How Life Spirited Me From Mennonite to Man O' Night

By David 'Beck' Eicher

David 'Beck' Eicher's biography takes place over a thirty-year period of events from the sublime to the down-right raunchy.
Coming from the intense confines of a very puritanical religion (Mennonite) and going to the major league inner music circles of both rock and classical, Eicher writes an honest and open account of his life. He takes us behind the scenes of the 70's music culture. Eicher played keyboard with the iconic band, Ram Jam (who can forget Whoa-Black Betty bam-a-lam?) and has many stories from touring with the band and the sex, drugs and rock and roll life it entailed.
Around the same time, Eicher, worked with Rex Smith, who he had met in a heavily backed rock project in Florida along with an impressive band around him, and for a while Rex became the hottest teen idol in the world, and was an equally charismatic and mesmerizing personality in real life. He exploded onto the celebrity scene with his film Sooner or Later, sending fans into a Beatle-mania like frenzy, and right there with him was his friend, now known as David Beck.
David 'Beck' Eicher made friends easily and is a life-long friend of Stephanie Lamotta, who herself, is a storied lady, with many famous people as her intimate friends.
Moving to New York and immersing himself in the nightlife of Max’s Kansas City, and especially CBGB, he rubbed shoulders with the makers and shakers of the music industry and to famous purveyors of porno, describing his meeting with several porn stars as really nice and fun - although quite saucy. Also producing huge uptown variety shows with famous drag queens and strippers, catering for celebs, he has definitely seen both sides of the celebrity coin. His book is compelling it his wild and fun ride through a young life, naming many stars of the time

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Haven Publishing Ltd
• Release date: May 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463271483

Book preview

*Little Me*

I was born in the old Sarasota, Florida hospital, where all women in labor had to climb the stairs to the second floor, just like everyone else.

My parents had tried to have a baby for 10 years, but my father’s bouncing around in his celery field on those old tractors must have been disagreeable to his prostate, so I had been on hold, if ever.

He spent a year after WWII in China, working for the United Nations in a massive rehabilitation and agriculture project, since China had been decimated by the Japanese, and probably saved over 2.5 million people from starvation. At least the newish United Nations started out right.

On his way home, he took an ocean liner, and rested up very well, and so when he again saw my mom, 9 months later I was the result.

I am an only child but I try not to be a spoiled brat, because I’ve seen ‘em and don’t like ‘em!

I must have had a form of ADHD, because in my first grade, I would get bored, and get sent out into the hallway to chill, but hey, I just didn’t want other teachers to come by and wave their fingers at me in disapproval, so I would just get up and split—living close by. This caused panic, but only one time—the second attempt, I got a spanking, so that made me realize that that approach was ultimately too painful.

So they got me with another teacher, who was more firm and kept me busier, and that state of being kept busy was the beginning of the rest of my life.

One thing she did was remarkable. I had gotten a girlfriend, a cute little girl named Cynthia Diefenwierth, who to me was a def different worth, and she had fallen going down the slippery slide, and cut herself on the knee. My teacher beckoned me to a crying Cynthia and suggested I took her to the nurse, protecting her on the way.

Here comes the rush of becoming the Knight in Shining Armor, and I took to that feeling, and put my arm around her, to which she immediately stopped crying, and proclaimed in a musical voice Oh, David—and that also began my true love of women, and making them happy!

Always Church and more Church and then even more Church! Bayshore Mennonite Church, which my parents helped start and build, was located near the famous tourist destination from God knows how far back, called the Jungle Gardens. It is still there and is a fun place to see old Florida: pink flamingos, and of course parrots, and big gators ’n snakes, and plenty o’ palm trees.

Now those big macaws, being so colorful, would be placed on stands outside by the entrance, to attract the visitors. Parrots, like magpies and cockatiels, and parakeets, are known for being supreme tape recorders. Us young guys, in the parking lot, after church, while looking for the secret gas tank openings that those 1950s cars had, and knowing some choice words, would yell out a sharp shit or piss and just like that we would be answered back from them with the same words, except much louder.

Years later, when bringing friends, I once asked the trainer, as they had a parrot show, if the macaws ever cussed, and I got a very pointed response: Yeah, every once in a while we have to take them back and sequester them until they forget the words for another year or so, so the kids don’t get an earful of surprise rhetoric. Oops! Now, these birds live over 100 years, snicker, snicker—imagine all the verbiage that has already emitted from them, and how many more years of that to come! And all because of our Mennonite boy faults! Shame!

Chapter 2

*Mennonite - Schmennonite*

For Mennonites, the Communion wine has to be sour grape juice. For sanitation’s sake these little drops of juice came in stainless steel circular containers, with maybe 25 holes in them, so tiny glasses, about ½ the size of shot glasses, could fit in the holes. For the life of me, I don’t know where they found such sour grape juice.

Paraphrased: And then Mary Magdalene came in to where he and his disciples were seated, after a long day of dusty travel, stooped down and took off Jesus’ sandals, and in an act of humility, washed his feet to cleanse off the dirt, and dried them with her long red hair. Actually the long hair part sounds pretty cool! Don’t forget, she was a ho as well, no disrespect, it is true.

There is a lot of speculation whether Jesus got to the point of intimacy with Mary Magdalene, but according to the whole story, he was put on earth to experience the feeling of being a human being, and the Protestant church trying to convince us that Jesus had no sexual experience is in denial of one of the finest of all human experiences.

Funniest of all is that we were expected to buy in on the theory that no, that was not wine that he turned water into, but a kind of Kool Aid instead; no alcohol for the early Christians. Yeah, right!

The Mennonites are one of the few that practice this Foot Washing, and it is truly an act of humility, both figuratively and literally, and odoriferously.

The women would retire to the Sunday School building, since most of them wore hose with garters (no not fishnets, just real simple hose) back then, and had to hoist their dresses up exposing a whole lot of leg to undo the hose before washing feet. I know this because one time we snuck out, us young bucks, and were curious, and got a real eyeful before hastily going back in with the other men before we could get caught. We only did this once because in the main sanctuary men took off their shoes and socks where they were sitting, and large white porcelain pans that held a couple of gallons were put at the front of the church and filled with a heavily Cloroxed water. The time that we snuck out meant that most of the men had already used these pans, so when we got there, the smell of old men feet and Clorox was another nightmare and that ungodly smell stayed on your hands and feet for hours.

In the future we would almost sprint down to the front to be as close to first as possible, and the minister would think that we were just filled with zeal. You would splash a little water on your partner’s feet, and then dry them off, and then you would say God Bless You and then… wait for it… wait for it…

The HOLY KISS! We had to do it as part of the ritual!

Thank goodness on the cheek, but still it was a little creepy for us boys to kiss.

Before this all happened and all were in the church, according to the scriptures, if you didn’t confess your sins before communion you would go STRAIGHT TO HELL! And the pressure would be enormous, and we would be sweating and wondering if that time when you got an erection and, you know, and some hand cream was nearby, counted.

Finally it would be over, but sometimes people would stand up and confess dramatically, to the horror (or entertainment, depending how you looked at it) of the fold, some shocking things about each other.

In the real old days, a great aunt of mine was caught being raped by one of the men in the church. Before Communion, they were BOTH required to get up and apologize to the church members and to God, as if it was her fault just by being there.

Although Mennonites then were Conscientious Objectors, not believing that they should be a part of killing in a war, which was a good thing to me, that didn’t mean that they didn’t support the war effort: someone had to stay at home to grow food, and that is where they came in, although ridiculed for it.

Having said that, nowadays being Mennonite seems to be mostly the same old right wing conservative indoctrination that most all the other Christian churches seem to have, so I have moved away, far away, from this form of organized religion, and am happy and guilt-free for doing so. Also, I was into classical music, and later into rock music and synthesizers, and being Mennonite was definitely not conducive to doing either, much less becoming a male chef, much less cooking high end cuisine.

One of the biggest taboos in the Mennonite Church was SEX!

Babdists have taboos with Drankin, and Dancin, and Cussin, but with Mennonites, SEX!

But part of sex is procreation, and they would do things to tease you into wanting to get married, because the elders had found out, like the Catholics, that the more in the fold, the more money coming inward.

They had youth get-togethers, Mennonite Youth Fellowship, where the popular thing to do was to Walk-a-Mile—it was all about procreation tease. We would line up in pairs, boy/girl, closely watched. We were supposed to take the other’s hand and start walking down the street in a line, then a whistle would be blown, and the guys would move forward to the next girl, the front guy going to the rear, and the new girls’ hands would be taken and then on. The proctors would watch closely so you didn’t get too familiar or chummy with your partner. Of course holding hands with all of those different girls was like a kind of group sex, and it was meant to stir the I want to marry and do the missionary style juices.

At that certain age of around 16/17, the guys would be given the equivalent of a male peacock’s plumage in the form of a Chevelle Malibu Supersport 396 to take a date to the drive-in theater.

Or if you were a little less he-man, you could get by with a 327 V8 Impala, which had a little more leg room, of the back seat kind.

Once you got married, all this fanfare came to a crushing end, and the hot car would be sold for something like a simple plain Chevy Belaire station wagon, and you settled down and had babies, and lots of them, and worked with your hands.

Myself, I did not fit into this mold, although I would have maybe liked to, but my dad got me a small motorcycle instead, and I could occasionally use the family Ford Fairlane 500, but that’s it. So I had to go out into the world to find my fortune and my love, and actually that suited me just fine, since the young Mennonite women could look oh so sexy but as soon as they were married all that sexiness went away, and they settled down as well and proceeded to march toward old age, which was such a pity, but what they were conditioned to do.

Of course throughout the years I have developed a sense of spirituality and a belief, through open-minded searching and discovery, that I’m happy with, and it transcends what I was taught growing up, and what I was told to believe in church, and has freed me of guilt, which in itself is a tool used by the church for control. No disrespect to well-meaning parents, or well-meaning parishioners, but I am happy to have found my way.

Chapter 3

*Shreek/Skrawk, Mooo’s, Hormoans and Piss On Me*

For Mennonites, the Communion wine has to be sour grape juice. For sanitation’s sake these little drops of juice came in stainless steel circular containers, with maybe 25 holes in them, so tiny glasses, about ½ the size of shot glasses, could fit in the holes. For the life of me, I don’t know where they found such sour grape juice.

Paraphrased: And then Mary Magdalene came in to where he and his disciples were seated, after a long day of dusty travel, stooped down and took off Jesus’ sandals, and in an act of humility, washed his feet to cleanse off the dirt, and dried them with her long red hair. Actually the long hair part sounds pretty cool! Don’t forget, she was a ho as well, no disrespect, it is true.

There is a lot of speculation whether Jesus got to the point of intimacy with Mary Magdalene, but according to the whole story, he was put on earth to experience the feeling of being a human being, and the Protestant church trying to convince us that Jesus had no sexual experience is in denial of one of the finest of all human experiences.

Funniest of all is that we were expected to buy in on the theory that no, that was not wine that he turned water into, but a kind of Kool Aid instead; no alcohol for the early Christians. Yeah, right!

The Mennonites are one of the few that practice this Foot Washing, and it is truly an act of humility, both figuratively and literally, and odoriferously.

The women would retire to the Sunday School building, since most of them wore hose with garters (no not fishnets, just real simple hose) back then, and had to hoist their dresses up exposing a whole lot of leg to undo the hose before washing feet. I know this because one time we snuck out, us young bucks, and were curious, and got a real eyeful before hastily going back in with the other men before we could get caught. We only did this once because in the main sanctuary men took off their shoes and socks where they were sitting, and large white porcelain pans that held a couple of gallons were put at the front of the church and filled with a heavily Cloroxed water. The time that we snuck out meant that most of the men had already used these pans, so when we got there, the smell of old men feet and Clorox was another nightmare and that ungodly smell stayed on your hands and feet for hours.

In the future we would almost sprint down to the front to be as close to first as possible, and the minister would think that we were just filled with zeal. You would splash a little water on your partner’s feet, and then dry them off, and then you would say God Bless You and then… wait for it… wait for it…

The HOLY KISS! We had to do it as part of the ritual!

Thank goodness on the cheek, but still it was a little creepy for us boys to kiss.

Before this all happened and all were in the church, according to the scriptures, if you didn’t confess your sins before communion you would go STRAIGHT TO HELL! And the pressure would be enormous, and we would be sweating and wondering if that time when you got an erection and, you know, and some hand cream was nearby, counted.

Finally it would be over, but sometimes people would stand up and confess dramatically, to the horror (or entertainment, depending how you looked at it) of the fold, some shocking things about each other.

In the real old days, a great aunt of mine was caught being raped by one of the men in the church. Before Communion, they were BOTH required to get up and apologize to the church members and to God, as if it was her fault just by being there.

Although Mennonites then were Conscientious Objectors, not believing that they should be a part of killing in a war, which was a good thing to me, that didn’t mean that they didn’t support the war effort: someone had to stay at home to grow food, and that is where they came in, although ridiculed for it.

Having said that, nowadays being Mennonite seems to be mostly the same old right wing conservative indoctrination that most all the other Christian churches seem to have, so I have moved away, far away, from this form of organized religion, and am happy and guilt-free for doing so. Also, I was into classical music, and later into rock music and synthesizers, and being Mennonite was definitely not conducive to doing either, much less becoming a male chef, much less cooking high end cuisine.

One of the biggest taboos in the Mennonite Church was SEX!

Babdists have taboos with Drankin, and Dancin, and Cussin, but with Mennonites, SEX!

But part of sex is procreation, and they would do things to tease you into wanting to get married, because the elders had found out, like the Catholics, that the more in the fold, the more money coming inward.

They had youth get-togethers, Mennonite Youth Fellowship, where the popular thing to do was to Walk-a-Mile—it was all about procreation tease. We would line up in pairs, boy/girl, closely watched. We were supposed to take the other’s hand and start walking down the street in a line, then a whistle would be blown, and the guys would move forward to the next girl, the front guy going to the rear, and the new girls’ hands would be taken and then on. The proctors would watch closely so you didn’t get too familiar or chummy with your partner. Of course holding hands with all of those different girls was like a kind of group sex, and it was meant to stir the I want to marry and do the missionary style juices.

At that certain age of around 16/17, the guys would be given the equivalent of a male peacock’s plumage in the form of a Chevelle Malibu Supersport 396 to take a date to the drive-in theater.

Or if you were a little less he-man, you could get by with a 327 V8 Impala, which had a little more leg room, of the back seat kind.

Once you got married, all this fanfare came to a crushing end, and the hot car would be sold for something like a simple plain Chevy Belaire station wagon, and you settled down and had babies, and lots of them, and worked with your hands.

Myself, I did not fit into this mold, although I would have maybe liked to, but my dad got me a small motorcycle instead, and I could occasionally use the family Ford Fairlane 500, but that’s it. So I had to go out into the world to find my fortune and my love, and actually that suited me just fine, since the young Mennonite women could look oh so sexy but as soon as they were married all that sexiness went away, and they settled down as well and proceeded to march toward old age, which was such a pity, but what they were conditioned to do.

Of course throughout the years I have developed a sense of spirituality and a belief, through open-minded searching and discovery, that I’m happy with, and it transcends what I was taught growing up, and what I was told to believe in church, and has freed me of guilt, which in itself is a tool used by the church for control. No disrespect to well-meaning parents, or well-meaning parishioners, but I am happy to have found my way.

Chapter 4

* Faux fame, More Erection Catalysts, Kussen Sie Mir, Ambush Ambush *

Enough of the townies; most of them went to Sarasota Middle and then on to Sarasota High, and it was just as well.

But I was going to a new school in 9th grade that was close by and had more of my type of people: more normal and from the country.

McIntosh Middle was an experiment in a different kind of school. It had an enhanced agricultural program in the front. The grades went from 5th to 9th, so there were more little chickies to choose from, and it was ALL air conditioned which was real luxury in Florida at the time. On the downside, there were no windows to look out, and the rooms were all lit by bright obnoxious fluorescent lights. Occasionally the air conditioning would fail and it was hot as Hell and stifling.

I was involved in accelerated courses, some on the pre-college level, like biology, and geometry. That was all well, but the school was using the new Harvard Press text books, which were all numbers, graphs, and black and white, with no interesting part about them. How can the sciences be so colorless?

We had to bring our lunches because the cafeteria wasn’t finished yet, so there were a lot of people with fingers that smelled like bologna and mayonnaise after lunch. I’m sure that I was one of them.

The very first day, I was hopeful and ready for a change, and I had bought a real nice ski sweater, and felt in fashion. The very first thing when I was walking up the entrance corridor, I saw some girls looking at me, pointing at me and giggling. I just deflated: did they follow me from the other school? Was this going to be another nightmare year?

Just that quick my life was going to change—for the better!

One of the little girls came over, tee-hee, and tee-hee, asked me tee-hee, if I was tee-hee, Johnny Crawford. Now of course, I had no TV, so I told them no, but I also asked them who he was, and they couldn’t believe that I didn’t know, but also believed I was putting them on, and that I really WAS Johnny Crawford, from the TV show The Rifleman, with Chuck Connors.

I went to a record shop, and he had a little teen idol thing going on beside the show, and by gum, I really DID look exactly like him. Those girls continued to giggle with adoration at me for the whole semester.

There was a problem I had, though. Since I was almost a year younger than the other kids in 9th grade, they were getting dark pubic hair, and I still had that little thing that looked like the business end of an Anthurium plant. Look it up if you don’t know about them; they even call those plants affectionately Little Boys.

It bothered me, but no one seemed to care. I wanted so much to at least shave, and for once, my dad told me a really wise thing: once I started shaving, I would have to do it the rest of my life, and it could get to be a pain in the butt—how true.

I also was growing my femurs faster than my leg muscles, and I had to get steroid shots in my knees.

Around this time my parents sent me to Brevard Music Center, The Transylvania Music Camp, near Black Mountain, NC, for summer music camp. We had visited Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan, but it was so cold, and Lake Michigan wasn’t fit for swimming, and the kids all wore those blue knickerbockers. Maybe the kids were the most talented, Juilliard bound in the US, but I just didn’t like it.

The only thing that I discovered on that visit was the wondrous smell of Ice Blue Aqua Velva, compliments of the motel, and the boredom of the Howard Hansen Symphony slow movement, which was played ad nauseum by the orchestras, after each performance. The kids were so bored of playing it that they would almost be walking off stage before they were finished.

Actually the Hansen Symphony is quite beautiful, and Howard Hansen must have made a mark at Interlochen, but better to hear this in small doses.

I fit in quite well at Brevard. It was a time of girls and vices! We had a band of young bucks that smoked cigs and we would all meet deep in the woods on the side of a steep hill. We were comrades in stealth, with something illegal in common.

I gave Ann Breen her first kiss (and secretly mine too), but relationships here were like speed dating.

I found a sexy little southern belle, I forget her name, and