers
and, of course, we got acquainted to all of them.
And Thanksgiving, we had a big feast at the house
and a lot of guys come out there.
The strippers, you know.
And Jeanne's mom and dad was there and everybody.
I mean, the kids were there.
And we just invited the guys and we told them‐‐
I said, you know, 'cause a lot of them
didn't have families, you know.
They didn't have nothing to do or anywhere to go.
I even took my mother.
On her birthday, I took my mother
to one of the clubs where the guys were dancing.
And one of our best friends, he'd come over and I go,
"This is my mother." I said, "It's her birthday,"
I said, "Give it to her." And he goes, "Okay."
And he got over there and, man, he rubbed all over her.
She couldn't hardly keep her hands off of him.
She was‐‐ She was patting him and rubbing him and everything
and we was cracking up laughing.
She said that's the best birthday she ever had.
You don't always have to know what somebody cares about.
You don't always have to know what somebody's thinking.
You don't have to get into these deep‐thoughted bullshit
with these people.
It's about feeling of family
when all of us didn't have anybody.
We didn't have anybody else.
And so that becomes your family.
Check one, two.
♪ Says right here on my birthday certificate ♪
♪ Now twenty‐‐ ♪
This is killing me. This is fucking killing me.
[clears his throat]
Get it right.
[sniffles]
♪ It says it says right here on my birthday certificate ♪
♪ Now I'm 23 smack‐dab in the thick of it ♪
[Kim] Sometimes I get melancholy
when I drive around the lake because that was
such an intricate part of the Red Dog,
was driving around Lake Overholser and‐‐
and getting high and laughing
and thinking that we were forever young.
Obviously, you know, I‐‐ I can't do that
with so many of them anymore, you know, and I wished I could.
I really wished I could, because I‐‐ I miss them.
I do miss them.
But I don't miss them being fucked up, you know.
I don't miss them being fucked up.
And sadly enough to say,
the ones that I did get to be around in the end
were all fucked up.
[Luke] It felt like just one day
we lived with Ron Hollis.
That was her boyfriend
and the manager of the Red Dog.
I started dating Hollis
and, you know, from dating Hollis
then I moved in with Hollis.
[Luke] I remember going to live with him.
When we did, I was so excited.
And I remember asking him if‐‐ if I could call him dad.
And he said, "Yeah, you can call me dad."
When I first went to work at the Red Dog,
Ron hired me as a bartender and he wanted me to work days.
The first day I was there, he told me to go in and clean,
make sure the women's restroom was clean.
I loved the stalls up looking around,
everything looks okay
and then I start reading some of the graffiti on the wall.
And there's this one with a real big thick magic marker says,
"Ron Hollis is a good lay."
And so I come out‐‐ I come out of the bathroom
and I'm talking to Ron and I'm going,
"Hey, man, you got some advertising
on the wall in there."
He said, "What do you mean?"
And I said,
"Well somebody thinks you're a good lay."
And he goes, "Oh, I wrote that in there.
I wrote that in there, hell."
Yeah.
[chuckles]
And Ron was Tyson's godfather.
[laughing] I think he was godfather to our babies.
‐Probably. ‐When you think about it.
[Kim] He was, you know, a daddy to a lot of those kids up there
just for a male influence, whether it be good‐‐
I'm not saying it was the best in the world,
but he, to me,
was like a kindergarten teacher half the time.
He acted like a kindergartner half the time.
He might have been drunk.
[Connie] I don't think I ever saw him mad ever.
But he drank.
Morning to night non‐stop, always drinking.
He was a dad,
a brother, a friend,
a confidant.
A lot of things to me when I was young.
When you‐‐ when you're out of your house for that‐‐
at that early of an age,
you kind of latch on to somebody,
and I latched on to him.
[Luke] I remember when we lived at Ron's,
my mom would pick me up late at night,
oftentimes in the babysitter.
In the morning, she'd have the setup, right?
Which the milk was down low, light, you know.
If it was a full gallon, she'd pour out half of it.
They'd be Capri Suns, low,
and then Froot Loops in the cupboard.
And I would put the bowl on the floor
and pour Froot Loops in a bowl and then get my milk out,
and she would have the channel switched on to PBS
to where when I turned on the television
Mister Rogers or Sesame Street would come on
and I wouldn't have to wake them up to get,
you know, to get my shit going.
She could live a late‐night lifestyle
and not have to worry about me in the morning.
I could take care of myself for a good couple of hours
before she woke up and needed to get it together, you know.
Ron had this truck‐‐ What the fuck was that?
Yeah, it was a blue Blazer,
beat‐up blue Blazer that was raised up high.
It wasn't even‐‐ it wasn't normal.
The bucket seats were mismatched.
Everything was fucked up in it.
But I don't‐‐
There was something about that truck
that everybody loved.
The minute it got nice outside,
that fucking Blazer was busting out of there,
and we would go around the lake.
We went and picked up Rick one day before work and I said,
"I'll go up and get him."
That was my MO to go, "I'm gonna go get him,"
because I'd get a hit of dope before we left.
I don't think we'd gotten six blocks away from there
and it was just like the dope hit.
Both of us were just like...
boo, boo.
All of a sudden, Rick just falls over,
and the boots just came straight up.
I mean, it was just, like,
I was getting a buzz off of the dope and I thought,
"Okay, he just got‐‐ he took a bigger shot than me.
It's his dope, he just probably took
a little bit more than I did."
The minute that I looked at his face,
I knew something was wrong.
And I'm going, "Rick, Rick, what the fuck?
Come on. Come on, buddy. What's going on?"
And I'm thinking, "That son of a bitch is fucking OD‐ing."
And I'm like trying to fucking lift him up,
and every time I lift him up, his legs go up.
I mean, it was just‐‐ It was so weird.
Ron fucking drives up next to this goddamn dumpster,
and I turn around and I look I say, "What are you doing?"
And he goes, "If the motherfucker's dying,
we're throwing him in the goddamn dumpster."
I said, "What?
Throw him in the fucking dumpster?"
And he goes, "I ain't gonna have‐‐
What are we supposed to do, roll him out at the lake?"
I said, "He's still fucking breathing, come on."
You know, he's fucking warm.
I knew something was wrong and I‐‐
And he was slobbering at that point, you know.
And I rolled him over on his side
and he was saying something.
Finally, got enough at. "In my pocket, in my pocket."
Well, he had some pills in there.
Well, I didn't know, and Ron didn't know,
and nobody knew that Rick was an epileptic.
That's all it was, was an episode.
‐[Luke] What did you do? ‐[Kim] Got him sat up,
and you could see his eyes kind of start trying to focus
and shit like that.
And Rick told him, "You, son of a bitch,
I heard you say he's gonna fucking throw me
in a goddamn dumpster."
Yeah, like it's business as usual after that.
What are you gonna do?
take him to the fucking hospital?
Fuck no, he's goddamn high.
You know, and he knew he was.
Hell, he was ready to fucking get some more
and, you know, let's smoke a joint now
and roll on, you know.
We got to work and told a couple of people and went, "Whoa!"
[laughs]
"What the fuck do you do?"
[country music playing]
[Luke] I think I was 14 and, I don't know,
I was digging around in my mom's car for something
and I found a little film case
and there was some weed in there.
And I thought,
"I should probably smoke this."
And, Lord knows why,
inhaled it and then realized
that I was super fucking stoned
and I'd never been really stoned before.
My mom calls me in for dinner
and I sit at the table and I keep looking down
between my legs, 'cause I‐‐
it feels like I'm pissing my pants.
[chuckles]
"Do you think I'm pissing my pants?"
And it doesn't look like I've pissed my pants,
but I just kept touching to verify.
I had not yet pissed my pants.
And anyway, it just sort of blew through dinner
and Mom's like, "Are you okay?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, I just not‐‐
just not feeling well, Mom."
Years later, I was talking to my mom about that
and she was like, "Oh, yeah,
that was Cathy's hydroponic weed.
That's the shit that they used to grow.
And she's like, "Yeah, that stuff's real,
blow your head off," you know.
[chuckles]
Cathy's weed.
Do you happen to remember my mom's nickname for your mom?
‐No, [inaudible]. ‐[Luke] Just Nasty Cathy?
Nasty Cat‐‐ Yeah, that sounds about right.
[chuckles]
I was almost shocked at what she did.
‐But I thought‐‐ ‐[Luke] Can you tell me?
No, no, I can't, because I just can't.
I just don't think it would be right.
But henceforth, "Nasty Cathy" I called her, and she giggled.
She giggled and giggled and giggled about that.
We had a lot of fun,
a lot of tears, a lot of laughter.
She was with me through a lot of shit.
I was with her through a lot of shit.
You know, I'm‐‐ I'm glad that she was in my life.
[Russell] Eddie's my stepdad. Uh...
He came in my life because my mom liked to date a dealer.
When she married Eddie, you know,
it gave Cathy more money,
you know, and Cathy didn't have to work anymore
and Cathy could smoke as much pot.
Of course she always smoked.
And that was okay, I didn't care.
Before we had to move in together,
they had to introduce me to it because that's what‐‐
you know, that's what Eddie did for a living, was he grew weed,
you know, copious amounts of weed.
And my mom was like, "You need to go with him
and listen to what he's saying." And he's like,
"We can't tell anybody that would do this.
We can't let anybody know that this is going on."
He's like, "But I want to show you this."
He opened the door
and took me down I was like, "What are these?"
He's like, "Well, we're growing these plants,"
and he's like, "I want you to look at these
and see each one of these little leaves?
Look at those like they're $50 bills."
And that's‐‐ I took off with it, you know.
I was huge on math when I was kid.
So Eddie was always, you know, high, so he'd be like,
"Here, do the math on this."
So that was‐‐ you know, that was, I guess, it made me
feel important to the family to be needed for stuff like that.
I had friends that I talked to at the school,
but I couldn't go stay the night at their house
and hang out with them because, you know,
if you go stay a night at their house,
they're supposed to come and stay a night at your house.
They can't stay the night at our house.
I can't explain to them why there's odd lights
coming out of the door,
why there's this hum through the wall,
all the, you know, ballasts for the lights
and everything like that, you know.
I mean, it was a hydroponic house,
probably glowed in the dark.
That's why I was at your place so often,
was because you guys were about the only friends
that I was allowed to have, you know.
[Kim] I told Russell, I said,
"Why don't you come out and live with me?"
And bless his heart, he grinned at me
and thought about it for a second and he said,
"Kim, I love you," but he said,
"You're way too strict."
I remember one time we lived over on the south side
over off of 12th and Villa,
and my mom and her guy
got in a fight over some pills that went missing.
And they got an actual physical fight
out in the front yard, so I ran through and, you know,
I was real little, I was in third grade or fourth grade
and I tried to jump the guy like I was He‐Man
and that didn't work out too well for me.
He just picked me up and threw me about 40 feet
across the lawn, you know.
I started bawling my eyes out 'cause I didn't know what to do.
So I ran inside and I came back out with a knife
and I tried to cut him, but, you know,
still I was just a little kid.
I didn't know what else to do, you know.
And that's, you know‐‐ that's, you know,
one of my fun Mom stories.
[chuckles]
Don't get me wrong, me and Cathy clashed terribly,
especially after we had kids.
Not so much we loved it when we didn't,
but when the minute that we had kids,
then we clashed.
[Russell] The day that all that shit
went down where I called the cops on him,
was we were sitting around and he'd heated up some pizza,
and they'd walked in the front room
and he was so fucked up on something
that he thought I'd eaten his pizza
and he pulled the gun on me.
And, you know, he pulled a gun on my mom a couple of times,
he pulled a gun on my dad, you know,
he beat my mom a couple of times
and he beat my ass a couple of times
and I was just done with it, you know.
I told my mom, you know,
"Look, either you leave him or I'm gonna do something."
And my mom was like, "Well, you can get
the fuck out of our life."
Eddie threw all of his shit on the lawn,
and Russell came back and saw all of his clothes,
everything laying out on the lawn.
And he packed it up and drove to town
and turned him in.
And Cathy never got over it.
I mean, they ended up in jail.
You know, they went in there and had a bunch of pot plants
and guns and shit like that.
And they ended up locking them up and...
Cathy and Russell never spoke again.
[Russell] I regret it because that was the last time
that I ever really talked to my mom, you know.
We never‐‐ we never talked again after that pretty much.
I mean, I saw her at my grandpa's funeral,
but we didn't say two words to each other.
I mean, it didn't change anything
in their lives, you know.
They still stayed together, they still‐‐
They get fucked up together, but that's, you know,
that's kind of how it went down.
You know, I‐‐ I just‐‐ I had enough.
It was hurtful to me because I just thought Cathy could have,
you know, gotten over it,
you know, but Cathy just, you know,
"The little son of a bitch turned me in, and fuck him."
You know, and I said, "One of these days,
what if he gets married and has kids?"
"Fuck him."
She couldn't get over it.
She just finally told me,
"Quit talking about it."
And so I finally just‐‐ you know,
It wasn't endearing me to her, I'll put it that way.
[sad music plays]
[country music plays]
Dominant society is,
you better put your seatbelts on,
you better put your helmet on,
you better get your saved up Twinkies over here
and you better do this, you better do that.
The dominant society.
Now, the dominant society, and there's us.
To live outside the law, you must truly be an honest man.
Now you think about that for a few minutes.
Outside the law, we don't have courts and judges.
We actually feed you to the fucking hogs.
No simple dude.
Hendrix says it very well in six‐‐
in a song called "If 6 Were 9."
"I'm the one that's got to die
when it comes time for me to die,
so let me live my life the way I want to."
I'd usually give him the benefit of the doubt once
because I would think they had a little too much to drink,
which is okay. That's where‐‐
It's a bar, it's a bar, I got it.
I was always happy for all those girls to take out of there
as much money as they could.
They all worked hard.
There was a girl that got up there,
and she wasn't the smartest crayon in the box,
but she was there to make money.
And these guys were really hollering at her
and yelling at her and everything and‐‐
and he tells her squat on down here
and she squats on down there
and he goes, "Hey baby,
your pussy looks like a fucking taco."
But Lorna did like this.
And I said, "What the fuck did you say to her?"
"I told her, her pussy looked like a taco, bitch."
I said, "I don't think that was a good thing to say to her."
"Well, what‐‐ what do you mean?
What the fuck are you gonna do to me?"
I just picked up the stick,
walked back over there
and I laid about that much of it down.
I said, "What‐‐ What did you say again?"
"You heard what I said."
And I just pulled it back
and just fucking plunged it as hard as I fucking could
and hit him square in the mouth.
Teeth flew, bloody.
Immediately, they started coming over the bar at me,
you know, I got beat up a little bit, I didn't care.
I didn't care.
People don't talk like that.
People don't say shit like that.
I'd give him one pass and then I would go alert a bouncer.
You know, that was your mom, you know.
Tell them once, Tiny, you know.
Back when I was a little bitty kid
in Torrance, California,
I'd get beat up for my lunch money
by a gang of little kids,
and my dad showed me how to stick an axe handle
up the sleeve of my jacket.
And the next time when the kids
come to take my lunch money, just clock them.
Don't talk, don't push back and forth.
If they come up, "Give me your lunch money,"
drop that down your hand and start beating them with it.
And that's what I did.
And that's what I've been doing ever since.
I will not stand there and talk shit with you.
I will not fuck with a drunk.
I will just take you out.
I'm a Nam vet.
[chuckling] I've killed more people
than you motherfuckers can probably even think of
by the time I was 19 years old.
You know, it literally bothers me to punch you in the mouth
'cause you're an idiot.
I don't think so. Yeah.
The Red Dog always had a lot of people in it.
And we could always go in there
and expect to find at least one or two people
who were drunk and causing problems.
And because of the number of people
who were going into the Red Dog,
we never went with just a single car.
We always went in with two or three police cars.
[Randy] We had a fight break out within a minute or two
when the place was getting ready to close,
and I locked my arms under his shoulders
and raise it up with him.
And when I picked him up,
he wheeled around and took a knife
and come across my arm right here
and laid me open pretty good.
When you closed at night,
you've got two bars with sometimes
as much as $7,000 or 8,000 in cash.
And you have to take it out of the bar into your car
and drive somewhere to deposit it,
and I usually carried a pistol.
I just think, you know, you live by the sword,
you're gonna fucking die by the sword.
Now, do you‐‐ How‐‐ How fast you wanna wave that fucking sword?
Or do you wanna throw it away and fucking straighten up?
And I straightened up.
[Luke] So what made you leave the lifestyle?
I got tired of the bullshit, man.
[chuckles]
Yeah, I got tired of it, man.
I got her, I got the kid
and I didn't wanna spend time in prison again,
be away from her and the kid.
Time for a change, so I changed.
Two weeks after I had Josh, I got busted
and put in jail for 24 hours, which did not‐‐ I did not like.
When I got busted, I had to throw a bunch of drugs away.
We heard them coming up the stairs.
So I ran in the bath‐‐ We just got drugs.
So I ran in the bathroom
and dumped them all on the toilet and flushed them.
Well, we still owed all that money.
Um...
So they were looking for us. The bikers were looking for us.
And I just got scared and tired
and thought I can't raise a kid in this and‐‐
and left Kevin and moved in with my mom.
So I lived with her about six months
before I went into treat‐‐ and then I went into treatment.
And then got out of treatment,
divorced Kevin and didn't look back.
They had a bachelor party there one night.
These guys got me down and wouldn't let me go
and they hurt me.
And after they finally let me go,
I said this ain't‐‐ this ain't worth it.
I said I didn't come down here to work just to get, you know,
messed up and stuff like that.
I said, "I came to make the money
'cause I need the money"
and I said, "I don't deserve to be treated this way."
And I left and I didn't come back.
Once people started leaving the Red Dog,
we kind of went our separate ways.
And I kind of lost track
because the last time I'd gone to Connie and Kevin's house,
when I walked in, they were both sitting on the couch
and they had just shot up with Dilaudid
and they were really out of it.
I was psycho getting sober.
I was‐‐ I didn't know how to live normal.
'Cause I had been chemically enhanced since I was 16.
So I didn't have a clue.
I stayed in contact with some of them
for maybe a year after I got sober,
but then it just, you know, you just‐‐
you leave all those friends behind when you get sober.
You have to, to‐‐ you have to completely break away
from that to break away from that.
My first job at 16 was a counter work at Braum's.
My first job when I got sober was counter work at Braum's.
[chuckles]
And minimum wage.
So I went from some days, some weeks,
some months,
we had thousands of dollars and we were‐‐
Let's go to Mardi Gras and get‐‐
get up and go to the airport and go to Mardi Gras.
But I went from that to minimum wage, a lot of debt,
living at my mother's house with a six‐month‐old baby.
Yeah, it was drastic.
[chuckles]
Drastic.
It was hard, it was real hard.
And no, I didn't enjoy it, because it was hard.
I didn't get to really enjoy my kids growing up.
‐So... ‐[Luke] You were working?
Mm‐Hm.
[Luke] Mom had dated Randy and, apparently,
we had lived with him before we lived with Ron.
But both Randy and Ron worked at the Red Dog,
and Randy came in and was talking to her,
and Ron got pissed off.
Ron got jealous about this.
Wrong night, wrong time.
This became a thing.
Ron was sitting on the toilet.
He always sat on the toilet back there
with the fucking door open, taking a shit.
I mean, that was just‐‐ We called him Runny Ronny.
He drank so much tequila,
he had the shits constantly, you know.
And he was drunk. He was drunk. And I knew he was drunk.
He could have such a lovely laughter about him
that I would love‐‐
I could love him so much,
but I could hate him so much.
And he said, "You know what?" "He said,"
"You need to quit talk‐‐
I don't want you to talk to him anymore,
You're never gonna be anything but mine,
you're never gonna be anything but a drunk,
you'll be here until you can go no more.
And I...
thought that was a really fucked up thing
to say to somebody.
And he got up,
and here's that big pile of fucking shit in the toilet
and the keys were lobbed right in there.
And I said, "Go fishing."
And...
I got the sluggy sluggo in the face of my life
and I said goodbye and I‐‐
[Luke] What did he do to you?
He slugged me in the face.
Because I lobbed his keys in the toilet.
With a bunch of shit in the toilet.
And I said, "Fuck you, goodbye. That'll be the last time."
So I walked out of the backdoor, and Randy was sitting there
and he looked at me and he knew
by the looks in my face that I just been‐‐
He said, "You need to get out of here right now
for a little while, come on, I'll take you for a ride."
The next morning, I went and picked you up
at the babysitter's house.
I went over to Ron's house,
got your crap, my crap, we cleaned it out and‐‐
I just remember he gets up and says something to my mom
and I'm like, "Hey, Dad,"
you know, I'm sort of oblivious to whatever is happening
between them, I don't even understand.
And I just remember saying, "Hey, Dad."
And‐‐ and I still remember him saying,
"Don't call me dad."
And I just remember, like, being utterly shocked.
I didn't know, you know, what‐‐ why would he say that.
[Kim] Within a week, Randy said what we're gonna do
is we're gonna get married.
And I said, I don't love you.
And he goes, "You're gonna learn to love me. It'll be all right."
I'll get you out of here.
You need to‐‐ you need to quit and get out of this life."
[Luke] So it was like this immediate transition, you know,
but it was another thing where can I call you dad,
you know, and he said, "Sure."
And then he was Dad.
But I was happy, you know.
I mean, it was somebody else who seemed‐‐
who seem solid, you know.
And I had a brother.
[Randy] Jeanne had actual legal custody of him,
but he lived with me
and it was about the time
that you and your mother and I got together.
Yeah, you loved it.
I mean, you instantly had an older brother,
and you and Ty got along great.
I was so fucking excited to have a brother, you know.
I remember sharing bunk beds together,
and we had this train track and we had, uh...
We did brother stuff together.
You know, Dad would take us fishing.
And I don't know how long that carried on
until just one day he was gone.
And mom said he wasn't coming back, you know.
And now I don't get to have a brother, you know.
And I never really knew why,
and I don't know how you fucking erase that as a kid.
Like, asked the question every day,
"Where's Ty? What happened to Ty?"
I'd quit the Red Dog
and I went in to take money in one day.
David had stayed there at the house with the kids.
When I came back, David and Nakia
were on the couch.
Tyson was nowhere around.
I ask him where Tyson was, he said he's out there
playing around the tree house.
Went outside, no Tyson. I went everywhere.
And this is out in the country.
And I couldn't find Tyson anywhere.
I ended up calling the police.
And we had dogs, helicopters,
all of that out there looking.
And then they found out that David was not the father,
he was the boyfriend.
In my opinion, he probably thought the same of me,
but in my opinion, he was a lowlife son of a bitch,
and I didn't want my children around him.
She wouldn't let me see the kids,
she wouldn't tell me anything.
So I started following.
And I pulled up one day
and Tyson's running down the road in his underwear
and he goes, "Daddy, Daddy."
And he got in the truck with me and I took him home.
Well, this was on a weekend, and I was working
in some little town up in Kansas.
So they call Randy's mom and dad.
I just begged, begged, begged her,
"Please, if he has him, fine, fine,
just let me know that he's okay, that he's safe."
And she, eventually, did give in and say,
"Yes, Randy did steal him."
I got up one morning, and Eldorado Police
was setting in the motel parking lot.
So anyway, I called my boss at work
and I said, "Gotta quit,
police is up here looking for me and I'm gonna‐‐
I'm going to New Mexico."
I just stayed on the lam for a while.
Randy would just move from town to town to town to town,
and you would have to ask him exactly where all he went.
[Luke] What did you and Ty do when you're out in New Mexico?
What was your life like?
Oh, we'd run around and look at Gila monsters
and whatever, you know,
we'd run around and...
I don't know, it was‐‐ it's just‐‐
It's the good old days, you know.
Everybody was pretty carefree
and they're easy going and it was‐‐ it was fun.
I would sit and watch Randy's friends' places
hoping to get a glimpse.
And I did actually get in contact with Randy one time,
and he said he would meet me at Crossroads Mall,
and we would talk about the whole situation.
And he brought Tyson with him.
Oh, man, whoa, what a relief to finally see
my firstborn child.
After all this time,
he still remembered me.
He came running to me,
and I agreed to let Tyson continue to live with Randy
as long as he didn't take off with him again,
because he told me if I tried to take him back,
even though I had full custody by that time,
I had filed for divorce, had received full custody,
that he would just take him again and maybe Nakia, too,
and I would never see either one of them again.
I don't know, I‐‐ I don't know exactly how you could say...
anything that makes sense of that
when you think back on it, but, uh...
And it was during that timeframe
that he and your mom got together.
Jeanne didn't want Tyson around Kim,
and I don't know why.
Your mom and Randy had gotten into a knife fight.
It's, like, something I just‐‐
[chuckles]
It's so...
far away from my life
and what I ever want my relationships to be.
[chuckles]
I can't help but just laugh about it,
I guess, you know.
Your mother was drinking Southern Comfort.
I was drinking Southern Comfort doing the old Janis Joplin deal
and we all got really, really wasted
and we got back to the house.
I don't even know what we were fighting about.
I don't remember what we were fighting about.
But he said something to me,
and I took a knife and pulled it on him.
I reached out and grabbed a hold of the knife and turned it.
He grabbed it the backwards way out of my hand.
Her hand went across the blade, well, it light her hand up
and from all the way across the palm of her hand
to the tip of her finger.
As I remember, it was pretty bloody.
I ended up at the hospital getting a bunch of stitches,
you know, and‐‐ and I got what I got.
If you can't even pull a knife right on somebody,
then you ought not be pulling it, you know?
I shouldn't have‐‐ shouldn't have done it.
I learned right then I'm not good with knives.
[laughs]
Your mom and Randy had gotten in that knife fight.
When I walked in to get Tyson that time, though,
there was a guy sitting in the chair, and he asked me
if I had an extra needle on me.
I'm here to pick up my child.
Go into the bedroom, you're in the bedroom,
you guys have been playing with the little Matchbox cars.
And you acted kind of sad.
But he‐‐ you told him, "I'll see you later."
I remember just not knowing where he went.
Um, and then,
honestly, I never saw him again until I was 12 years old
and never really knowing what that story was.
Kind of fucking nervous.
[chuckles]
Hello, brother that I haven't talked to in 25 years,
I like to ask you some stuff about...
[clears his throat]
...both of our mothers and our father.
[sniffles]
Um...
I guess we're gonna do this.
[dial tone]
[distorted voice on the phone]
[Tyson] My memories really start kicking in
is when my mom got me back.
Uh, and I just remember knowing that it was my mom.
Like, I remember just‐‐
I don't know why, I just‐‐ I knew that it was my mom.
I remember crying, I remember her crying, and she‐‐
She‐‐ you know, she ran over to me and she picked me up
and I remember being just so happy.
Uh...
[Luke] Man, I really enjoyed this.
I just‐‐ I would love to connect back.
I don't know if it's in Florida, I don't know if it's in Oklahoma
or Nashville or‐‐
or the West Coast or something like that,
but, man, it would be cool to hang out a little bit.
[Tyson] Yeah, all right. I agree 100%.
That'd be awesome.
[Luke] Did you feel like you buried the hatchet somehow?
Oh, yeah, Randy and I have buried the hatchet
many years ago.
He's been‐‐ he's been a good man.
He's always been a good man.
[Randy] I don't know, I've always felt
like I've been a pretty well solid down‐to‐earth guy
that came home every night after work
and did what I was supposed to do
as a husband and a father.
[Jeanne] I always did love Randy.
But did you ever go out there
when he‐‐ he had the car door
that he used to shut the dryer door
to hold the dryer door?
Okay. Okay.
My point being, all these years,
and he'd still do something like that
instead of fixing the dryer door.
[Luke] When Tyson disappeared,
shortly after that, we moved out to the country.
And so there was a really just a huge shift in our lifestyle.
I mean, it was actually kind of rough at first.
There was, like, no water out there
for I don't know how long,
I mean, like, maybe half a year or something.
We'd have to cart water in.
I wanted to get her away from her old friends
that she ran with
'cause she would get out of control.
[Luke] My life growing up
was nothing like the inside of the Red Dog.
There were wheat fields,
and dirt patches,
and red rock cliffs, and baseball, and football,
and no nude dancing allowed.
Half the churches where I grew up
didn't allow dancing.
I mean, it's not like we moved a hundred miles away.
We're only 40 miles from Oklahoma City.
But you find out when you live 40 miles from somebody
who your friends are.
I don't know if I saw it then, but I felt it, you know,
that he's making a home‐‐ This is dad, he's doing this,
he's going to work, he's‐‐
You know, he comes home, and then he watches TV
and I watch TV with him.
I remember watching Wild America with him.
We used to, like, to watch nature shows together.
[Randy] I wanted you to mind,
I wanted you to tell me the truth
and I wanted you to excel at whatever you tried to do.
And I was there to help you.
Those were my goals as a parent.
[Kim] When kids are involved,
when you have kids and kids are involved,
that's what makes you start thinking.
Okay, should I be doing this?
Should I be doing this? Should I be doing this?
When kids are involved, it all changes.
I think everybody can agree with that.
I thought I will make a way,
I will make a way.
It may not be‐‐
[chuckling] I may not get an A‐plus for this,
I might not even get a B,
but I thought if I can just get a C,
if I can get an average, you know.
And I felt like I got an average.
[Luke] Mom always said Randy saved her life,
and I think there's something to it.
Truth be told, he probably saved mine too.
[Kim] Me and Randy have known each other for fucking 40 years,
and we had been great friends.
We were just different people.
I think I broke his heart.
[Randy] Uh...
I don't know, I think we were good for each other at first.
[Luke] Right.
[Kim] I thought, "Okay, where is some kind of happiness
and some kind of a medium
of being with somebody and having a life?"
And that was not a life for me.
And I went on a vacation.
My yearly vacation with Nasty Cathy
where we'd go camping or do something.
And me and Cathy were extremely drunk.
That was part of the weekend, was building fires
and getting drunk and eating barbecued Vienna sausages.
They're pretty simplistic goals, but that's what our goal was.
And...
You know, "Oh, hey,"
you know, "Hey, you girls," and blah, blah, blah.
And, you know, you're on a camping trip,
you're not gonna be talking about deep crap
or anything like that, but, you know, he goes,
"I wrestled when I was in high school,"
and blah, blah, blah, you know.
And Cathy said, "I bet‐‐ You know how to leg wrestle?
'Cause I bet the bitch can beat your ass."
And he says, "She can't."
Cathy goes, "Yeah, I got‐‐
I'll put money on her right now."
Well, it was dirt, was dirt out in there,
which neither one of us gave a shit.
He said, "I'll do it."
So we got down in the dirt and did leg wrestling.
And when he hooked up with me, he‐‐ I sent him flying off
into the woods.
And he went, "What the fuck was that?"
Well, I had leg wrestled bouncers in the Red Dog,
I had leg wrestled with my brothers,
I had leg wrestled all my life.
You know, after we leg wrestled,
we decided that it was probably time for sex.
[chuckles]
In the end, it's turned out,
you know, I wouldn't have it any other way.
You guys, you know, love him, and he loves you and‐‐
And I mean, you know, and it's been 20 plus years now,
going on 25, and I've never been so happy.
Fuck you.
[chuckles]
[Luke] You know, a lot of the Red Dog people
just sort of fell away.
The one person that remained constant
in my mom's life was Nasty Cathy and...
They always just seemed to be there
for each other, you know,
through relationships and divorces.
And I don't know why, you know, I can't tell you,
you can't‐‐ it's hard to be on the inside of a friendship.
We'd do a lake run once a month.
We loved to drive around Lake Overholser together.
We'd crack a tallboy, drink teraund.
Everybody that had passed,
we would toast to all the dead people
and talk about all the funny stories
that happened around Lake Overholser.
She stopped coming.
Something's wrong.
And when I went and saw her,
she was remarkably 20 pounds thinner and looked terrible.
Eddie just let her drink herself to death, you know.
He didn't do anything to stop her and she started‐‐
So, I guess she hid from your mom, you know.
She wouldn't hang out with your mom anymore,
and that was her best friend.
So, I don't know, I think that was kind of‐‐
Kind of what ruined the end of her life.
I don't know.
Me and Cathy had talked about life and death
for both of us.
We planned our old age 30 years ago,
that we were gonna move into the apartment by the lake
and sit out there on the veranda with cocktails and laugh.
That was gonna be the end of our life was living together.
And I took one look at her and knew it was imminent
and I pretty much pushed your mom out of the way
and said I need to talk to her for a minute
and gave her a kiss on her lips,
a big old wet sloppy ass kiss,
and told her that I loved her and told her,
"You go on and fly across that fucking lake.
Go, go, goodbye, I'll see you on the other side."
And got in the car, and got home.
And by the time I got home,
Eddie called me and said she was gone.
So, she got to go.
She got to make the trip across the fucking lake.
She's still there somewhere flying around that fucking lake.
[wind chimes tinkling]
We should go back and‐‐ and just try to reconnect
here again after everything that happened, you know?
I mean, I'd like to sit down and have a conversation
like this with my mom, you know,
tell her all the things that I loved that she did as,
you know, when I was a kid and all the things that I hated.
You know, I'd like to be honest with her about it again,
let her know.
You know, she's my mom and I do love her and I miss her.
You know, it'd be nice to tell her
that she didn't do such a bad job, you know.
I came out pretty decent, you know.
The next week, I bought a bunch of helium balloons
because he wasn't gonna bury her,
and I just went bought a bunch of helium balloons
and took him out to the lake
and had my own damn memorial service for her
and sat and watched the balloons go across the lake.
And played music for us.
Said, "There you go. Go girl, go."
[Luke] Do you remember the song that you played?
Do you remember the song that you played?
Yeah.
I do.
She always liked‐‐
This is so silly, 'cause it was‐‐
She always liked "My Maria."
She just loved that song.
We'd get in her car.
♪ Maria, Maria ♪
And we don't‐‐
We didn't even know anybody named Maria.
But...
I was always trying to turn her on to new music.
She didn't‐‐ She never liked it.
She'd go, "No, no, no."
She didn't like new music.
["My Maria" by B. W. Stevenson playing]
[Luke] My mom finally went back to school
after I was out of high school.
[Kim] I thought I can't just go to a GED school
and just take a test and pass it.
I knew I couldn't pass it.
So I went to an adult class.
Dug my heels in, I'd grab a beer on the way home
and cry and study and think,
"I'm not gonna get it, I'm not gonna get it,
I'm not gonna get it"
and after six months,
I went and took the test and passed it.
And you would have thought that I was a PhD.
You know, it was hard, but I got it.
I got it.
I'm an adult going back to high school.
[chuckles]
I've got two kids.
I'm working, but I got that GED,
and I went on and I got my bachelor's degree.
I wanted more out of life.
I wanted a home and, you know, a vehicle
and I wanted money put back and, you know,
I wanted a place at the lake
and just more, you know, so I worked hard for it.
[Luke] So now what's your life like?
Easy.
[laughs]
[Connie] When I got out of treatment
and I filed divorce papers,
divorce date, he wasn't ready to quit.
I knew I couldn't be with him and not do anything.
He got sober about two years later.
Was still around because of our son.
And then he wanted to go to a concert
and wanted me to go with him
because it's safer to go with somebody else that's sober.
That was his excuse.
I said, you know, I'm not the same girl I was.
You may not like me now.
I told him everything's gonna be different this time.
This time we're not going to the courthouse.
This time you're gonna get down on your knee
and you're gonna propose
and you're gonna get me a diamond
and we're gonna get married in the church.
And it‐‐ and he did it all.
He did it all, and it was different, so...
We've been together since 1974.
March of 1974 is when we first got together.
So we had an eight‐year split in the‐‐ in there somewhere.
‐[Luke] You enjoyed your life? ‐Oh, yeah. I won.
As far as I am concerned, I won. As far she's concerned, I won.
I had about...
all total back to back, day after day,
seven years setback
without a‐‐
67 years with a seven‐year setback,
I won. Look around.
[Ray] I don't know, I'm pretty proud of the whole thing.
I have lot of things I could have done better.
Some things I might have changed
that I don't really know right now.
Just got to go day to day trying to do your best, I guess.
[Tiny] Regrets?
Yeah, I got caught.
They got my mug, my fingerprints
and my name and my aliases
and my picture in gang books
and mug shots in prisons.
You know, I am no longer an illusion.
They know who I am.
I never cheated on any wife, and I am sorry to say‐‐
I really I'm sorry I didn't,
because they were all cheating on me.
I passed up some opportunities that I still kick myself
in the ass to this day I passed it up.
I shouldn't have done it.
But what do‐‐ you know‐‐
I've got great memories from back then, you know.
I may have been drinking and drugging and stuff
and I've got some really bad memories from them,
but I've got really good memories,
and they were good friends.
You know, we had our backs no matter what
and that's‐‐ that's good memories.
[country music plays]
[Luke] My parents were coming out.
They had a flight out on Sunday morning, I think.
I said, "Hey y'all.
Eric's playing Saturday night while you're here."
Mom was like, "Oh, we're flying out early."
"No big deal,
just 25,000 people
singing a song that I wrote.
You know, you guys probably need to get to your flight."
And Danny texted back, he goes,
"I'll go. I wanna go. I wanna go."
And so when they started playing "Kill a Word,"
one of my songs, you know, the crowd was singing
and holding up their phones like lighters and stuff
and I looked and this tears coming down his face,
you know, he's so proud.
I don't know, you know, you feel good, you know,
to be able to have your parents be proud of you
and see you through all that shit, you know,
um, see through being a dumb kid,
see through a million failures,
see through having kids help you raise your kids,
and then to actually be able to have, you know,
just a little lick of success in the world
and not fuck up too bad, you know.
It was really, you know, special.
[Kim] It was crazy back then.
Am I sorry for it?
Not especially, you know.
Do I want it blasted all over?
Not especially.
You know, accept it.
I led‐‐ I've led a full life.
[Luke] You wouldn't take any of that back, would you?
I‐‐ I don't‐‐ I don't think I would.
[Luke] I don't know, I just‐‐
I see my mom now
and see the life that she has,
which is a simple, beautiful life with her husband,
where they're watering plants
and getting in bed by nine o'clock
and having their coffee in the morning
and just enjoying life together.
And it's hard to have any hard feelings over that, you know.
Dad Charlie did a stint in prison,
then he got out and got a master's
and now he's a drug and alcohol counselor.
Dad Randy has a good woman now, and they are out on the farm
taking motorcycles to Sturgis, you know, every year at 70.
Um...
That's not so bad, you know.
This just seems like a long rocky road to happiness,
you know, started when‐‐ where they started and it's okay.
Life's long, you got to do something with it.
[Kim] I'll tell you what I miss the most,
are those times that we went around the lake
in a broke down old fucking vehicle no matter,
and there were many of them,
and laughed and‐‐
And that we all truly loved each other.
We truly, truly loved each other.
No matter what we did.
You‐‐ it was like a fa‐‐
It was like a family.
And I know that that sounds crazy to most people.
They would probably say,
"How in the hell could people like that,
that work at a place like that ever be that close?"
But I'm telling you what,
there were many, many times
that we‐‐ we had no one else.
And it was quite lovely
and it was quite a ride,
and I'm glad I fucking took the ride.
[sniffles]
I'm glad I took the fucking ride.
[wind chimes tinkling]
[country music playing]