Speaker 1: It's a Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast special report. The Lapse
Speaker 1: Fan presents the Complete Hulk Cogan, a real American story.
Speaker 1: We're brought to you by Garage Pierre.
Speaker 2: All Right, folks, the Complete Hulk Hogan continues to unfold
Speaker 2: here on The Lapsed Fan with so many twists and
Speaker 2: turns and surprises. We're learning so much more about Terry
Speaker 2: Boley's early days than we ever expected to. You've heard
Speaker 2: from Vic Pettitt, who was one of his close buds
Speaker 2: growing up, and it just it just keeps going because
Speaker 2: if folks are willing to tell us and color in
Speaker 2: our idea of where Hulk Hogan came from, we are
Speaker 2: all ears and we are privileged to be joined here
Speaker 2: this time by Gary Barris. Now, Gary was Terry Bolay's
Speaker 2: friend going back to fourth grade in Tampa. And you
Speaker 2: might also know Gary as a member of Hulk's first band,
Speaker 2: Infinity's End, which was formed in high school and set
Speaker 2: him on the course. So Gary, we want to thank
Speaker 2: you so much for being here. Yeah, you're welcome, excellent,
Speaker 2: excellent to have you, and I guess we should start
Speaker 2: as soon as early as we can, because until connecting
Speaker 2: with you, I did not realize that your friendship with
Speaker 2: Terry began before high school and the whole band thing.
Speaker 2: Where did you meet him? How did it start?
Speaker 3: We met at Balisfoyta Elementary in fourth grade. I think
Speaker 3: we had class together up but he was missus Post
Speaker 3: and we would we'd walk home from school together. We
Speaker 3: would we would go down Balasfoyne Boulevard. Do we got
Speaker 3: to McDill Boulevard. He would go right to go to
Speaker 3: Paul Avenue and I would go left to go to
Speaker 3: Leeld Avenue, and we just we're friends ever since then.
Speaker 3: I don't remember why we ate it off.
Speaker 2: We just, you know, sometimes that just happens, absolutely, And
Speaker 2: so you were able to JP you want to go ahead?
Speaker 4: No, No, I was just gonna say, yeah, I definitely happens.
Speaker 4: So many friends that I had when I was that age.
Speaker 4: You don't even I don't eve remember how I became
Speaker 4: friends with some of these people. It just kind of happened.
Speaker 4: I totally identify with that going back that far. So
Speaker 4: you knew his parents as well, and Vic told us
Speaker 4: some great stories about Ruth and Pete, and I'm just
Speaker 4: fascinated by the home they kept, what it was like
Speaker 4: going to visit Terry at his house when he was
Speaker 4: a kid, and what they were like Any Ruth and
Speaker 4: Pete stories you can share.
Speaker 3: Yeah, One thing we did is we made Ruth some
Speaker 3: end tables and shop class. I made one and Terry
Speaker 3: made one. She was just tickled to death with those things.
Speaker 3: They were in there the living room for a long
Speaker 3: long time to come. The thing about Pete was he
Speaker 3: worked for I was really construction, just out in the
Speaker 3: just brutal job you know, do an asphalt and anything.
Speaker 3: Anything he had anything to do with it was just hot.
Speaker 3: And he used to come home from work and just
Speaker 3: be read, uh you know, not not just sunburned, but
Speaker 3: but just from the heat. And one thing he'd like
Speaker 3: to do when he when he came in the door,
Speaker 3: he would like, uh, would ask Ruth to fix him
Speaker 3: with Boultvanell ice cream.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so uh.
Speaker 3: And he would just sit there and cool off with
Speaker 3: that ice cream. And he'd like to have Hershey's chocolate
Speaker 3: on it. And this was this was back of the day.
Speaker 3: Hershey' chocolate came in a can, just like you get
Speaker 3: a kind of suit nowadays. You know, you had to
Speaker 3: open it up and pour it on there and one day, he's, uh,
Speaker 3: he's singing, Ruth, when did they start putting nuts in
Speaker 3: this Hershey's chocolate? She goes, they don't nuts in Hershey's chocolate.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about? So she opened up the
Speaker 3: cupboard because they kept it in the cupboard instead of refrigerator,
Speaker 3: and she looked in some some nice crunchy roaches had
Speaker 3: gotten in there.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I clearly did not warn JP Gary
Speaker 4: about that. Oh Jesus, what did he do?
Speaker 3: Did he?
Speaker 2: Did he bar?
Speaker 3: That's my funniest Pete story that I that I could
Speaker 3: think of. And he was such a little guy, but
Speaker 3: such a nice guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So he didn't overreact to it. Did he
Speaker 2: shrug it off? Did he just eating roaches or what?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, yeah, he just he didn't finish it. But
Speaker 3: you know, he didn't go in the bathroom and throw
Speaker 3: up or anything.
Speaker 4: So it seems like I'm pushing it off the tables
Speaker 4: a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm good with that things.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, he was a tough little guy though. Yeah.
Speaker 3: One other thing we used to do is sometimes Ruth
Speaker 3: would see Terry and I first started playing together. I
Speaker 3: think it was actually junior high. We were fifteen years old.
Speaker 3: We weren't weren't even old enough to drive yet. Dad
Speaker 3: used to have to ren new hall trailer and take
Speaker 3: our equipment around for us. And Terry you know, had
Speaker 3: that like like you like you mentioned before he hit
Speaker 3: that big head. He looked looked so much older than
Speaker 3: his age. And sometimes Ruth would would ride to work
Speaker 3: with somebody and Terry knight hopping her white and Vala
Speaker 3: and we just go cruising during the summer. You know,
Speaker 3: I remember the keys were hanging right there by the door.
Speaker 3: It was just just just too much temptation. But of
Speaker 3: course we never got stopped or anything. Uh you know,
Speaker 3: Terry uh certainly certainly looked looked over his age.
Speaker 2: He looked at you. He looked the part now as
Speaker 2: far as your earliest music with him, and we'll get
Speaker 2: to the whole Infinity's end story. Of course, don't want
Speaker 2: to jump the gun, but he does mention in one
Speaker 2: of his books that his very first band was called
Speaker 2: the Plastic Pleasure Palace. And this is something that never
Speaker 2: left the garage, So I don't know if you'd even
Speaker 2: call it a band, and then it didn't perform or anything.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that at all?
Speaker 3: No, unless that was, Uh, this is the earliest musical
Speaker 3: thing he was. It was a full name Jack Nugent
Speaker 3: that formed a band and they used to practic just
Speaker 3: over it over at Jack's house. And that's the first
Speaker 3: band that I knew of that Terry was in. I
Speaker 3: think they only played once or twice. As matter of fact,
Speaker 3: I wrote I wrote with them to the gig. I
Speaker 3: think the only paid once or twice at local community centers.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 3: But if you if you'd like to know how when
Speaker 3: Terry first got in the band, I was. I was
Speaker 3: playing the lead guitar and another very very good friend
Speaker 3: of Terry's, Wash Chet Yoakam, Chet was playing drums, and
Speaker 3: we had a keyboard player named Lee, and Lee left
Speaker 3: the band and we were trying to find a keyboard
Speaker 3: player and we couldn't find a keyboard player. Uh. And
Speaker 3: this was a practice one time. So my mom said, Gary,
Speaker 3: if you want learn how to play you know, keyboards.
Speaker 3: She says, I don't have to play piano, and we
Speaker 3: can get you one week and you can learn. I said, okay,
Speaker 3: why not? So Chet says, well, that would work out
Speaker 3: really good because Terry has been telling me he wants
Speaker 3: to be in the band. M Well, Terry at the
Speaker 3: tie at that very moment, was over at Jack's house
Speaker 3: practicing with that band. Well, you know, Chet, being the
Speaker 3: good friend that he was, he had a little ninety
Speaker 3: c C Honda motorcycle, which back back then we thought
Speaker 3: that was a big bike. And he went over to
Speaker 3: Jack's house and Terry took his guitar and he put
Speaker 3: it around his back, you know, so the strapp was
Speaker 3: on the front of him and the back was and
Speaker 3: the guitar was hanging out the back got on the
Speaker 3: back of Chet's motorcycle and he brought him over to
Speaker 3: Arur practice.
Speaker 2: Wow, and he plugged in.
Speaker 3: And that's that's how Terry joined Infinity's End.
Speaker 2: So Infinity's End existed for how long before Terry got involved?
Speaker 3: Oh? Not long.
Speaker 2: Yearrish got it. So he shows up and tell me
Speaker 2: about his jobs and was he really good from the beginning?
Speaker 2: Did he get better? How did it go?
Speaker 3: He was good. He had he had taken music lessons
Speaker 3: from a guy named Mike, you know, the professionally taught.
Speaker 3: Mike was in a band called The Opposite Sexist, and
Speaker 3: he was good. Mike taught hem, you know, the right
Speaker 3: way to learn, practice your scales and things, and Terry
Speaker 3: played lead guitar uh in the beginning. Later on we
Speaker 3: were practicing, we were learning the song by Yes, and
Speaker 3: Terry's big old fingers just couldn't move fast. And the
Speaker 3: bass player David, David could play anything, so right there
Speaker 3: at practice they just swapped, you know, and Terry started
Speaker 3: playing bass and David, you know, played guitar. But Terry
Speaker 3: was a really good, really good, solid guitar player. He
Speaker 3: just you know, he had two different sides. He had
Speaker 3: kind of a mild meek side. One time we were
Speaker 3: playing UH at an old airplane hangar at Lakeland Air
Speaker 3: Force Base, and the band that went on before us
Speaker 3: were so so good blues band, just three of them, uh.
Speaker 3: And so we went to go up on stage, and
Speaker 3: we were we were all pretty nervous. Uh. Terry was
Speaker 3: exceptionally nervous. And I looked over and he was trying
Speaker 3: to plug his guitar and his amp and his hand
Speaker 3: was shaking and I had to reach up and put
Speaker 3: my hand around his and put it in there. But
Speaker 3: once things got going, he was a real showman, once
Speaker 3: he got past that little bit of stage fright that
Speaker 3: he sometimes had. Mom used to make his clothes and
Speaker 3: he would get we would we would wear these satiney
Speaker 3: looking long sleeve balloon shirts and he would have her
Speaker 3: so all kinds of fringe on it, a real long fringe,
Speaker 3: and then then he would have her take his bill
Speaker 3: bottom pants and make it even bigger. But he had
Speaker 3: this kind of kind of shy sight sometimes. But then
Speaker 3: what he got on stage, it was a whole different thing,
Speaker 3: and he used to really really show off. We used
Speaker 3: to play some grand folk where I wrote them things,
Speaker 3: and he did a really fine job on those.
Speaker 2: JP had strikes me we have a chance here with
Speaker 2: Gary to get something potentially that Vic couldn't quite convey.
Speaker 2: We want to know that the voice, right, JP. We
Speaker 2: want to know what it sounded like to talk to
Speaker 2: Terry before he was hul hilgan.
Speaker 4: You know, before before the voice dropped and he had
Speaker 4: that deep voice. I tried, I'm trying to picture and
Speaker 4: I just what it what it sounded like?
Speaker 2: What did he talk like as a kid, He.
Speaker 3: Just sounded like and the other little kid he did.
Speaker 2: He didn't say brother all the time or not.
Speaker 3: His voice did not match his body. How so Gary,
Speaker 3: well it was just kind of meek and mild. He
Speaker 3: hadn't got that low hold hook and but I remember
Speaker 3: the first time I saw him was on Johnny Carson
Speaker 3: as a matter of fact. In fact, they showed a
Speaker 3: picture of his third grade class and that's when he
Speaker 3: was talking about hook mania and things. And I was
Speaker 3: surprised that how his voice sounded. Now, as far as
Speaker 3: I know, he did a voiceover in Rocky, Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: It in post production like he does. He's not mouthing
Speaker 2: the words, he's.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's mouthing the words. But I believe it
Speaker 3: was a voiceover. It did not sound like him to me.
Speaker 2: Well, like somebody else did a voice interesting.
Speaker 3: Right, right, that's my understanding. I can't say that for gospel,
Speaker 3: but it did not sound like him.
Speaker 2: To jump ahead a bit, I mean, that's got to
Speaker 2: be a trip. You see this guy who you know
Speaker 2: has some showing in him, like you said once the
Speaker 2: music ongoing, but who also could be very meek and
Speaker 2: mild mannered, who didn't have that big boisterous voice, who's
Speaker 2: trembling plugging into the MP And then you know, ten
Speaker 2: years later he's on national television screaming and hollering with
Speaker 2: this deep timber and going nuts that. That must have
Speaker 2: been weird to see Terry boleo or did you even
Speaker 2: see him in that guy anymore?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yes, and no. What I used to tell Terry
Speaker 3: was apparently got over stage right friends, you know, but
Speaker 3: farently he got over his stage right. Uh. It was
Speaker 3: a little it was a little surreal to see him,
Speaker 3: to see him like that, But you know, he's always
Speaker 3: been just Terry to me. You know that that's my
Speaker 3: memories of him. You know, I was playing hanging out
Speaker 3: together and playing in the band together.
Speaker 2: When you uh were outfitted. Because he talks about this
Speaker 2: in his book a bit. Your dad was kind of
Speaker 2: the manager of Infinity's end, and your mom was involved,
Speaker 2: as you said, in the outfitting and the costuming, right. Yes,
Speaker 2: he remembers in his second book it is missus Barres
Speaker 2: used to paint peace signs and daisies on our pants
Speaker 2: with black light paint that would glow on stage. So
Speaker 2: you guys would kill the lights at a certain point.
Speaker 2: Was that part of the presentation?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and turn and turn on the black lights and
Speaker 3: then our pats would light up. It's almost embarrassing right
Speaker 3: now to talk about, but it was really cool back then,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that counts as a special effense. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 4: of like crazy technology for the time, all right, got it,
Speaker 4: So I can picture that now. He also said she
Speaker 4: also made us wear socks with our penny loafers, and
Speaker 4: if we didn't, we'd get fined five dollars. Is that true?
Speaker 3: Terry used to tell a lot of half truths. I
Speaker 3: could name quite a few.
Speaker 2: Oh, we'll get them by the time we're done.
Speaker 3: He didn't like to wear socks, and and mom and
Speaker 3: dad tried to get him to wear socks, but he
Speaker 3: never got fined for not wearing socks, all right. He
Speaker 3: also mentions in the in the in the book that
Speaker 3: we did this synchronized movements when we were playing dance.
Speaker 3: How about how about fell on the floor laughing when
Speaker 3: I read that.
Speaker 2: Wow, you guys were stationary.
Speaker 3: He couldn't dance to save his life.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's tremendous. Yeah, I just god. It's
Speaker 2: so it's so interesting, Grek, because so many wrestlers, especially
Speaker 2: in that era, came from athletics, especially in Tampa. I
Speaker 2: mean so many college football.
Speaker 3: Players, even from Robinson High School.
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, Steve Kern and the Grahams and and others
Speaker 2: at Leslie. Uh, and they were in their athletes. And
Speaker 2: you know, Kerry did play little league baseball and dabbled
Speaker 2: a bit in football. We know this from looking at
Speaker 2: his history. And he bowled, of course, but by the time,
Speaker 2: by the time he's with you guys and plugged into
Speaker 2: the music, he's not an athlete. It's so fascinating that
Speaker 2: he became a pro wrestler without that sort of you know,
Speaker 2: collegiate athletic pedigree at all.
Speaker 3: Right, he had, he had ability, but that wasn't what
Speaker 3: he pursued, you know, he had he had no interest
Speaker 3: in going out and for the football team and things
Speaker 3: like that. Now the coach didn't like the idea that
Speaker 3: he wouldn't go out. And we had long hair, and uh,
Speaker 3: he and I went to get our senior class done.
Speaker 3: We're playing at a club called the White Rabbit over
Speaker 3: in Saint Petersburg on Treasure Island. And during that, you know,
Speaker 3: it was summertime. Our hair was good and long. We
Speaker 3: were swimming in the pool every day and then to
Speaker 3: try the next day. Well, and he and I went
Speaker 3: to get our senior pictures taken at Brown Island Studios.
Speaker 3: Our hair was down to our shoulders, and so we
Speaker 3: had our pictures taken. You know, we went back and
Speaker 3: did our own goofy thing, you know, playing in the
Speaker 3: club and trying to meet girls during the day. And
Speaker 3: they called us up and they said, uh, you're you're
Speaker 3: you're not going to be in the in high Why
Speaker 3: is that because your hair is too long?
Speaker 2: Oh my god?
Speaker 3: Really so so he so, mom, cut is in my
Speaker 3: hair and we went and had to have it redone again.
Speaker 3: But as a matter of fact, I was supposed to
Speaker 3: be and I was in the top tim percent uh
Speaker 3: of the class. In graduation. I was supposed to be
Speaker 3: with the honor students. And I didn't know that I
Speaker 3: graduated with honors till after I got my diploma, and
Speaker 3: I said, what's just stand there in the corner.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, because your.
Speaker 3: Hair was because that was because the dean of boys
Speaker 3: didn't like either one of us. The coach didn't like
Speaker 3: Terry for not going out for football. Of course, the
Speaker 3: coach didn't like either one of us for having long hair.
Speaker 3: And uh, like I said, I think it was the
Speaker 3: dean that was behind neither one of us was going
Speaker 3: to be in the in the high school annual and
Speaker 3: uh that that just was the way it was, uh
Speaker 3: sab Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that's something because Terry, as you probably know Gary's,
Speaker 2: he became a wrestling superstar and had that pole position
Speaker 2: to protect. He kind of got the reputation of a
Speaker 2: guy who was always looking over his shoulder at the
Speaker 2: next potential guy that was coming for his, you know, spot,
Speaker 2: and he was a master at staying relevant and on top.
Speaker 2: Did he have any like, I don't know, for lack
Speaker 2: of a better term, like paranoid qualities, But even back then,
Speaker 2: was he very like self conscious about how he was
Speaker 2: perceived and things like that.
Speaker 3: Well, he was very sufagious about his appearance. Yeah, he
Speaker 3: always was thought he had ahead that was bigger anybody
Speaker 3: else's and he wasn't. You know, that was part of
Speaker 3: his course sort of shy side and he was heavy.
Speaker 3: He was heavy when he was playing baseball. But he
Speaker 3: could still play baseball just fine. He can pitch, he
Speaker 3: could knock him over the fence. But he never was
Speaker 3: really paranoid so to speak of Okay, but of that
Speaker 3: shy side and those those things that he was he
Speaker 3: was embarrassed up now. We could never get him to
Speaker 3: talk into a microphone. R. Wow, do you want to
Speaker 3: do you want to sing? Nope? Do you want a
Speaker 3: microphone so you can at least talk to the people? Nope,
Speaker 3: that's just that never happened.
Speaker 2: That's wild.
Speaker 3: Like I said, he got over his stage right again.
Speaker 4: Just but I because I to kind of a piggyback
Speaker 4: on Jack's question there, because we've seen a bunch of
Speaker 4: the band photos, and what I find interesting is that
Speaker 4: in most of them, and like different bands too, not all,
Speaker 4: not just an Infinity's end, but he's always in the back.
Speaker 4: Terry was always in the back, and he kind of
Speaker 4: had everyone else in front. And I don't know it,
Speaker 4: just it seemed it seemed interesting to me because he's
Speaker 4: such a powerful presence and made me wonder why he
Speaker 4: always wanted to kind of stay behind everybody and not,
Speaker 4: you know, be in front of anybody.
Speaker 3: Well, to be honest with you, if he'd had been
Speaker 3: out front with the rest of us, it was like
Speaker 3: the jolly green giant we looked.
Speaker 2: Like, right, It's true, that's true.
Speaker 3: Though I think the the photographer that we used probably
Speaker 3: placed him back there.
Speaker 2: Got him. He didn't want to He didn't want to
Speaker 2: keep an eye on anybody. He didn't want to keep
Speaker 2: an eye on everybody or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right now, he may have gravitated back there.
Speaker 3: I don't really know, but I imagine that was the
Speaker 3: photographer that did. Yeah, yeah, that he probably didn't mind.
Speaker 2: He probably didn't mind. Yeah, you can echo that for sure.
Speaker 2: Something else in the book, he remembers your dad, uh
Speaker 2: taking everything very seriously. He says, whatever the gig was,
Speaker 2: we would play forty minutes, then take a twenty minute break.
Speaker 2: We couldn't be late, we couldn't break too early.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: He kind of took some of the fun out of
Speaker 2: it with all that discipline. But the thing was, we were
Speaker 2: junior high kids, and we were actually making money at
Speaker 2: this on the weekends. So it's interesting he describes it
Speaker 2: not as like always this like just kids being kids.
Speaker 2: It kind of became a professionalized thing. Can can you
Speaker 2: help us understand? Kind of did you have dad seriously? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, that that was the reason we were making money,
Speaker 3: and the rest of them we're still playing in their garages, right,
Speaker 3: you know, Dad, Dad, he was the manager at every
Speaker 3: sense of the word. If we had if we had
Speaker 3: a potential place to play, he would go meet with
Speaker 3: either the club owner or and we used to pay
Speaker 3: out the base a whole lot. And he was an
Speaker 3: air traffic controller and he could get on base anytime
Speaker 3: and kind of talked to Lingo and he would he
Speaker 3: would make the arrangements. So he felt a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 3: And he would say, they'll show up on time. You know,
Speaker 3: they'll they'll do what they're supposed to do. He says,
Speaker 3: I'll make sure they don't play too loud, and that
Speaker 3: that he did. But it was because of his discipline
Speaker 3: that we were successful. And uh, Terry and I played
Speaker 3: together about five years. He and I were the longest
Speaker 3: standing members of Infinities in well, I was the longest
Speaker 3: because I started it. But he he he, we've lasted. Gosh,
Speaker 3: we lasted a lot longer than most most kids, you know,
Speaker 3: stayed together. We were we started junior high and then
Speaker 3: we finished up playing together probably about two years after
Speaker 3: high school something like that. And I still sat it
Speaker 3: in with some of his other bands when they were shorthanded.
Speaker 2: Oh good, No, we'll talk about the other bands, because
Speaker 2: you know, we were looking at some some materials over
Speaker 2: the years that have been in the paper. You know,
Speaker 2: Infinity's end is coming. To the youth center or whatever,
Speaker 2: and these press releases. And one of the things that
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about was you guys advertised
Speaker 2: yourself as bringing a big sound, a big sound, and
Speaker 2: I'm missing the context, like, what what did it mean
Speaker 2: to have a big sound? What does that tell us
Speaker 2: about the style of music people would expect when they
Speaker 2: read that back then?
Speaker 3: Well, well, for instance, we played the song and I
Speaker 3: got a da vida yes, And at the time we
Speaker 3: had two drummers, and the drummers did the solos completely synchronized,
Speaker 3: and and that I think that's that may have been
Speaker 3: what kind of started the reputation. But but you know,
Speaker 3: you can sell it was kind of a kind of
Speaker 3: a heavy sound, I guess you would say, without without
Speaker 3: being too loud.
Speaker 2: Was it heavy enough that attracts to you? That Hulk
Speaker 2: claimed to want to join Metallica later, that seems a
Speaker 2: lot heavier than what you guys were doing.
Speaker 3: That that would have been very much happier.
Speaker 2: What about that story, that's a legendary one where I
Speaker 2: wanted to be you know, he put in he put
Speaker 2: out the word that he wanted to be in Metallica.
Speaker 3: Well, what can I say?
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it quite.
Speaker 4: I was curious in one of the in one of
Speaker 4: the uh kind of promos we found for Infinity's end
Speaker 4: at this you know, at some youth center. It said,
Speaker 4: this is kind of fascinated me. It said at the
Speaker 4: end that you know it started, you know, they said,
Speaker 4: you know, they're going to play from seven to ten thirty,
Speaker 4: but they basically insinuated that the doors were locked between
Speaker 4: that time and you could not leave until the show
Speaker 4: was over.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what was that about.
Speaker 3: Some of some back then, some of the rear creation
Speaker 3: centers did that for parents peace of mind.
Speaker 2: I see, okay, okay, they.
Speaker 3: Didn't want the kids saying, well, we're gonna go to
Speaker 3: the dance, you know, then the kids go stick off
Speaker 3: in the woods, okay, come back later for mama dad
Speaker 3: to pick them up.
Speaker 4: I just think of in like today's world, little word
Speaker 4: any kind of an emergency. You know, there's there's concerns
Speaker 4: about fire and stuff. It's like, oh my god, no
Speaker 4: you can't leave. The building's on fire, but you can't leave.
Speaker 4: But that makes sense where you're coming from, makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you appreciate that you drop the kids off
Speaker 2: and yeah, you'd hope, you'd hope that they wouldn't end
Speaker 2: up somewhere else. So you guys are in there, you're
Speaker 2: pretty young school age, and it looks like some of
Speaker 2: the clubs you guys were playing were liquor serving establishments.
Speaker 2: How did that work? Was it okay to have, you know,
Speaker 2: a band that couldn't drink playing for people who were
Speaker 2: drinking or was that? Was there not that overlap? How
Speaker 2: did that all go?
Speaker 3: Well, a couple of places I could think of that
Speaker 3: we did that. They actually had a kind of it
Speaker 3: was kind of a section, for lack of a better comparison,
Speaker 3: like a like a smoking section or no smoking section,
Speaker 3: you know. And there was a little I mean, what
Speaker 3: do they think us to walk back to the bar
Speaker 3: right right? Anything to stop us, but we had to
Speaker 3: go through this little gate and someone would say, you know,
Speaker 3: you need to get back. In some places they'd go
Speaker 3: ahead and service.
Speaker 2: To be clear, absolutely was he was he a part
Speaker 2: of your I mean obviously he wasn't like a huge
Speaker 2: party animal in high school? Well, you know, but give
Speaker 2: us a sense like did he did he become cool?
Speaker 2: He's confusing because he talks in his books and interviews
Speaker 2: about how being in the band sort of put them
Speaker 2: in in bold position and put you guys kind of
Speaker 2: in the spotlight, and so you were known. But he
Speaker 2: also says, like we're all kind of nerdy, and we weren't.
Speaker 2: Just because we were playing in the band didn't mean
Speaker 2: we got a lot of girls. I'm trying to like
Speaker 2: slot him in my mind in the in the halls
Speaker 2: of the high school.
Speaker 3: Well in in the high school days, I would say,
Speaker 3: the first two years of high school, and back then
Speaker 3: it was only three years. We were both we were
Speaker 3: both kind of shy, yeah, and then our senior year,
Speaker 3: we both both came out of our show a little
Speaker 3: bit more. That's when we you know, grew a hair
Speaker 3: long and you know, started start having some girl friends
Speaker 3: and such. His first girlfriend was a lady named Debbie Smith,
Speaker 3: and she was either a year or two years younger.
Speaker 3: I'm still in touch with her occasionally. We've had lunch
Speaker 3: a couple of times. It was I actually ran across
Speaker 3: her on a dating site and she said, you know,
Speaker 3: I really can't date you. I feel like I was
Speaker 3: going out against Terry. Okay, but she was a real
Speaker 3: she's a real nice lady, and I just remember that's
Speaker 3: when Terry had his green Ford Galaxy five and he
Speaker 3: drove to high school and you know they would they would,
Speaker 3: you know, be out in the on the parking lot
Speaker 3: in the in the Galaxy before school. And that's just
Speaker 3: that's just how I remember them walking together.
Speaker 2: Fascinating when you mentioned the car, and he talks about
Speaker 2: a sixty nine road Runner one with an automatic three
Speaker 2: eight three engine and a four speed, and he says
Speaker 2: in his first book he couldn't have gotten them without
Speaker 2: the help of a woman by the name of Lilah
Speaker 2: Silverwood who was at Atlantic Bay Bank on Dale Neighbray
Speaker 2: Street in Tampa. He says, now we've talked a little bit, Gary,
Speaker 2: I know you don't necessarily remember that that that particular
Speaker 2: woman who he says helped get the car loan before
Speaker 2: he could qualify from one age based on his own.
Speaker 2: First of all, do you remember Terry being like one
Speaker 2: of the first guys that got like financed for a
Speaker 2: car and and all of a sudden had had a
Speaker 2: like a hot rod before other kids did.
Speaker 3: Well, we tried to make it the actually five hundred
Speaker 3: hot rod.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just generically it was eighty nine.
Speaker 3: And I remember him he and I go into gosh
Speaker 3: I think it was Zerr's and boughting a Sparkmatic free
Speaker 3: speech shifter and putting it on the floor, and he
Speaker 3: wound up wrapping that car round a palm tree.
Speaker 4: Whoa, whoa, what happened there? But did he get I
Speaker 4: can't just leave that one there? What happened?
Speaker 3: It was just a little there was just a little
Speaker 3: road off McDill Avenue that that wasn't quite straight, and
Speaker 3: it wasn't a hard, hard corner either. It was just
Speaker 3: a kind of a curve and uh, he just took
Speaker 3: it too fast one time and he got sideways. He's
Speaker 3: in the quarter panel and and the palm tree had
Speaker 3: a had a little h incident there.
Speaker 2: So he was he went hard. Yeah, that's that's all.
Speaker 3: Well, we were we were both car guys. Uh you know,
Speaker 3: the the band van had a three twenty seven police
Speaker 3: interceptor and put in it, and we we were just
Speaker 3: we were all car guys. And because of the fact
Speaker 3: that we were making money, we could we could afford them.
Speaker 3: Now we couldn't afford to go out and pay for
Speaker 3: one cash for instance.
Speaker 2: But the woman.
Speaker 3: Of the bank probably help probably helped him out. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know they Pete Ruth lived in a very modest
Speaker 3: wood frame house, and I don't doubt that he may
Speaker 3: may have needed some assistance, uh, you know, to get
Speaker 3: a car like that. The Reverend was the four speed
Speaker 3: and the blue and was the automatic?
Speaker 2: Was he well? We mentioned his banking time, and he's
Speaker 2: mentioned it in passing because it was a very short thing.
Speaker 2: But I think he went to USF where he went
Speaker 2: to Hillsbury Community College and had like a finance minor
Speaker 2: for a very short period of time or a major even,
Speaker 2: and it looked like he was considering maybe a career
Speaker 2: in banking. I have a hard time wrapping my head
Speaker 2: around seeing this massive man in the suit and tie,
Speaker 2: you know, as a loan officer. But can you tell
Speaker 2: us whatever you remember about his short lived idea to
Speaker 2: be in banking.
Speaker 3: I don't know where it came from. I mean we were,
Speaker 3: you know, after you playing a band. It's like, what
Speaker 3: do I do now? And I think he was, you know,
Speaker 3: comfortable at the bank from his dealings there and that
Speaker 3: just maybe I think he just went there and applied
Speaker 3: and apparently it was something that he was well suited for.
Speaker 3: Didn't handle his his money too well. I guess to
Speaker 3: get everybody else's.
Speaker 2: I love that because he, uh, he talks a lot about,
Speaker 2: you know, being a numbers guy. Of course he made
Speaker 2: so much money, but I wasn't sure. Yeah, what was
Speaker 2: his spending like relative to uh, you know, a banker like?
Speaker 2: Was he was? He a free spender? What do you remember?
Speaker 3: We were? We were pretty free? What what money didn't
Speaker 3: go for band equipment, went for cars, might go for cars,
Speaker 3: went for beers. He and I were were drinking buddies,
Speaker 3: bandmates and just just just you know, friends friends in general.
Speaker 2: I love that. What was his beer of choice in
Speaker 2: his earliest years?
Speaker 3: We used to buy old We call him old Milwaukee
Speaker 3: Old Mill okay, because he was like ninety nine cents
Speaker 3: a six pack.
Speaker 2: So he was smart with his money. He wasn't splurging.
Speaker 2: He's find the cheapest beer he could find.
Speaker 3: Well, that was because I got you the most.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's that. That pencils out for sure. So did
Speaker 2: you ever go see him at the bank? Did you
Speaker 2: ever observe him in that element? I just can't even
Speaker 2: picture him.
Speaker 3: And no, I never did, and and and like you say,
Speaker 3: that would be just so so hard to imagine pulling
Speaker 3: into a bank, and here's this guy that's uh, well
Speaker 3: over six ft you know, this this huge head, right,
Speaker 3: and I don't and I don't think he could his
Speaker 3: hair to go to work in the bank. No, but
Speaker 3: that would that would have been a bizarre site, for sure.
Speaker 2: I was surprised to hear you say that that that
Speaker 2: was such an issue with like that the Dean and
Speaker 2: the Yebic community, because because to me, that whole era,
Speaker 2: it was sort of the long hair had already been accepted,
Speaker 2: and in the resistance to the long hair from from
Speaker 2: teenagers and twenty somethings was was in the rearview mirror.
Speaker 2: But it sounds like Terry grew up in a time
Speaker 2: when there was still a lot of opposition to that.
Speaker 3: Look well, well, Hillsboro County, which is where Robinson High
Speaker 3: School resides, was a bit different, very behind in the times.
Speaker 3: I see, we we were not allowed to grow long hair.
Speaker 3: I kept in mind back over my ears, and he
Speaker 3: did the same thing to make it look a little
Speaker 3: bit shorter. Because the thing was, your hair couldn't be
Speaker 3: over your ears, you know, So we put it back
Speaker 3: and that's how we would get by, as long as
Speaker 3: it wasn't too long. But somebody, uh just just to
Speaker 3: regress for a second. Here, there were four guys uh
Speaker 3: that did not get their hair cut a second a
Speaker 3: second time like Terry and I did, and they were
Speaker 3: not going to be any annual. And during the the
Speaker 3: last part of high school, someone in the county UH
Speaker 3: sued the county for not letting them, uh grow the
Speaker 3: hair long. And the judge declared that the here is
Speaker 3: just an extension of the body and you can't regulate
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: So these guys were that were not going to be
Speaker 3: in the annual got in the annual because of the lawsuit,
Speaker 3: and we called it the long hair section because they
Speaker 3: were totally not worked in with the rest of the
Speaker 3: They ha already done the layout and everything, so they
Speaker 3: just stuck them at the bottom of the page. But
Speaker 3: we used left out that called the long hair section.
Speaker 3: Harry and I would have been there if we had.
Speaker 2: That's really cool. Yeah, could you just think of him
Speaker 2: as oh, yeah, hippie rock like look at him. That
Speaker 2: was that was par for the course back then, without
Speaker 2: an appreciation that, you know, the county he lived in
Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily embracing of that that revolution.
Speaker 3: Now we would we played in particular. One time we
Speaker 3: played in Arcadia, Florida, which at the time was just
Speaker 3: a little rodeo town. Still not huge, but it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's in the middle of the state, not anything already
Speaker 3: else around it. And some of the ladies were making
Speaker 3: eyes that the guys in the band, probably especially Terry
Speaker 3: and some of the good old boys, did not like that.
Speaker 3: And uh, I see, we took the microphones stands and
Speaker 3: we laid them out in the grass as we were
Speaker 3: packing so we could have something to grab swing and
Speaker 3: we got a police escort out of the.
Speaker 2: County wow Wowa. He had he had heat for getting
Speaker 2: the attention to the ladies for his long hair.
Speaker 3: Right, and they, of course we didn't have They didn't
Speaker 3: like long hair either. But this was, like you said,
Speaker 3: it was it was getting a set acceptance, but Bill
Speaker 3: hadn't quite got there yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that that kind of tracks right, JP. And
Speaker 2: he's concerned that he's got heat with these Brandon people,
Speaker 2: you know, and that they might be coming for him.
Speaker 4: That makes that mean Honestly, that makes that makes total sense.
Speaker 4: It's unbelievable how it even tracks back that far.
Speaker 2: Now, Gary tell us when you think about that, that
Speaker 2: flirtation with banking that he had, for lack of a
Speaker 2: better term. One of the things he kind of frames
Speaker 2: up in his one of his books is this idea
Speaker 2: that while he was at the bank, he had access to,
Speaker 2: you know, different client files and different client accounts, and
Speaker 2: he claims that the bank he worked at a lot
Speaker 2: of the wrestlers Florida Championship Wrestling wrestlers had their accounts,
Speaker 2: and so he was able to kind of peek just
Speaker 2: in the normal course of business at what they were
Speaker 2: making and saw these amounts that honestly seemed ludicrous for
Speaker 2: the time. As far as what he put in his book,
Speaker 2: I guess when he first told the story, he was
Speaker 2: like two grand a week, and by the time he
Speaker 2: was done telling it, it was like thirty grand a
Speaker 2: week for some of these guys in the seventies, which
Speaker 2: is hard to believe. Anyway, what he was like, go ahead, like.
Speaker 3: I said, Terry told half Truce. He told me he
Speaker 3: was from Port Tampa and he went from Port Dampa.
Speaker 3: He was from South Tampa. Port Tampa was dumb, Barbara.
Speaker 3: The high school was one time there was a gandy
Speaker 3: bridge connects Tampa and the Saint And as you're driving
Speaker 3: across that bridge in Port Tampa, you could look and
Speaker 3: you could see the largest neon sign in the world.
Speaker 3: It was like one hundred and fifty feet wide. They're
Speaker 3: three hundred feet wide one hundred and fifty feet tall,
Speaker 3: and it was Atlantic Coastline Railroad on the sign. That's
Speaker 3: where their main yard was. Well, one time he told me,
Speaker 3: he said, I'm just going to use their first names.
Speaker 3: He said, Dougie and Cliff. He said they unplugged that
Speaker 3: sign once. And not too long ago, I was chatting
Speaker 3: on Facebook with Cliff's wife and I said, Terry said,
Speaker 3: you know, Dougie and Cliff unplugged that sign. She said no,
Speaker 3: She said they used to climb up on it, but
Speaker 3: they didn't have run plug it.
Speaker 2: I guess climbing up on it wasn't a good enough
Speaker 2: story for Terry, right.
Speaker 3: Right, right, But but you know it was all in
Speaker 3: good fun of course. Well, I'm thinking about it. He
Speaker 3: had this fascination with Port Tampa and he actually wanted
Speaker 3: to rename the band the Port Tampa Volunteer Electric String Band.
Speaker 4: What why would you want to call it that?
Speaker 2: The Port tamp the Port Tampa volunteer electric string band.
Speaker 3: That's what he wanted to name the band.
Speaker 2: Okay, why he.
Speaker 3: Was he was obsessed. He just was obsessed with Port Tampa.
Speaker 3: They had an old jail that wasn't there anymore. There
Speaker 3: was a bank that was empty that's now public library.
Speaker 3: He had a crush on a girl named Sue Clark,
Speaker 3: and we used to toilet pay for her her house,
Speaker 3: which was her parents' house. Uh. And he ran the
Speaker 3: local uh general store. He actually I have a friend
Speaker 3: that that told me a story once. One of her
Speaker 3: sters was a mermaid in Wiki watching Springs, which is
Speaker 3: a big deal, and he had a crush on her.
Speaker 3: So he left. He left a toilet in their front yard.
Speaker 2: What he just had.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he grew out of it, but just a
Speaker 3: weird of sense of humor sometimes.
Speaker 2: Well that's it's something a wrestling rib to lead, you know,
Speaker 2: in the wrestling world. So did his proclivity to tell
Speaker 2: tall tales go back to high school even or did
Speaker 2: he only start telling the big whoppers after he became
Speaker 2: a wrestler.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, it was it was from junior high
Speaker 3: up from what I remember.
Speaker 2: See, we always blamed the wrestling business for that but
Speaker 2: he he came ready to make misrepresentations. That's amazing a bit,
Speaker 2: just a bit, just a bit, because one of the
Speaker 2: reasons I brought the bank thing up was not just
Speaker 2: to see what you were called, but in how fascinating
Speaker 2: it is that he worked in banking, even if just
Speaker 2: for a little while. But he kind of frames it
Speaker 2: up in his book as the real reason he decided
Speaker 2: to stop pursuing music, because he was able to get
Speaker 2: this glimpse at how much the wrestlers were making by
Speaker 2: virtue of this bank job he happened to have in
Speaker 2: these files, he happened to have, what's your perception, knowing
Speaker 2: him as well as you did, and playing in bands
Speaker 2: with him for so long, why did he stop playing music?
Speaker 3: Well, with music, you either make it really big or
Speaker 3: you struggle after a while. And when we were in
Speaker 3: the final days of playing now I was in different
Speaker 3: bands and he was in a different band. Disco was
Speaker 3: becoming popular and everything was you know, DJ's spent in records,
Speaker 3: and you just couldn't get the good gigs hardly anymore
Speaker 3: unless you unless you played some of the larger clubs
Speaker 3: I see, And you know, there comes a time where
Speaker 3: you've got to make a choice. You know, am I
Speaker 3: going to be a musician and starve or are you gonna,
Speaker 3: you know, have a regular job and be able to
Speaker 3: have a family and so on and so forth. But
Speaker 3: I don't doubt whatsoever that because he was actually playing
Speaker 3: you probably know the story. He was actually playing in
Speaker 3: a club where some of the wrestlers used to come.
Speaker 2: In, Imperial Room, right, yes.
Speaker 3: And yes, And I have no doubt that that all
Speaker 3: that just kind of merged together, just kind of came
Speaker 3: to fruish, uh, you know, the lack of being able
Speaker 3: to get really good gigs and and make really good
Speaker 3: money because of what was changing, you know, Disco was
Speaker 3: taking over, and him working at the bank, and the wrestlers,
Speaker 3: you know, running into him at the club. I batched,
Speaker 3: that all just kind of melded together and came to fruition.
Speaker 3: And and that's that's how hul Cogan was born.
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah, that's what we're getting to is
Speaker 2: the birth of Hulk Hogan, not just Terry Bolea. And
Speaker 2: the thing that the thing that just endlessly felt fascinates
Speaker 2: me about the guy is and there's so many examples
Speaker 2: of this, It's like a pattern and you've already touched
Speaker 2: on it, But this is another one where it's like
Speaker 2: he tells the story all the time, just as you did.
Speaker 2: You know that the wrestler should be around him, and
Speaker 2: he become aware of of how big a deal they were,
Speaker 2: how much they could make, and that definitely got his
Speaker 2: attention and made him lean into it. Why then introduce
Speaker 2: this this fable about how he saw the wrestler's earning
Speaker 2: statements at the bank, Like, what did that do for
Speaker 2: him to have that story as part of it? I
Speaker 2: never understood why he did that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, I cannot, I cannot verify that part of his
Speaker 3: story clearly. I think probably the rest of it, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, it all makes sense, and I think I'm
Speaker 3: sure it's true that part of it may be that
Speaker 3: a little bit of that half of a little bit
Speaker 3: untruth it might have worked its way in there.
Speaker 2: Well, why do you think he did that? Why do
Speaker 2: you think he the sign unplugged? What did he get
Speaker 2: out of embellishing like that? Do you think.
Speaker 3: Attention? Oh?
Speaker 5: I see, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, he always had
Speaker 5: a little bit of an insecure side, and I think that,
Speaker 5: you know, it was just just part of him you.
Speaker 3: Know, getting past that, getting attention, Not that we all
Speaker 3: didn't spend some tales, but of course yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 3: was pretty consistent with it.
Speaker 2: You can say, I'm fascinated to hear that that was
Speaker 2: his rep before wrestling. Yeah, got jam.
Speaker 4: I mean I say, would you consider that to be
Speaker 4: kind of like that insecurity? I mean this is a
Speaker 4: totally speculation. I mean, would you consid that to be
Speaker 4: kind of like a like a void he was trying
Speaker 4: to fill with this, uh, with these tall tales?
Speaker 3: Yes, I would think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because when you tell this, when you tell the
Speaker 2: big crazy stories like this, you get people, I don't know,
Speaker 2: just more more engaged with you, right, I mean it's
Speaker 2: just a way to make people remember you.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and of course people listen to you. You
Speaker 3: know it. It just it just was part of it.
Speaker 3: You know, many people are combination of different things. Do
Speaker 3: you think would not go together? But what it happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's what's been so rewarding talking to people like
Speaker 2: you and Vick is to see that in Terry Boleya
Speaker 2: that he was like he was so much more than
Speaker 2: just this big showman. You know, he wasn't even necessarily
Speaker 2: thought first and foremost as a showman for most of
Speaker 2: his formative years. He kind of discovered it now in
Speaker 2: seventy three, I think it was he would have been
Speaker 2: in college. He was in a band called Magic, and
Speaker 2: they played on the Genie Conroy Show, which I think
Speaker 2: was filmed on Apollo Beach and had some TV stations
Speaker 2: that would show the thing. He kind of frames that
Speaker 2: involvement with Genie Conroy is like a first glimpse he
Speaker 2: got into like the magic of television and being on
Speaker 2: a set. But you know, there's no video of this
Speaker 2: TV show and him playing on the TV show or
Speaker 2: anything like that, which is a shame. I mean, I've
Speaker 2: talked to you about it. There's pretty much no recorded
Speaker 2: music of his and yours that survives in the form
Speaker 2: of a you know, when you were both in the
Speaker 2: band on tape or anything like that. But do you
Speaker 2: remember the Genie Conroy Show. Is that something he had
Speaker 2: high hopes for? Was that something that could have been
Speaker 2: a springboard for him to play music longer or was
Speaker 2: that sort of like a last ditch thing. I have
Speaker 2: trouble with.
Speaker 3: That, well, I do. I'm still friends with with one
Speaker 3: of the guys that was in that band. David, and
Speaker 3: he told me about it. You know, they they thought
Speaker 3: it was it was it was. I don't know if
Speaker 3: it was a show that was ever released or not.
Speaker 3: I see if it was, it was, you know, I
Speaker 3: think they were like doing a pilot or something. I see,
Speaker 3: and they look at this as is hopefully being a
Speaker 3: big opportunity for him to go somewhere. But I don't
Speaker 3: think it ever ever really came about. We got approached
Speaker 3: an Infinity's end about backing the ladies that did a
Speaker 3: song called Love.
Speaker 6: Can Make You Happy that was a hit back in
Speaker 6: in the seventies maybe the late sixties and what and
Speaker 6: the band dispersed and then it became a hit, you know,
Speaker 6: so they're scrambling, you know, trying to get u a
Speaker 6: group together, and we got approached and we went to
Speaker 6: recording studio and stuff and it it never it.
Speaker 3: Never, it never. It never went anywhere. But I remember
Speaker 3: hoping that would would would turn into something. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure this this other show was something that David and
Speaker 3: Terry and Mark Mark was the drawer. They hoped it would,
Speaker 3: it would go somewhere.
Speaker 2: And certainly back to that great story you told about,
Speaker 2: you know, his his long hair, getting him attention in
Speaker 2: the wrong town and causing a little bit of friction.
Speaker 2: Was Terry attractive to the ladies because of his size,
Speaker 2: because he he kind of pains himself as like really awkward,
Speaker 2: like like women were not interested in him. But if
Speaker 2: he was, if he had the long hair and he
Speaker 2: was a rocker and he was huge, I would I
Speaker 2: don't care how big his head was. You would think
Speaker 2: he'd turned turned some heads. But I can't figure out
Speaker 2: if he was of interest in the ladies or not.
Speaker 3: Going back to what I was talking about, he underwent
Speaker 3: a change between eleventh grade and twelfth grade.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 3: The summer. There's a picture that was in our our
Speaker 3: high school annual that was taking during that summer. Uh,
Speaker 3: and like that summer, we know, we grew our hair out.
Speaker 3: Terry started working out for losing the weight, started looking better.
Speaker 3: So there was kind of a transition.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: This is probably a poor comparison, but there's a movie
Speaker 3: called The Summer I Got Pretty. It's kind of, uh yeah,
Speaker 3: kind of what happened with him. You know, he grew
Speaker 3: his hair long, Uh, started working out. I think we
Speaker 3: were we were both getting more confidence because we were
Speaker 3: you know, playing in the band, and people looked up
Speaker 3: to it and things, and we both just immature. We
Speaker 3: just both matured and grew up and got more confident
Speaker 3: during the course of that summer.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that was a pivotal time. That makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense, Yeah, because it explains why before. In
Speaker 2: the before times he kind of it's about him being
Speaker 2: so awkward around girls. And then yeah, he discovers working out.
Speaker 1: The La Fan wrestling podcast, the wrestling podcast that knows
Speaker 1: the boys need their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan. He's
Speaker 1: a Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast with Jack and and JP.
Speaker 4: Were you were you close with either of his brothers
Speaker 4: by chance? Alan or Kenny?
Speaker 3: Uh? Terry didn't meet Terry didn't meet Kenny until much
Speaker 3: later in life, much later, Okay, much later in life.
Speaker 3: I remember Kenny's picture being in the living room and
Speaker 3: that was from his mom's first marriage. Yes, uh, now,
Speaker 3: I you know Terry and I being drinking, but he's
Speaker 3: in of course Alan being big time into drinking. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we used to. We used to hang around uh together, Alan,
Speaker 3: you know mentioned Butch Smith and what uh he was
Speaker 3: the kind of the school bully and Terry and Butch
Speaker 3: became good friends. And uh, you know, Terry introduced me
Speaker 3: to Butch.
Speaker 2: To be clear, Butch is the guy he broke He
Speaker 2: broke his nose because he threw the rock with right.
Speaker 2: He became friends with that guy. That's interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, see, he became very good friends with him.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Terry took me over to Butcher's once and that's where
Speaker 3: I had the first beard I had ever drunk. And wow,
Speaker 3: but I lost Where.
Speaker 2: Were what you were saying? You were going out? You
Speaker 2: go with Alan too?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Alan? One time. Alan was the biggest bad ass
Speaker 3: in the in the neighborhood in that part of town.
Speaker 3: One time, Butcher was getting mouthy with him and Busch
Speaker 3: had been drinking and Alan just grabbed him, grabbed his
Speaker 3: belt and grabbed the back of his shirt and just
Speaker 3: literally threw him at flat on the ground in the
Speaker 3: parking lot and and knocked him out. Alan was Alan
Speaker 3: was really someone to be feared. But the only the
Speaker 3: only person to be feared more than Alan was his wife,
Speaker 3: his own wife.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was.
Speaker 3: She was a trip.
Speaker 2: Are you saying Alan's wife or Butcher's wife? Alan's wife
Speaker 2: rest in peace? Yeah? The one who was murdered, yeah,
Speaker 2: or killed in him yeah, yeah, what about that? I mean,
Speaker 2: were you around did you hear that? What was what
Speaker 2: was the talk in the city around What happened to
Speaker 2: Alan's wife?
Speaker 3: I I don't know, Yeah, I just remember her. They
Speaker 3: lived on a corner and the whole front yard was
Speaker 3: was sand. And I remember Terry's little nephew being out
Speaker 3: there in diapers, you know, playing in the dirt, and
Speaker 3: us going by to pick up Alan and his wife
Speaker 3: coming out and just screaming, you know, you're not going anywhere,
Speaker 3: on and on, you know, many many choice four letter words.
Speaker 3: I'm sure half English, half Spanish.
Speaker 2: Okay, so she was okay, Yeah, I figured she was Spanish,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to be derogatory because I'm I'm
Speaker 3: just talking about her in particular. But Terry called her
Speaker 3: a crazy Cuban.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I have spoken in the meantime to Alan
Speaker 3: and HER's daughter. A friend of mine is friends with her,
Speaker 3: and and she said, yeah, that sounds about.
Speaker 2: Right, sounds about right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that little nephew, remember, went on to be
Speaker 2: a wrestler in his own right. If that was Michael, Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2: So that's that's quite the portraits, so you got a
Speaker 2: flavor of Alan as well. It surprises me that Hulk
Speaker 2: was so him in and meek, and it sounds like,
Speaker 2: you know, he could break a nose if you had to.
Speaker 2: But none of that rubbed off on Terry. Uh that
Speaker 2: that aggressive streak that Alan had very little, very little, okay.
Speaker 3: Very very very little. There was after Terry started working
Speaker 3: out and stuff. He uh, there was. We used to
Speaker 3: have a thing called Beach Week. Everybody went to the
Speaker 3: beach for a week during spring break and there was
Speaker 3: a little bit of an altercation Terry got into over
Speaker 3: there once and you know, there's a little more background
Speaker 3: to it than that that I don't want to go
Speaker 3: into fair enough, but he he as part of us
Speaker 3: coming out of his shell. He was also a little
Speaker 3: more more aggressive, not terribly, not terribly, you know, not
Speaker 3: every day, not not not to make a big deal
Speaker 3: out of it, but Harry was a while to see
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 2: Of it, a new side of him that that might
Speaker 2: not have been there before he started hitting the weights
Speaker 2: and stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly, very interesting. So quickly on
Speaker 2: the music thing, was he formally edu formally educated in music,
Speaker 2: you know, because he was he was going to study
Speaker 2: music in school, and it sounds like he had a tutor,
Speaker 2: Like how formal was his music training?
Speaker 3: It was, It was very formal. It was a guy
Speaker 3: named Mike. I can't remember Mike's last name. He played
Speaker 3: the band called The Opposite Sexist and he was Terry's
Speaker 3: guitar teacher. Mike used to go with us once or
Speaker 3: twice on gigs and he taught Terry the right way
Speaker 3: to do it. He taught Terry how to play scales
Speaker 3: on the guitar and practice the scales and that that's hard,
Speaker 3: that's hard discipline. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a
Speaker 3: lot of disciplined to sit down and do that, because
Speaker 3: you're not playing a song or anything. You're just going
Speaker 3: down to scale, you know, down the neck. But it
Speaker 3: made him a very good guitar player, it really did.
Speaker 3: He could compose melodies, you know, using these scales. It was.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was interesting when he was telling some of
Speaker 2: those telltale else about you know, wanting to be the
Speaker 2: bassist in Rolling Stones or in Metallica. You know, he's
Speaker 2: doing these interviews and these interviewers are kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, that's not a little high to reach. And
Speaker 2: I think they. I'm not saying he was the most
Speaker 2: brilliant bassist ever, but I think in general people underappreciated
Speaker 2: how formal his training actually was. It wasn't just like
Speaker 2: this pick up hobby for him to play in bands
Speaker 2: in high school. I mean, it was a hobby, but
Speaker 2: he had he had training.
Speaker 3: Yes, very much so. And his parents bought him a
Speaker 3: very nice guild Hall. Abouty guitar, I mean that I
Speaker 3: remember that being a very big deal, and he had
Speaker 3: such a nice guitar, really the envy of a lot
Speaker 3: of different people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a prized possession of his. So why
Speaker 2: do you think he didn't show off his musicianship more
Speaker 2: in wrestling? I mean, we all have these visions of
Speaker 2: him strom and a guitar and that ww F music
Speaker 2: video and stuff, But wrestling fans never saw Terry you
Speaker 2: just pick up a guitar and play a song like
Speaker 2: we all have to. We rely on these descriptions of
Speaker 2: what it was like in the infinities end days, but
Speaker 2: we can't see him play guitar then or as a wrestler.
Speaker 2: Do you think he kind of try to put that
Speaker 2: to the side. What what did it conflict with his image.
Speaker 2: I wonder.
Speaker 3: I think he was just concentrating on the wrestling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and like it looked.
Speaker 3: He was a very good league guitar player and a
Speaker 3: good league guitar player that can't quite move his fingers
Speaker 3: fast enough to keep up with the songs of the day.
Speaker 3: That made him a very good bass player too, because
Speaker 3: playing bass is all about scales, right, and he was
Speaker 3: he was very He was very good at both.
Speaker 2: So there was Infinity's end, there was let's see, there
Speaker 2: was the band with Anthony Barcelo. I think that was
Speaker 2: was that Ruckus? I think that was Ruckus.
Speaker 3: That sounds about right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you remember Anthony at all, because he seems
Speaker 2: to be also an important part of Terry's music life.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't. I didn't know him. I didn't know him.
Speaker 3: He was the one that occasionally was out and I
Speaker 3: would sit in with the band. I see, David would
Speaker 3: switch to guitar, Terry would stay on bass and I
Speaker 3: would play keyboards. They able to play anything, so he
Speaker 3: just went wherever he was needed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he said. Terry said that Anthony Elso
Speaker 2: was the guy who threw his family, got him hooked
Speaker 2: up at the docks. Because he worked at the docks
Speaker 2: for a while. I don't know if you remember that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I had forgotten about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is when he's giving up music or
Speaker 2: when he's still doing it. I was kind of unclear
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 3: I think he was still he was still doing it.
Speaker 3: He was still doing it. You know. You you had
Speaker 3: what was called your day job, right sometimes, or your
Speaker 3: day gig. Terry and I's first day gig was we
Speaker 3: went to work at a tile factory called Winslow Tile
Speaker 3: and Port Tampa.
Speaker 2: Kyle, Okay.
Speaker 3: And he and I unloaded box cars of raw material.
Speaker 3: And this was in the middle of the star and
Speaker 3: you'd open up a box car, you know, and it
Speaker 3: was it was terrible and there, and the first thing
Speaker 3: you'd do is you work frantically. You'll get to the
Speaker 3: other side so you could open up both the doors
Speaker 3: and at least hopefully have a out of breage. Now
Speaker 3: a little bit of bragging rights. He lasted two weeks.
Speaker 3: I lasted a month, So I lasted longer than Hull
Speaker 3: Covid on a very physical job. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he kind of dipped, that's good man. He dipped
Speaker 2: his tone. One of the hard labor a little bit.
Speaker 2: He talks a lot, it seems like, over the years
Speaker 2: about he didn't want to he didn't want that job
Speaker 2: roasting in the sun. But he also saw that there
Speaker 2: was good money there, you know. And he was always
Speaker 2: someone that minded that. I mean not to say to
Speaker 2: your point he could spend extravagantly sometimes maybe, but also
Speaker 2: at the same time he was always ready mindful of
Speaker 2: how much an hour am I making, you know, and
Speaker 2: is this more an hour or is this more? Take home?
Speaker 2: That seemed to be right. A big part of his
Speaker 2: mentality is psychology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, I think he grew up not
Speaker 3: having all that much. Yeah, and really you know, appreciated
Speaker 3: it later in life. So it was importance to it.
Speaker 2: Invinity's end there was and that had you chett yoakum uh.
Speaker 2: It was your brother involved to or somebody in the.
Speaker 3: Very beginning of my brother played bass.
Speaker 2: Okay, got it and John Phillips on drums.
Speaker 3: If if well, let me start to let me start
Speaker 3: at the point where we started playing and being somewhat successful.
Speaker 3: It was John Phillips on drums, was my brother Mike
Speaker 3: on bass. I was the lead guitar, and I also
Speaker 3: sang the lead and Lee Shugel is a very very
Speaker 3: accomplished keyboard player, was our keyboard player. And then when
Speaker 3: Lee left, that's when Terry joined Got It And uh.
Speaker 2: Why did a pardon me, Gary if I'm forgetting if
Speaker 2: you said that?
Speaker 3: But why did to be to be another band?
Speaker 2: Got It? Okay? And he was a friend with the.
Speaker 3: Guy named Keith Keith Arsenault if you if you, if
Speaker 3: you go very go back to the very very beginning
Speaker 3: of Infinity's end when we were practiced. We we used
Speaker 3: to practice in a ballet's studio because Keith Keith was
Speaker 3: the drummer. His mom owned a ballet's studio. And there
Speaker 3: was a guy named David Barnes who I was friends
Speaker 3: with that we were going to school with, that played
Speaker 3: guitar and Lee was at the time it was actually
Speaker 3: playing guitar as well. Uh. And then they invited me
Speaker 3: if I wanted to come and join the band. Uh.
Speaker 3: And I think I think the idea was Lee was
Speaker 3: going to start playing bass, and this was Lee the
Speaker 3: bound up being the keyboard player, but he didn't have
Speaker 3: an organ yet. So that was the very very beginning.
Speaker 3: And then you know, we we people came and went
Speaker 3: and things like that, and Keith went very very early
Speaker 3: on before we started getting a paying gigs, he started
Speaker 3: another band and Lee and him were such good friends.
Speaker 3: They went to play in high school together. Lee went
Speaker 3: to play with Keith and uh John and Check quit
Speaker 3: drumming about the same time. That's when we got Mark
Speaker 3: Kerr and Mark Mark so good.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: He stayed with with Terry and David in the later bands.
Speaker 2: So did Infinity's End become Magic or was that a
Speaker 2: different band?
Speaker 3: Different?
Speaker 2: It was different? Okay, that that was?
Speaker 3: That was after Terry and David and Mark stayed together. Understood, Okay,
Speaker 3: they had to put it simple. They had a conflict
Speaker 3: with my dad one night that kind of just blew things.
Speaker 3: The things blew up, and the three of them went
Speaker 3: on to play and I had to very quickly put
Speaker 3: a band together to do the gigs that we already
Speaker 3: had understood. We actually used the name Infinity's End with
Speaker 3: that group until the jobs were all up. Then we
Speaker 3: switched all.
Speaker 2: Right, understood, So there was there was there was a
Speaker 2: clear break there with where Terry left. Okay it with
Speaker 2: two other bandmates exactly, Okay, got it? Yeah? Was that
Speaker 2: was that? Back to the earlier issues we talked about
Speaker 2: where he you know, felt like it was too too rigid.
Speaker 2: I mean there was plenty of success, like you said
Speaker 2: to point to because of that rigidity, But did he
Speaker 2: just throw his hands up at that.
Speaker 3: More or less?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You know, we were getting older by this point, we
Speaker 3: were two years out of high school, and you know,
Speaker 3: did light like any bird leaving the nest? I guess
Speaker 3: you know, absolutely there's going to be conflict and and
Speaker 3: and that that was the that was the root of it.
Speaker 2: And then there was a pan called Cocoa that he
Speaker 2: was associated with, and then Bandit and then Ruckus. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you remember any of those those bands
Speaker 2: playing around the area or anywhere ever, go oh yeah,
Speaker 2: m what was that like? What was that much different
Speaker 2: than Infinity's end.
Speaker 3: Or well it was, it was. It was later, so
Speaker 3: the music was a little bit different. I think that
Speaker 3: they were. They were very they were very accomplished and
Speaker 3: could do some more difficult songs. Did I'm sure if
Speaker 3: we'd have stayed together, we'd have got requested two as well.
Speaker 3: But the longer you play together, you know, the better
Speaker 3: you get. Right.
Speaker 2: I think Ruckus was the band where he was up
Speaker 2: there and the wrestlers started coming to the clubs. He
Speaker 2: would play in particular the Imperial Room, and that's where
Speaker 2: it all started. Was was he a big wrestling fan?
Speaker 2: Do you remember? I mean he went to the matches,
Speaker 2: but was wrestling really something he talked about? Always was
Speaker 2: oh really okay, really.
Speaker 3: Always liked watching. You know, Tampa was really the one
Speaker 3: of the birthplaces of professional wrestling. And I know that Petry, Uh, Pete,
Speaker 3: Terry's dad used to go to this uh sport Rama,
Speaker 3: which was Mike Gossip's excuse to me, Mike.
Speaker 2: Graham, Mike Graham Grand We were.
Speaker 3: To school with him, so that's you know, he's my Gossip.
Speaker 3: But Mike's father, Eddie Graham started started the Portatorium and
Speaker 3: he started the Florida Professional Wrestling and that and that
Speaker 3: was a little bitty building and I remember Terry used
Speaker 3: to go to that, and then of course when it
Speaker 3: got bigger, it was at the Armory. Uh. But Terry
Speaker 3: always talked about going to going to wrestling with his dad.
Speaker 3: It was something that he enjoyed doing when he was younger.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah, he says he used to go with
Speaker 2: a Vic's dad too, and Vic kind of remembered Pete
Speaker 2: kind of not not being that into wrestling. It's something
Speaker 2: he didn't like it. But I wonder, I wonder maybe
Speaker 2: Pete went to more matches than Vic remembers. I don't know,
Speaker 2: It's it's hard to recollect all these years later, but
Speaker 2: he painted a picture of Pete kind of being dismissive
Speaker 2: of it, Like, what is that?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I think Pete probably when when when
Speaker 3: Pete took Terry, I think it was probably, you know,
Speaker 3: just out if Terry's love.
Speaker 2: For it, right, not his personal fandom.
Speaker 3: And Vic and uh and and Terry's dad. We're very
Speaker 3: good friends. As a matter of fact, they used to
Speaker 3: do things as couples.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, And I think that had.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure which came first,
Speaker 3: if if Vic and Terry's friendship came first, or their
Speaker 3: parents friendship came first. But but they were, they were,
Speaker 3: they were close, as close as two families, you know.
Speaker 2: Just wrapping up with you here, Gary, I don't want
Speaker 2: to leave this conversation without being able to have a
Speaker 2: picture in my mind of a of an infinities end gig.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure, there were a lot of different
Speaker 2: ones and a lot of different venues, but give me
Speaker 2: the prototypical one. Explain the vibe, Explain who's there, Explain
Speaker 2: how the night unfolds, and and the peaks and valleys.
Speaker 2: If you could just try to put me in one
Speaker 2: of those one of those youth centers or clubs or
Speaker 2: whatever it.
Speaker 3: Was, well, a lot of a lot of the times
Speaker 3: we would start off with Chicago song called beginnings. Ah,
Speaker 3: and uh, of course your your your introduct introductory song
Speaker 3: is what kind of gets things going right. And let's
Speaker 3: let's say we're playing a five hour gig at a
Speaker 3: night club, because that later on that's what you wind
Speaker 3: up doing, either five nights a week or there there
Speaker 3: it's a club that it's only opened a couple of nights,
Speaker 3: you know, Friday, Saturday. But you start off with with
Speaker 3: like beginnings that you good, you're good, kind of easy
Speaker 3: going but but you know, good beat, good song rape
Speaker 3: opster at the time, and you try to try to
Speaker 3: you know it at first, they're not always out of
Speaker 3: the dance floor. So the first part of the gig,
Speaker 3: first part of the gig, you're you're you're trying to
Speaker 3: play danceable music. You know, Johnny be Good is one
Speaker 3: that really got people up, and that is the night
Speaker 3: wears on. Well, when people are drinking, they starting more
Speaker 3: fun because things would really get the rock and get
Speaker 3: the rocking and rolling. And then that would be like
Speaker 3: this maybe the second and third uh part of the
Speaker 3: fourth set. But then by the end of the night,
Speaker 3: you know, all these people that were dancing, they're they're
Speaker 3: they're pretty tired by now, and usually couples heading out
Speaker 3: the door, whether they not necessarily ones that came in together.
Speaker 3: And the last the last gig, the last hour, you
Speaker 3: could just kind of unwind. Well, we would do a
Speaker 3: lot of the times we would we would play songs
Speaker 3: that we had just learned, you know, the last hour,
Speaker 3: because everybody that was still there had been drinking and
Speaker 3: if it wasn't perfect, that was okay, of course, and
Speaker 3: we would just kind of wind up with with unwinding
Speaker 3: a little bit, uh, maybe playing some little songs over
Speaker 3: again that we had enjoyed playing or that that people
Speaker 3: were asking for. Uh. And then and then at the
Speaker 3: end of the night, we we had to pack up
Speaker 3: our own gear, uh. And then we would always then
Speaker 3: we would go to sand Bozon Dell. Maybe for breakfast.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so you had the the late night breakfast
Speaker 2: food love it. Mm hm, that's the lifestyle these crowds.
Speaker 2: Are they conservative? Are they They're obviously not conservative? But
Speaker 2: is it a mix or is it just a bunch
Speaker 2: of you know, rockheads.
Speaker 3: It was a mix. Now when we played for when
Speaker 3: we played for a frat party, those are those were
Speaker 3: some wild, wild parties, I bet. But the night clubs,
Speaker 3: you know, they were they were kind of classy. There
Speaker 3: was one called the Almens over over in St. Pete
Speaker 3: that was, uh, you know, had cocktail tables and things
Speaker 3: and you sat down and they brought them drinks. And
Speaker 3: then sometimes you'd play a place called The Pad, which
Speaker 3: was on Gandy. Uh. It was kind of a different vibe,
Speaker 3: you know. It was all just real local South Tampa
Speaker 3: people and like the party hard and drink and just
Speaker 3: just it varied on the venue really and and the
Speaker 3: part of the even the part of the city that
Speaker 3: you were playing in.
Speaker 4: What when you played these uh these bachelor part I
Speaker 4: mean frat parties rather Uh, like you guys were junior
Speaker 4: high right or like early high school we.
Speaker 3: Were high school then, Yeah, it.
Speaker 4: Just seems like a weird okay, because it just makes
Speaker 4: me wonder, like, you know, how you got got that
Speaker 4: kind of a gig, you know in uh uh you know,
Speaker 4: as a high school band or you know, you know, uh,
Speaker 4: just out of high school band. It seems curious how
Speaker 4: that worked.
Speaker 3: We did a lot of high school dances and uh.
Speaker 3: Then you know, those people got older and went college.
Speaker 3: You know, oh hey he's in we could get them
Speaker 3: to play. Uh and once you you know, once, word
Speaker 3: of mouth, of course is the best advertise. Of course,
Speaker 3: So it was it was a matter of us getting
Speaker 3: older and I think our fans getting older as well.
Speaker 2: Now we talked about the wrestlers coming through and seeing
Speaker 2: Terry perform, and we know that among the more important
Speaker 2: people that came to see him were the Briscoes, Jack
Speaker 2: and Jerry, who were shareholders in the Florida Championship Wrestling
Speaker 2: Office had an autobody shop for years and years in Tampa.
Speaker 2: And I was tickled to learn Gary that you know
Speaker 2: them very well and in fact kind of worked under
Speaker 2: under them in their autobody days. Tell us how the
Speaker 2: Brisco's factor into this story.
Speaker 3: Well, they were Jack and Jerry on the body shop
Speaker 3: Brisker Brothers body shop. And I was harsh manager at
Speaker 3: large Chevallet dealership in Tampa. And they were customers, and
Speaker 3: they were they were very good customers. They were probably
Speaker 3: our best customer, both volume wise and professional wise. Just
Speaker 3: great people. Now they were they were businessmen, don't you know.
Speaker 3: You can be professional and friendly and whatever and they
Speaker 3: still be a good businessman.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And Jack Jack was occasionally Uh. I had an outside
Speaker 3: salesman named Don and uh. Sometimes he would say Jack,
Speaker 3: I'd like to have breakfast with you, you know, and
Speaker 3: the three of us would meet, we'd have breakfast. Uh.
Speaker 3: Jack was just a wonderful guy. And uh, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the one of the times that we were
Speaker 3: having requasts, he says, I'm meeting with Terry today. We're
Speaker 3: doing a promotion. But they were Jack was more into
Speaker 3: the wrestling. I think Jerry was more about the body shop,
Speaker 3: but of course they were. They were both about the
Speaker 3: body shop. Uh. And every year I would we would
Speaker 3: go buy the shop and give them. I would give
Speaker 3: them a certificate to get a turkey, you know, which
Speaker 3: better than manning out of turkey itself. And they were
Speaker 3: always very appreciative. They were always there when when they
Speaker 3: heard I was coming, just some some really really great guys,
Speaker 3: and I can Terry couldn't have possibly come across a
Speaker 3: couple of guys that were better for getting him started
Speaker 3: in the business.
Speaker 2: That's huge. How would they talk about him in terms
Speaker 2: of potential? Would they talk about I mean, did you
Speaker 2: have any hint from talking to them that he would
Speaker 2: become the one day the biggest wrestling star in the
Speaker 2: world or was he really still green?
Speaker 3: They well, they had hopes. You know, he had such
Speaker 3: a presence that they thought he was going to go somewhere.
Speaker 3: And I have no doubt that they were a big
Speaker 3: part of that, of that happening.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like you were right there, Gary to
Speaker 2: see that first glimpse of that presence. I'm not never
Speaker 2: going to forget that story of him being has it
Speaker 2: to plunk in the amp and then by by halftime
Speaker 2: or so to speak, he's, uh, he's he's he's a
Speaker 2: bucket of charisma.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's out there and his his satin shirt
Speaker 3: with the fringe all over the sleeves and his bell
Speaker 3: bottoms that mom and added to the bottom of them
Speaker 3: to make them even bigger, and he got where you
Speaker 3: like to wear platform shoes, which, if you can imagine.
Speaker 2: I've seen a picture. Yeah, those are wild man, those
Speaker 2: are woes.
Speaker 3: Isn't that something.
Speaker 2: There when he was in the band called Bandit. I
Speaker 2: don't know what the idea was. But he's got the
Speaker 2: platform shoes. They got a publicity photo that's out there
Speaker 2: that you can find. He's got you Fedora on white
Speaker 2: leisure suit, the platform shoes, and they're all holding rifles.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen this one?
Speaker 3: I have seen one of them old rifles.
Speaker 2: No, No, it's wild. I can send it to you.
Speaker 2: I would love to know the story behind this one.
Speaker 2: I don't know who the Bandit guys are and then
Speaker 2: have a list, but yeah, they're all.
Speaker 3: Larry Stowell was the drummer. That's the only one that
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean they're not holding it menacingly. They're just
Speaker 2: kind of like smiling or they could come straight, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. But I wondered what the I
Speaker 2: guess they were Bandit, like, you know, they was supposed
Speaker 2: to be like a theme, right that their take over
Speaker 2: the town or whatever. I don't know. So, yeah, Terry
Speaker 2: was always always afraid of shooters, that's for sure. And yeah,
Speaker 2: here he is with a gun. So I'll close with
Speaker 2: this as you got to know that Terry was making
Speaker 2: his way, uh in the wrestling business, and you saw
Speaker 2: him become Hulk Hogan. Then you think back to the
Speaker 2: days in the band. What's what was the prevailing emotion.
Speaker 2: Was it like, man, we we should have gone longer
Speaker 2: with the band and look at how much presence he
Speaker 2: has or was it, man, you know, it was the
Speaker 2: right time for him to break off and go this way.
Speaker 3: I wish we'd have stayed together because I played in
Speaker 3: two or three bands after Divinity's in, and you know,
Speaker 3: we sometimes you get the guys together and they just click,
Speaker 3: and that's that's the way. With an Infinity's end, it
Speaker 3: was the best time in my life. We just all clicked.
Speaker 3: Everybody just did a great job and it was it
Speaker 3: was just so much fun. And I wish we just
Speaker 3: stayed together because there was just so much talent in
Speaker 3: that group. Would have been nice if we would have
Speaker 3: and I were made friends, you know with the guys.
Speaker 3: I wasn't. I wasn't a part of any thing that
Speaker 3: had happened that I was breaking up. So David became
Speaker 3: a preacher and uh, of course we all know what
Speaker 3: Terry became. Mark became a subcontractor remodeling houses. But it
Speaker 3: was su sure, it was a good time when we
Speaker 3: were together and we shared a click.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great way to wrap it up. I guess. Finally,
Speaker 2: what did you remember hearing about Hero Matsuda.
Speaker 3: That he was, that he was tough and moke Terry's
Speaker 3: leg and Terry got out of it, you know, for
Speaker 3: a while. I'm back back in again. After that, I
Speaker 3: saw Terry at a beach called Picnic Island and he said,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, I tried that wrestling thing. He says, Man,
Speaker 3: that guy broke my leg. But of course later on
Speaker 3: he got back in with the Briscoes.
Speaker 2: But at that time, Gary, he seemed to be in
Speaker 2: the frame of mind of I'm not doing this again.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He didn't care for pain. Of course,
Speaker 3: I guess to get over that, but that was kind
Speaker 3: of a big thing.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess the page has been turned from Terry
Speaker 2: Buley at Hulk Cogan now, but thanks to thanks to
Speaker 2: Gary Barriss, we have a very clear idea of what
Speaker 2: it was like when Hulk was starry eyed about a
Speaker 2: potential future in music and playing all these clubs. It's
Speaker 2: such a cool part of his story, and we want
Speaker 2: to thank you so much, Gary for taking all this
Speaker 2: time to recollect the terry bully you remembered. Thank you
Speaker 2: very much.
Speaker 3: You're more than welcome. I'm just happy to do it.
Speaker 2: Nelson as a tej to Santa's production.
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