Stories From Jail
Part One: Truckin' A Story About Travels
March 19, 1996
I wrote this while I was in jail in 1996, typed it up that year and recently retrieved the disk. Here it is, unchanged since 1996:
They call me Steve-O. I'm thinking about switching back to Steve Glover because now I've kind of begun a career and I don't know if I want a nickname when I'm famous. The purpose I intend to serve right now is to kill time, as I sit in jail, by telling some of my story. Before I go on- let it be known that this is for my bro, Dave Olshansky. He has believed in me, helped me out, and stood by me for a long time.
When I met Dave, I was a feeble student at University of Miami. It was my second year (as a freshman) and Dave's first. The school year had just begun and I was heartbroken by my girlfriend of the year before. I gave up on everything, drank harder than usual (which was a task), and released my frustration by endangering my life in numerous ways. It made me feel good about myself and I was getting back at the girl by making her worry. I became a wannabe stuntman.
It was basically inevitable, I guess. I've been in and out of hardcore skateboarding since 1985 (age 11), and I took up diving as soon as I arrived at U of M (the pool saw more of me than my teachers). Hanging out in Dave's dorm room I met this intense guy named Jamie Haselton. He was a snowboarder from Vermont. He wasn't very happy about being away from snow, but he was under much pressure from his father to stay in South Florida (working for his dad for free every weekend). Jamie had as much urge to get dangerously radical as I did. We frequently went on intense late-night stunt missions, without even bringing cameras most of the time. One day, we got in Jamie's van and drove from Miami to Northern California.
When we left it was two days before Thanksgiving. We had $600 between us and every intention of starting a new life out west. Before we got out of Florida, an entire wheel flew off the van while it was cruising down the highway. By the time we got to California we had to steal two wheels from the back of similar '70's vans and push start Jamie's. It had "Cali or Bust" finger-written in the dust on the side of it and inside there was a big bed for Jamie and a futon for me. Our plan was to get a job at Squaw Valley ski resort.. That would include free season passes for snowboarding.
It wasn't snowing in California and Squaw Valley wasn't hiring. We met up with Jamie's friend from Vermont (Devon Murelli) and caravanned to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We were hurting for cash. For a few days we stayed in the dorms of a college in Steamboat. The people there were good to us. They let us crash and got us baked. It was no task to eat in their cafeteria for free. We started hanging out at the employee housing of Steamboat ski resort. It was a sweet apartment complex and they had multiple kegs every Wednesday night, religiously. We ended up staying with these great chicks, Kristen Poulin and Danika Gunter.
Jamie was the only one of us to get a job at the resort. He was washing dishes and he got a season pass. I'm glad it was him because he wanted it more than Devon and me put together. Devon washed dishes at a hotel and I bagged groceries and cleaned the meat room at City Market. We spent our money on food and alcohol and cooked killer dinners and kept the pad clean for Kristen and Danika. We partied heavily for a month. I learned to do backflips in the snow and skated in a parking garage. I had the best Xmas of my life in Steamboat. It was the first time I opened presents at midnight on Xmas eve. Our tree was decorated with full airplane bottles of liquor and multi colored lights. We had so much fun. Steamboat rules.
Devon and I became disgruntled with our shitty jobs, however. We got in his car and drove to Austin, Texas to have experimental drugs tested on us for money. We each had only $100 and we drove twenty hours straight to get there. Going there was crazy. We didn't know if we would be accepted for the medical study. We had to pass an intense screening process.. To qualify we had to be in perfect health and free of drugs. We gave blood and urine samples, got hooked up to machines and waited a week to find out if we made it. We slept nights either on the roof of a building or in back of an abandoned Chinese restaurant. I skated most days and panicked. I didn't want to be stranded in Texas.
Thanks to good luck, and Goldenseal, we got in (twelve days after the screening appointment). The place was a big laboratory called Pharmaco LSR (Life Science Research). The drug being tested on us was called Ractopamine Hydrochloride. The tests would determine if it would become legal for use on pigs and cows. It would supposedly cause them to have more muscle and less fat. When humans eat their meat they will ingest traces of the drug. We were used to see how much we could take of it before our heart rates became dangerously high. We took lots of pills, spent much time on funky heart machines and gave a lot of blood. After twelve days confined at Pharmaco Devon and I each had $2000. $800 was up front and $1200 followed in the mail. We were stoked.
One of the guys in our study offered to let us stay at his pad while we celebrated our freedom and did some work on Devon's car. We were looking to invest in marijuana to make our money last longer. After being confined with this guy we had trusted him. We each tried to get a pound through his connections. We drove him to an apartment building somewhere near Killeen, Texas and he took off with our money. He wasn't counting on us finding our way back to his pad. We did. The next day I was waiting there to find out what happened while Devon got parts for his car. I still didn't think that we had each been taken, for $500, because this guy had been so smooth. I thought something else went wrong. He showed up and didn't answer me when I asked him what happened. He went back outside and returned instantly with two friends. One of them punched and kicked me in the head a few times and took an additional $70 from me. Then, for some reason, all of them took off and left me in the pad.
When Devon got back, I briefed him. If these guys caught us looting the apartment we would most likely be dead. We did it anyway. We stole his ball python with its aquarium, shedding stone, and light. The only other things worth taking were his clothes and shoes (which fit nicely). While we were taking them we heard a car pull into the parking lot. That was indescribable- we ran to the back of the apartment, opened a window and started kicking out the screen. Before it gave, we realized that they weren't really back. We got about $600 worth of revenge, and then fled the state.
We returned to Steamboat and gave the snake to Kristen and Danika. They loved it. I had my mom wire me money (while I waited for my check) and used it to party heavily with Jamie, Kristen and Danika.. Jamie had legitimately moved into another employee apartment just before Devon and I went to Texas. We raged for two weeks before I left. My sister arranged it so that I flew to see her in St. Louis and we both got return tickets to Florida. My return flight was open-ended.
I was reckless with my friends in Miami. They were all raging harder than before, especially Dave. I didn't plan on staying long but I got arrested for disorderly intoxication with my great friend Bill. It was my first time being arrested in America, My arrest report roughly stated "the defendent and co-defendant were observed on S.W. 72nd St, both were waving their arms about and taunting eastbound drivers. Vehicles were slowing and honking as the defendant and co-defendant appeared to be laughing and playing in the roadway." I wish I still had it because it really said these things. Bill and I had to complete a five week class after our court date. My stay in Florida was a wild three months before I flew back to St. Louis, Missouri.
It's a good thing I had that return ticket because that was all I had. When I arrived at my sister's pad, my father and stepmother were there for her graduation from Washington University. That was weird. I blew a lot of my dad's money by dropping out of school. For months after I left UM I didn't call him because I was too ashamed. This was the first time I saw him since. He was really cool and we talked a lot. I told him that it was important to me to support myself after blowing his money. I also told him that I would do a better job of it if he got me a used car for my birthday which was a month away. I didn't deserve it, but he and my stepmother bought me a '92 Ford Tempo. Insurance was cheaper after my birthday so I didn't pick up the car until then. I don't think I got drunk once while I stayed with my sister. I spent my time skating and doing stunts. I was getting intense video footage. Somehow getting a car left me with $200. I don't remember how but, within a few days, I left for Canada.
I was headed for Toronto to visit my old high school friend. It was nice that I had relatives from my mom's side of the family just outside Toronto because I only got to meet them a few times as a child. I have no brother but my cousin is within a year of my age. This guy rules. One of the first things he asked me was whether I wanted to shotgun a beer. I had a fantastic time getting to know him and partying with him severely. I had a great time staying with my friend. We partied. We hadn't seen each other in a long time but we stayed in touch. She encouraged me to get rad and came with me to the Olympic pool of Toronto (Where I was lucky to make it on the six o'clock news charging the ten meter). She had a closet full of impressive pot plants. She hooked me up with a job, too. I worked a short time for Greenpeace where, without going to college, she had become a manager. I did educational door-to-door begging. I was in Toronto for about a month before I left to follow the Grateful Dead. Her roommate, Sarah, came with me. It was not a romantic arrangement.
When we left, I had $40. Sarah had a little more, but not much. We drove to Highgate, Vermont for the first show of the tour. Our plan was to buy food and drinks at stores and sell it at the shows to stay on tour. I was stoked because I love the Dead. The whole scene in Vermont was killer, even though we barely made our money back (selling beer). Everyone that showed up got in to the show, with or without a ticket. They played a killer 'New Speedway Boogie'. The next day there was no Dead show so Sarah and I drove to Long Island, New York to be at a Phish show.
That was my first time on the Phish lot. We had fun and did well selling bagels and cream cheese. That evening, some guy went running by on his way into the show and threw me a killer hat for no apparent reason. He screamed, "Hey bro! Hat!" I was happy because my hair was looking really goofy growing away from baldness. I wish I had made it inside the show, but I had a nice skate session outside. The following day was the first of two Dead shows in Washington, D.C.
We were on the lot in D.C. early in the afternoon. I forget what we sold there but we didn't sell much. Sarah hooked up free tickets ("miracles") from a guy she knew who worked for the Dead. I was stoked to hear a killer 'He's Gone' that night. The next day, on the same lot, I was talking to some girls who had never been to a Dead show. When I told them I was following the band they couldn't believe it. I explained how it worked. One of them ended up getting in my car to go on tour after the show that night. She miracled me into the show, too. I was glad to have her on the team because it was over five hundred miles to the next three shows in Deer Creek, Indiana and she helped us get there.
We slept a night at the nearest rest area on the highway to Deer Creek. When I woke up Sarah told me that the girl had hit it off with another guy at the rest area the night before and jumped into his ride for the rest of the shows. That was sweet. I kept seeing her at shows after that- she was always happy. I was doing backflips in the parking lot for single dollars before I got miracled into the first Deer Creek show (by Sarah's friend). My ticket brought me only about ten rows away from Jerry. I could see him so closely. I was tripping so hard, I couldn't stop sobbing (for the whole first set) over being so close to Jerry. It was a great show and I partied all night long at a campground with many Deadheads. The last night in Deer Creek I met a guy who ended up paying me to bring people to his van to buy various drugs from him. I never had drugs on me and I made $55 on the lot after the show started. The guy, and his partners, were very happy with how much money I brought them. Sarah and I partied and crashed at their hotel suite that night. Then it was off to Chicago, Illinois for the next two shows.
I showed up at Soldier's field, Chicago, with less than $10. I decided to try buying and selling drugs with it and ended up with more than $80. I didn't go in to the show and ended up meeting a hot local babe named Mandy in the parking lot. I crashed at her pad that night and managed to wuss out. The whole next day we were together on the lot and in the show. It was her first time inside a Dead show. That night, both Sarah and I crashed at Mandy's. Sarah's presence sabotaged my progress with Mandy and, once again, I wussed out. I was bummed on the way to St. Louis for the next two shows.
The lot in St. Louis sucked. They were really strict there and no one could vend. That meant that there was a campground, with 10,000, people a couple miles down the road. It was the front page story in the newspaper. I hung out with my sister a little, but I jammed at field. It ruled. I was awake tripping all night after the first show and I still hadn't slept after the second show the following night. When I finally passed out at the campground, I had my killer hat on. When I woke up it was gone. I was majorly pissed. Before I left for the next (single) show in Buckeye Lake, Ohio, Sarah hooked up with a guy and hopped into his ride. I was pleased because I met up with a guy I knew from Miami named Adam. He started riding with me.
My hair looked goofy in Ohio, but I had a sweet time. I took a gelcap and tripped like crazy. It was my favorite performance of the tour. I made cash on the lot, too. After the show, they didn't make everyone leave (It was an outdoor show in the countryside) so we partied all night. I saw my good friend, Jason Berk, from UM that night. Ohio was great.
When Adam and I arrived in Detroit, Michigan, at the first of the next two shows, one of the first people I saw was wearing my hat! I barked at him for ground-scoring it off my head, showed him my feeble sewing repair job at the back of it, and put it on with great joy. I skated a lot in Detroit. I broke into the second show, which was on Jerry's birthday. He sang the only 'Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain' of the whole tour. I was overjoyed to catch it.
The last two shows of the tour were in Meadowlands, New Jersey. I was very upset when I had to run from cops after I sold acid to these guys in the parking lot. I couldn't tell you if the cops even got out of their car to chase me after one of them yelled, "Hey, you!" I was hauling ass. I bought a ticket to the last show of the tour. As far as crowd intensity goes it was, by far, the best show. When Jerry sang 'Days Between', it made me cry. Tour was over and I was bummed. I drove to Virginia with $100 to visit my old skateboard friend from eighth and ninth grade, Chris Lewis. I stayed for a couple of weeks and headed back to Florida. That's where I was a bum for a very long time- you can ask Dave Olshansky.
This story covered one year of my life, from August 1993 to August 1994.
Thanks to my sister for helping me edit.
Part Two: Blues For Steve-O - A Story About Bad Luck
March 20, 1996
I've just sat down at a cold metal table in Orlando's fine jail to write about a run of disastrous bad luck that is second only to that of a great friend of mine, Kevin Biemuller. I'm writing this for Kev-O, only hoping that he will write his classic tale for me.
This story begins in Florida. I had just been following the Grateful Dead around the country, capping off a time in my life when everything was great and I had been truly lucky. When I arrived in Miami it was the very beginning of the school year, Fall 1994. Parties are most intense at this time. I was broke, homeless, and out of school. A lot of my friends were selling pot, so I made it from day to day helping. I sold tiny bags as if the University of Miami was a Dead lot.
Kev-O had it better than me at the time. He was homeless, and out of school, but he had money saved from working a bread route over the summer. If Kev-O had remained a student at U of M, it would have been his second year. In my case, it would have been the third. Before long, Kev-O moved into a legitimate apartment. About the same time, my buddy, Little Jon (L.J.), flew back to Miami from San Diego. L.J., Kev-O, and Steve-O were like a fork, a spoon, and a knife. L.J. and I had been freshmen together, and we dropped out at about the same time. The three of us had a major history of partying and being bums together.
Soon enough, I got a job as a busboy. It was killer, I very rarely made less than fifty bucks in tips per night. On the weekends I normally made seventy. That made it OK for me to be homeless and delinquent because I loaded kind bud wherever I stayed. I mostly stayed at Kev-O's and with my bros, Jason Berk, Mihir Taneja, and Blake Stahl, who had a pad together. When I wasn't slaving away at the restaurant, I was partying crazily with a lot of people.
When Thanksgiving weekend rolled around, Kev-O, L.J., and I went to Jupiter, Florida. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Shoney's and partied at Kev-O's mom's house. The back yard had a dock and a boat, it was on a waterway. In the morning we took the boat out to ride on an innertube behind it. When I was on the tube Kev-O was driving like a madman because he was well aquainted with my stunts. My bad luck began when my leg hit something in the water at roughly fifty miles per hour. I didn't fall off of the tube after the impact, which sucked because I had a major wipe-out to look forward to with a serious injury. That really hurt and I still had to climb into the boat, which hurt just as much.
My first move once we docked the boat was to call work and let them know that I had been hurt. Then I called my mom and told her to meet me at Boca Raton Community Hospital. It took almost an hour for L.J. and Kev-O to drove me there. The diagnosis was that my leg was not broken. I was given a prescription for Vicatin and told to look out for certain symptoms. Vicatin is a really lame pain killer. I returned to the hospital seeking a preferable prescription and my leg was re-evaluated. This time they considered it an emergency and sent me to the operating room. I was in the hospital for five days and I underwent two operations. After that, I was in a wheelchair for about a month. I couldn't even use crutches because my leg had to be elevated. If it wasn't, I was screaming in pain.
When I got out of the chair and, subsequently, off crutches, I revitalized my leg by hacky-sacking. Within a few weeks I was back to skating and working, but then disaster struck again. After a day of hacking and drinking with Kev-O, there was a party at one of our friends apartment on campus. It was on the second floor and I frequently used to perform falls off that balcony. When I went to do it on that night however, I did it wrong (because I was wasted) and I landed on my face on the concrete below. This was the most serious situation I have ever been in. I have been told that I remained face down and motionless with a pool of blood growing around my head until the paramedics arrived. Apparently, by that time, about thirty people were gathered around and they all thought I was dead until the paramedics flipped me over and I started rambling about not wanting to go to the hospital.
I was truly lucky to be alive. I had a broken cheekbone, seven broken teeth, ten stiches in my chin, and a broken wrist. I woke up in the hospital after a night of CAT scans and everything else and was told that I could call my mother. After a brief chat with her, I called Dave Olshansky to break me out. I don't know why I did that but, within ten minutes, I was on the way back to University of Miami. Once back on campus, I attempted to drink beer with Dave, but it hurt way too much. I felt as bad as I looked. My face was huge and fucked up. I captured the image on video in Jupiter after Kev-O and I drove to his mom's house. For some reason I didn't see a doctor for three weeks. Really. I couldn't eat anything solid and, at one point, I put a can of tuna in the blender with mayonaise and drank it. I thought it was nasty too. I was spitting up blood for over a week.
When I finally got a cast on my wrist, I had healed a lot. Life was pretty much back to normal except I had lost my killer job over my injuries. The cast was meant to stay dry, but I dove in the pool with it on. One day I was drinking heavily and that night I climbed a huge crane with my cast on. When I got to the top, I was looking way down at the roof of a twelve story building. I took off my shirt and tied it to the top. That was a good one, you could just barely see it blowing in the wind the next day. I did it for a girl named Monique Scozzafava. She later hooked up with Dave Olshansky and they are still one of the hardest drinking couples around. The twelve story building next to that crane was the dorm I had lived in as a UM student. I was kicked out of that building for breaking onto the roof. Dave Olshansky lived in the same dorm. He is the only person that has repelled from the roof of that building, and he didn't get caught.
I still had that cast on when disaster struck again. On the day of the appointment to get my teeth fixed, I was locked up in jail for DUI. I had been drunk. I was in a holding cell when a correctional officer noticed my cast and told me I had to be moved because the cast was a potential weapon. When I called up my mom I was in a cell with the longest term inmates in the county jail (if your time is over one year, you're in prison). My mom got collect calls from me all of the time, so, when she answered, she was all chipper. Once I told her I was in jail, she told me to have a good time and she would bail me out in a couple days if I agreed to go to rehab right away. I was scared, but safe, in the jail for a total of two and a half days and it was off to rehab.
I spent thirty days at "Pathways to Recovery" and, I have to be honest, I gave it my best shot. When I wasn't in some 'group', I was having mad hacky-sack sessions. I started kicking a short time before I left University of Miami and got serious with it on Dead tour. In rehab I took my footbag skills to a new level. Rehab wasn't that fun. It didn't end after thirty days, either, my mom made me move into a halfway house. It was called "Boca House" and it really sucked. If you had a sock on the floor, you got an hour of hard labor. Not many of the sixty guys there were very serious about being sober. Most of them were convicted felons who were there by court order. I wasn't serious for very long either. After a few weeks, Kev-O came down and I joyously roasted. He left me with some buds too. That was the most I've ever appreciated dirty shwag. While I was staying at Boca House, I got a call from Kristen Poulin. She got the number from my mom and when we spoke, she told me that Jamie got sponsored for snowboarding by a big company. That got me stoked. I had been working as a waiter in a restaurant and saved money because I had nothing to spend it on. I took off from Boca House and moved in with a guy from work, Joe Osche.
I had not had a drink in two and a half months when Joe picked me up at Boca House. My first sip of beer may have been the fastest shotgun I had ever done at the time. I crashed at Joe's that night, in Boca Raton, and headed for Miami in the morning. It was Monique's birthday and we partied. Dave and I chugged quite a bit of Goldshlager. I went back to Boca the next day and stayed at Joe's. I looked up to Joe in many ways and we had a good time. In our pad there was a pool table, a dart board, a television with a fifty-two inch screen, a $1700 leather sofa, washer/drier, two bathrooms and two bedrooms. We had parties all the time and played sick amounts of pool. Kev-O came down from Jupiter to rage about once a week. The only problem was paying over $500 a month.
I was about to turn twenty-one years old. On my birthday an interest account with $5000 opened up to me. The money was an inheritence from a relative I never knew. I had been excited for my birthday for some time. I only ended up getting $1400, because I owed all of the rest of it to my mom for her help with my disasters. With $1400, I was still pumped. I bought a video camera for $550 and started doing flips off of bridges and apartment buildings. I also, after a particularly hectic night, stopped going to work at the restaurant. That was my mistake. The last of my money went to Joe and I was broke, and unemployed. I moved into my mom's house. She lived in Boca Raton as well. It's never a picnic living with my mom. One day I slept through an appointment for a job interview and she kicked me out.
I was struggling. It was summertime and I was homeless, broke, and unemployed in Boca. To make matters worse, I was driving with no license and my plates had just expired. That's when these guys, Jeff Moore and Mike Healy, became my saviors. I had partied with them a few times and we always had intense hack sessions. They let me live on their sofa for over a month. I found a job in a liquor store but I didn't get paid for three weeks. During that time Jeff and Mike fully supported me. Their house was a constant party and there are always hot chicks there. I fell in love with their dog, Tessa. I taught her to do stunts, like jump straight to the roof of my car. One time, I got her to jump from the roof of the house. Jeff and Mike had a trampoline in their back yard and were working on a small half-pipe. It was a good summer for keg parties. We got crazy. I met a crucially hot chick named Melanie. When I got my check, I split it with the bros and headed down to Miami with Kev-O.
