Rock & Roll, Sex, and Fools ...The Slow Fade to Black of Mr. Joe Kool Jack

By Paul Bibbins

After being knocked to the floor by his mother in 1955 during a “reefer madness” moment, Joseph “Joe Kool” Jack bids his New Orleans family life adieu—seeking sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll; which triggers a long Forrest Gump type journey of funny and outrageous misadventures that reveal Joe—at least in his own mind—as the real genius and driving force behind many of history’s greatest rock and pop culture moments.

Joe’s hedonistic quest gets a righteous start when he winds up naked and on the wrong end of the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun after escaping the sharp knife of a voluptuous beauty he was romancing—all because he made the most egregious mistake a man could ever make while in the midst of being intimate with a woman. While in his “birthday suit,” Joe straps on a guitar and does a completely naked Chuck Berry “duck walking” routine in order to weasel his way out of being shot; and simultaneously performs a subtle bit of subterfuge to camouflage an urgent need, which results in the creation of a rock ‘n roll device that would later become the forte of rocker/guitarist Pete Townsend and a zillion other guitar players….The “pure genius” of Joe Kool Jack is born!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483514482

Book preview

Jack!

Prologue: Joe’s Jack!

My original plan was to write this book as a dedication to the masterful musical legacy of Jimi Hendrix, the voodoo child of the electric guitar. But shit happens—and in this case, shit happens to be—Joseph Kendall Jack, an aging semi-good friend of mine who had a lot of shit to tell...and so he jacked my book to tell it!

In a drunken poker game between Joe and myself, he won the right to have this book, my book, written about himself, rather than about Jimi Hendrix—when I’m drunk and playing poker, I’ll ante up just about anything....Even so, I think the son-of-a-bitch cheated me; but I couldn’t prove it!

Being that I lost the poker hand to him and also because I strive to be an honorable man, I allowed Joe Kool Jack, as Joseph likes to be called, to tell his story in first person within the pages of this book. His mission was to be his own biographer and tell the world how he helped shaped rock ‘n roll and popular culture.

In dealing with people like Joe, who stretch the truth a bit, I have always let them tell their wistful tales exactly how they wish to spin them. But when I walk away I extrapolate the truth, if there is any, and discard everything else that they’ve said.

Until the very end, this is still my book. Therefore, I retain the power to make certain decisions that pertain to the way the book is written....In that spirit, I added an Author’s comments section to the end of each chapter. This section serves as a forum for my opinions about what Joe Kool Jack has spoken of within a given chapter.

If you crave the rock ‘n roll gospel, then by all means, read on...Joe Kool Jack indeed!!

1. Epiphany—Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll

There I was, the proud Mr. Joseph Kendall Jack, standing there naked and shivering, with my hands covering my balls and linkage. There was a sawed-off shotgun pointed directly at what could soon become the remnants of my chest. But all I could think of at the time was how badly I needed to cut the cheese....I figured that if I let one go it would startle the man holding the shotgun, and that would be the death of me. So I decided to tighten my butt cheeks, grin and bear it, and plead my case.

The year was 1955...

But how did I get in such a predicament? Well, being a young man eighteen years of age, with out-of-control raging hormones, and the proverbial lack of blood to the brain for a male in heat, it had to be because of a female—and what a female she was! She was sweet sixteen, brown-eyed, and raven-haired. She had a butt that was tight enough to bounce a quarter off of, legs that were more enticing than any piece of fried chicken you could ever eat, and two very large northern points sitting way up high and firm that pointed directly at any open mouth that would have them.

My mouth was a chasm.

I had seen her a few times outside Chilli’s Café in midtown New Orleans where I lived. My friends Hugh and T. C. told me her name and they filled me in on what they knew about her. Each time I saw her I lost that valuable blood to the brain. I finally couldn’t take it anymore, so I introduced myself to her and told her that I liked her. She said that she’d noticed me liking her. Then she told me to come to her house later that same night....Nothing but death could keep me from doing just that.

***

I showed up at her home about 8 o’clock that night. With great anticipation, I knocked on the door and waited. It seemed like an eternity before she opened the door. But it was worth every bit of the wait; because when she finally opened the door I saw that she was dressed in an impossibly short and superbly tight red dress that left nothing to the imagination.

In a flash I became Viagra personified.

She said, Come on in Joe, in that sweet southern drawl that she possessed.

And I responded with, Huh? When virtually all the blood in your brain runs south, responses like this become the norm rather than the exception.

She stuck her head out the door and surveyed the landscape for possible witnesses. Then she said, Get in here fool. And at the same time she grabbed my arm and pulled me into her home. She suggested that we go to her room, which was upstairs.

As we walked toward the staircase I surveyed the room we were in. It was neat and tidy except for a few empty beer cans sitting on the end table by the television. Propped up against a wall in the den, I noticed a beautiful cherry-red electric guitar and a small guitar amplifier. On the wall, above and to the right of the amplifier, was an autographed picture of Chuck Berry on stage strutting his stuff with his guitar. I told myself that, at any cost, I had to play that cherry-red guitar before I left her house that night.

***

Soon we were lying across the bed in her room and smoking a joint that she’d taken from a tiny little box that she pulled from under her bed. I must admit that the girl knew her drugs, because after just a few tokes on that joint we were mellowed beyond belief. And then we went at the sex like wild animals. It was hot, heavy, and uninhibited.

I was compelled to let her know how I felt.

So in the midst of passion I said, Yes, Sylvia baby, yes, yes, you’re drivin’ me crazy...nobody’s ever done me this good.

And she said, Who the fuck is Sylvia?

I yelled, Oh shit! And in a split-second I was off of her and off the bed before the knife that she swung stabbed the mattress in the spot where I had been. I made a mad run for the stairs, but I missed the first step and tumbled to the bottom. Then I jumped up, ready to run out into the street in all my naked glory....The sawed-off shotgun pointed at me said I would do otherwise.

Hugh and T.C. had mentioned that people called the girl Crazy Alice Benton. They warned me that she carried a knife, and would split you like a pig if you jilted her. They said her father was a gun-toting drunkard who played guitar in a band at Jim’s Blues Club downtown, and that he would kill for his daughter. And they also said that if my girlfriend Sylvia found out that I was cheating on her, she would leave me flat and break my heart.

Lack of brain blood made me foolishly courageous.

***

The angry silhouette holding the shotgun said, Put your hands up or I’ll blow off your damn head right now. Who the fuck do you think you are? Then he continued, You’ve got some kind of nerve to come into my house and screw my daughter. You’re obviously ready to die boy. I smelled the alcohol on his breath from across the room; and so I knew that my ass was cooked.

Suddenly, I needed to cut the cheese!

Crazy Alice yelled from the top of the stairs, Shoot him daddy...kill his ass!

I responded by saying, Please don’t kill me sir. I will do anything or give you anything you ask for if you don’t shoot me.

Alice’s dad then said, There’s not a damn thing that you can do for me boy, except to die. Then he raised the shotgun in readiness to shoot me.

I scanned the room looking for anything that would give me an out....Suddenly I remembered the guitar and the autographed picture of Chuck Berry that were in the den. So I quickly said, I’ll play you a Chuck Berry song on your guitar if you let me live. As I looked at him to gauge his reaction to my proposal, it seemed that his head was many times too large for his slender build, and that his face was akin to a rhino’s ass.

He lowered the gun a little bit and raised an evil eyebrow as the musician in him said, Okay boy, I will let you do a song for me. Let’s go into the den. He led me into the den with the shotgun pointed at my torso. Then he instructed me to turn on the guitar amplifier and pick up the guitar and strap it over my shoulder. The guitar felt really cold and clammy against my naked skin.

My need to cut the cheese suddenly got much worse!

He told me to sing Chuck Berry’s song Maybellene. And then he said, You better sing and play the guitar as well as Chuck, because if you don’t, you die. Then a really evil grin crept onto his rhino’s ass of a face as he said, "Since you obviously think you are a big-time stud, I think we’ll find out just how big a stud you really are—I want you to sing me the song with a hard dick.

Before you start the song, I will give you one whole minute to get your dick hard. And you are not allowed to touch yourself to get it hard. Then you have to keep your dick hard throughout the entire song. If you can’t get it up fast enough, or at all, you die. If you get it up at first but it goes soft during the song, I will still blow your head clean off. The only way you get out of here alive is if you can get it up and keep it up, and play the guitar well and not sing any off-key shit. Then he asked, You think you can handle that?

Yes sir, I think I can, I replied.

You play guitar with a pick, boy...or do you play with your fingers?

I prefer to use a guitar pick sir, I said...my voice crackling with fear.

The rhino-man reached into his left pants pocket and came out with a maroon-colored guitar pick, which he handed to me. Then he said, Now play me some fuckin’ Chuck Berry on that guitar, and it better be good...and your dick better stay hard.

***

It took me only ten seconds to think myself into a hard-on. Then I immediately started playing the guitar riffs to Chuck Berry’s rock ‘n roll radio hit Maybellene. Alice’s dad cracked a wide smile and lowered the shotgun; which let me know that I had him then.

I went through a full-blown version of Chuck’s song; singing it in my smoothest Chuck Berry voice. And as an added measure to save my ass, I duck-walked across the room while playing the guitar in fine, although naked, Chuck Berry form.

For me, the hardest part wasn’t maintaining a hard-on during my performance. That was easy for me. The hardest part for me was holding my butt cheeks tightly closed so that I didn’t cut the cheese and blow the song.

I actually let a loud fart rip on the last chord of the song. Simultaneously, to camouflage the sound of the fart, I struck all the guitar strings with maximum force with the guitar pick. The sound boomed forcefully from the guitar amplifier. A hundred people farting in unison couldn’t be heard over that booming sound.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I had just strummed the first-ever power chord on the guitar. Pete Townsend of the Who would later thank me over and over for the creation of the power chord, which became his forte.

***

During my performance Crazy Alice had come down the stairs. She had on a flannel robe; but even it couldn’t hide those firm northern points of hers. She smiled, pointed, and applauded.

Her dad did exactly the same. When I finished the song he came over to me and shook my hand. He said to me, My boy, that was better to me than Chuck Berry himself. You are a better man than most. You and Alice can go back upstairs and finish entertaining.

Alice looked at me with desire and said, Yeah baby, let’s go back up and finish what we started.

I pointed at my watch and said, Actually, it’s getting a little late. I’ve got to get up early for work in the morning. I’ll have to take a rain-check. But I do need to go upstairs to put my clothes on if you don't mind.

Alice’s dad went into the den to watch television, while she led me back upstairs to put my clothes on. After getting dressed, I kissed her lightly on the lips and said goodbye. Then I got the hell out of their house as fast as I could....I planned to never return.

***

On my way home I stopped at T.C.’s house. He and Hugh were shooting pool in the garage. I told them about my adventures with crazy Alice and her dad. I bragged about how good Alice’s drugs were, how great the sex was with her, and how rock ‘n roll had actually saved my life. I said to my friends, Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll thrown together gave me the biggest rush I’ve ever experienced in my life.

As I spoke the words a sudden light went off in my head because I knew I had just created the mother of all catch-phrases: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.

I couldn’t foresee though, that it would take almost a decade before it caught on. The timid fifties just could not get ready for that type of freedom. It took the love-ins and sit-ins and freedoms of the sixties flower power generation to bring the hedonism of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll to the full forefront of public consciousness.

***

Author’s comments: The only thing that I can say here is that Joe probably forgot to claim that he created multi-tasking as we know it, with his exploits. After all, being able to stand naked and shivering, with a loaded shotgun pointed at you, sing and play guitar, while at the same time keeping enough concentration to maintain an erection and hold off a big fart, has to qualify as multi-tasking to the max. Wistful tales indeed.

2. Paradise Lost

I got myself kicked out of my parents’ home that same night that I had the fun with Crazy Alice and her dad....The fact is, that when I got home, I still had a serious buzz from the combination of the grass I smoked with Alice and the rush that I got from the whole experience at her house. Even worse, I smelled strongly of the filthy reefer as my mother, Marlene, often called marijuana.

This made the already volatile atmosphere in my home much more intense.

As I passed my mother on the way to my room she got a whiff of the marijuana odor coming off of me. Now the thing about my mother was: it’s like she came straight out of the 1938 movie Reefer Madness; which propagandized marijuana as a violent narcotic that destroyed the souls of its teenage users.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing this unintentionally hysterical movie it goes something like this—in one part of the movie a teenage boy smokes some reefer and it causes him to kill his entire family. In another part, a guy under the influence of reefer kills a policeman while his girlfriend, also pumped up on reefer, hysterically laughs her brains out. And for me, the funniest part of the movie is where a judge sentences a man to life in a house for the criminally insane just on the basis of him using reefer.

My mother had that kind of madness going when it came to marijuana. So as I walked past her, her reaction was swift and deadly—she yelled out, Spawn of Satan, and then the old bitch drop-kicked me in the ass! The kick caused me to lose my balance and fall face first into the carpet.

I jumped up, ran over to my mother, and got face to face with her. Then I screamed, What in hell did you do that for?

I kicked you in the ass ‘cause you been smoking that filthy reefer again, she replied. Then she quickly stepped back away from me and swung her fist with all her might and punched me right in the jaw—the old bitch knocked me down again. Then she said, And that’s for thinking that you’re man enough to get in my face and yell at me...I told you that shit will make you crazy.

I was too stunned to get up....As I stared up at my mother, she looked just like one of those insane reefer addicts from the Reefer Madness movie. Her hair looked wildly uncombed. Her faced was flushed, her nostrils flared, and she had a wild, uncontrolled and insane look in her eyes. And on top of that, her arms were flailing about randomly through the air as she preached her brand of gospel to the devil child that she had just knocked to the floor.

***

By now my dad had heard the ruckus, and had entered the room. He looked at me on the floor and then he turned and looked at my mother and said, Old Bitch, what the hell is going on in here?

As far back as I can remember my father always called my mother Old Bitch. He said it was a name of affection....For reasons that I never could quite understand, my mother accepted him calling her that.

My mother responded to my dad’s query by telling him that I reeked of the smell of reefer when I came into the house and that I had been brazen enough to jump in her face and yell at her.

That’s all that needed to be said.

My dad laughed loudly, and then turned and walked into the kitchen to get himself a beer. My mother turned and went into their bedroom....Neither one of them bothered to help me up off the floor.

***

My father, Robert Jack, was quite a character: he was an Al Bundy type of man who sat around all day on the couch with his hands down his pants while drinking beer, burping, and watching television...and he rarely did any work around the house. He had a habit of spewing out little indecipherable witticisms such as, If you diddle her ‘til she griddles, then you can always get it as you met it.

I never knew what that meant until I overheard him tell a friend that it means, If you can make a woman really scream in the bedroom, then she’ll always be as hot, ready, and into it as the very first time the two of you got together.

I guess my mother never screamed. Because I once secretly overheard her say to a girlfriend, Robert is so lousy in bed, that my gardening magazines bring me more pleasure in those few minutes I’m with him....What I do is hide a magazine under the covers on my side of the bed. During the act, I’ll pull away from him and roll onto my stomach on my side of the bed. Then I’ll tell him to take me from behind. And while he’s behind me huffing and puffing and sweating away, I slip my magazine from under the covers and read the articles....The only reason I even do it with him is because the promise of sex is the only way I can get him to do anything around the house.

At this stage of my family life my father and mother were constantly at each other’s throat. There was a real seething tension between the two that always seemed to be just near the boiling point. Each ridiculed the other when in the presence of their respective friends....But there was one area of regard where their feelings were truly in sync—they both had a true dislike for me, their one and only offspring.

It’s hard to believe that only six months earlier I was living the ideal American teenager’s life with my parents...

The three of us were a loving, true Middle-American family unit at that time: my mother was the essence of Suzy homemaker and my dad fancied himself the rugged Marlborough man. Metaphorically speaking, my dad’s job was to go out and rope the steer, slaughter and cut it up into steaks, and bring it home for his frontier woman to cook and serve it up. At least that’s the way he saw it. He was bringing home the bacon. My mother was just a happy homemaker and, as such, he expected her to wait on him hand and foot, cook and clean, and take care of me. She did exactly that with little complaint.

In reality my dad was just a salesman at a local used-car lot. But he was pretty good at it and it provided a decent middle-class living for us. As a husband though, he was quite the slob. Wherever he’d step out of his pants and underwear, take off his shirt or jacket, or step out of his shoes, is where he’d leave them. After all, it was my mother’s job to pick up behind him. Wherever he ate a meal, be it at the kitchen table or on the living room sofa, or wherever else, he would always seem to make a mess. And of course my mother had to clean it up.

My father was the Prince of the Rings: whenever he took a bath he would leave a very dirty, oily ring around the bathtub....The one thing that my mother just would not do for him was scrub away the rings that he left in the tub. She stayed on his case about that. He’d huff and puff about it, but in the end he would always scrub away the rings himself....Such was my parents’ precarious relationship.

As an only child I got basically everything that I asked for. Both my parents doted on me, and I could get away with basically anything, except using marijuana, with little or no reprimand from either parent.

Everything changed after the Thanksgiving mêlée at the house that resulted in a cataclysmic shift in my family life.

***

It all started a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving of 1954. I noticed that my mom and dad were barely speaking to each other. They’d avoid all physical contact with each other and generally got out of each other’s way. And there was little, if any, eye contact between the two of them. At the dinner table where we’d always had lively conversation between the three of us, there was mainly silence.

I had no clue as to what was going on.

One day when I was alone with my mother I asked, Mom what’s happening between you and Dad?

I’m trying to teach your stubborn ass father a lesson, she replied.

A lesson about what?

Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t concern you.

But I’m worried about the two of you. You two barely even look at each other and you won’t talk to each other.

Like I said Joe, don’t worry about it. It’ll all work itself out. And then she walked away.

The next day I cornered my dad and asked him, Pop, why are you and mom so upset with each other lately?

He replied, I’m trying to teach Old Bitch a lesson in what a wife is supposed to do for her husband...especially a husband who works as hard as I do to provide for my family.

What kind of lesson you talking about Pop?

This is between me and your mom, Joe. You don’t need to know about it. Then he mumbled something under his breath and walked away.

It took a week and a half before I found out exactly what was going on between the two of them. I had to eavesdrop on one of my mom’s conversations with her friend Lucy to get to the bottom of the trouble.

This is one I have to win Lucy, said my mother. That son-of-a-bitch knows how much I hate having a ring around the tub. So what does he do?...One day a few weeks ago he came home, took a bath, and left his customary greasy ring around the tub. I told him to clean the tub so that I can take my bath. He told me to clean the tub myself. Then he said that his coworkers Jimmy and Mark said that their wives always clean the tub for them after they take their bath. So he tells me that I have to do the same thing for him.

So what did you say to that? Lucy asked.

I told him to go to hell.

She stopped talking for few seconds, and then she said, Since then he’s been taking his bath each day and never once has he cleaned that ring around the tub. I swear to you Lucy, that ring has gotten so bad and so ugly that it’s almost like an unspeakable evil.

That bad, huh, said Lucy, with obvious wonderment in her voice.

Yes it is, said my mother, and for a couple of weeks now I’ve been taking my bath in the other bathroom down the hall by Joe’s room. Until Robert cleans that damn tub, I’ll continue to treat him like the damn fool that he is. I’ll never back down on this one Lucy...I just won’t.

I know you won’t Marlene, said Lucy.

So there it was—my parents’ marriage was about to implode over a damn ring around the tub. The Prince of the Rings had really done his job....I could not, and would not, let that happen.

***

The very next day, when neither one of them was home, I snuck into their bathroom and scrubbed away the ring around the tub.

That ring was horrible: It had an ugly blackish-brown color, and in certain places it dipped and hung down the inner sidewalls of the tub like frozen icicles hanging from the eaves of a Minnesota home in the middle of winter. It was so thick that it was raised from the tub sidewall. If you rubbed your finger over it, it felt like a speed bump on a city street. That damn ring even smelled bad!

Almost an hour and a half of hard scrubbing was needed from me to get the tub clean....All I could do after cleaning it was sit back and wait on the outcome.

My dad came home first that night. He went into their bathroom to take his bath. When he came out I could see that his entire body language had changed. He smiled for the first time in a very long time and seemed to glide across the floor to where I was. Then he said to me, Old Bitch finally came ‘round to see things my way. I knew she was still my girl and she would come around...A woman has to back her man up. And then he went into the kitchen to get himself something to eat.

I followed him into the kitchen and then I said, That’s great Pop. You know that mom loves you....Now what you should do since she decided to back you up, is to not gloat about it. Don’t even bring it up. Just be nice to her again.

My dad said then, Yes, you’re right Joe. That’s exactly what I’ll do. He made himself a sandwich and then he went into the living room to watch television.

He fell asleep on the sofa as he always did after eating and sitting down to watch television. I snuck into the bathroom and scrubbed away the fresh ring that he’d left around the tub. That tub had to be sparkling clean when my mother came home later that night.

I made sure that it was.

After I finished I left the light on and I let the door remain open. My mother would have to pass the bathroom to get to their bedroom. Any time a light was left turned on in an unoccupied room in our house my mother was compelled to turn that light out. And since the switch in the bathroom was not by the door, but on the opposite wall, she had to actually go into the bathroom to turn the light out.

The stage was set for her to see the clean bathtub.

***

My mother came home about an hour later to find my dad snoring loudly on the living room sofa and me sitting on the loveseat across from him, pretending to watch TV. She went down the hall towards their bedroom and, as I had planned, she stopped at the bathroom to turn out the light. In a minute’s time she was back on her way to the living room. Her countenance had changed just as quickly as my dad’s. She had a broad smile on her face and she seemed to be floating on air just as my dad had earlier that night.

When she made a move towards the sofa where my dad was still stretched out and snoring blissfully, I quickly intercepted her and said, Mom, you look different...and you’re smiling from head to toe. What’s going on?

She replied, Your father has made me very happy....For once he has given in to my wishes. I knew he would eventually come to his senses and do what’s right. I knew that deep down he really cared about my feelings.

I said to her, "That’s great Mom. You know that Pop loves