Our manager told us about this new television network that was about to launch, a 24-hour network that was going to play nothing but music videos. They were gonna call it…MTV. Music Television.He played us a few videos that were scheduled for rotation, and asked us if we could do a couple like that. We, the boys in the band, looked at each other and told him, ”Yes, we can.”But we didn’t have a lot of time. The launch of MTV was about to happen.Our manager was Carl Griffin (Griff), the same guy who signed me to Motown. Our band was BootCamp. We had just released a 7” vinyl single with two songs, “Hold On to the Night” and “I’m A Victim.” It was doing really well.We had no idea how to make a music video. We didn’t even know what a music video was until Griff showed us the MTV demo reel. But we knew a guy who worked as a cameraman for the local TV station. He worked in the news van, doing live remotes.We called him. He told us he could “borrow” the cameras and stuff from the TV station, but it had to be after hours. My guess is that he was gonna borrow this stuff without asking, because he asked us to keep it on the down-low. The hush-hush.The first video we shot was for the song “Hold on to the Night.” I wanted to shoot the video at night (clever!) on The Block, which is a two-block section of Baltimore Street in downtown Baltimore that has strip clubs, adult bookstores and peep shows. And a hot dog place called Pollack Johnny’s.But how were we gonna get Baltimore Street closed down in the middle of the night, when all the action was going on?I called the Baltimore Police Department. I told them we were shooting a movie with Ben Vereen. It was the first name that came to mind. To my surprise, the BPD agreed to shut down the street. Ben Vereen is an actor and singer, he was pretty popular in Baltimore, had done a bunch of shows there. So the Baltimore Police Department put out the order to close Baltimore Street for a few hours for a movie shoot for Ben Vereen.We showed up with our TV cameraman, and a couple of guitars, and…we had no idea what to do. We had no script. We had no Ben Vereen. We had a boombox and an empty street. It started to drizzle…so we pressed “record” and started rolling. In the rain.Action! We did take after take. The drizzle worked in our favor—it made the street look shiny and cool. The camera guy was really creative. He did takes where he was lying on the wet ground with the camera looking up. He swooped and swerved and shot some crazy footage.Hit Man Howie Z started banging his drumsticks on the side of a trashcan. Some garbage got stuck on one of his sticks, and crap started flying everywhere. The cameraman was getting it all, but if he had panned out, you would have seen a sergeant with the BPD standing next to Howie, yelling at him…“You better clean up all that s**t when you’re done, son!”We did some more takes, and…Maybe the cops finally figured out that this wasn’t a Ben Vereen movie, or maybe the strippers were complaining about us driving away the customers, but the police put a halt to the filming. They took down the barricades, and traffic started flowing slowly down Baltimore Street again.We left without having any idea if what we shot was good, bad or ugly.It’s a wrap! One down. One to go.A friend of mine had just finished working on an Al Pacino movie that was shot in Baltimore, And Justice for All. The filmmakers had used an old courthouse and the old Baltimore City jail for the movie, and the sets were just sitting there vacant, waiting to be torn down.All the props and the furniture had been left behind, completely intact. It would be perfect for the “I’m a Victim" video.Once again, we had to do it all on the hush-hush. We didn’t really have permission to use the vacant And Justice for All set. We just showed up on the sly and started shooting. Our camera guy had “borrowed” the gear from the TV station once again, and we all sneaked into the courthouse and the jail, and commenced with the craziness.For the “I’m A Victim” video, we actually had a vague idea of what we wanted to do. I was going to be a lawyer. Hit Man Howie Z (BootCamp drummer Howard Zizzi) would be the guy on trial, Rob Roberts (Bob Fallin, guitar) was the judge, and Tom Alonso (keyboards) was the stenographer.There wasn’t a real story. It was just us, in a courtroom, clowning around, with our assorted friends as jurors and observers.We just started filming and improvising. The camera guy was shooting everything, trying to get as much footage as possible in the little time we had. We had one camera, that’s it. We didn’t have any microphones, or audio. We just sang along with a battery-powered boombox. We didn’t have any lighting. We didn’t have any assistants or stylists or producers or directors telling us what to do, where to go or what to wear.At one point, we were filming in a jail cell, and the door accidentally slammed shut with a CLANG! I was locked inside and they couldn’t get the door back open. It freaked me out a bit. I have recurring nightmares about being in prison.We were making it all up as we went along. I was just hoping the real cops wouldn’t bust in, and bust us for trespassing and send us to a real jail.We wrapped up—no sense in pressing our luck. Once again, we left the shoot with no idea if what we shot was any good.The cameraman edited both videos on his own. He snuck into the editing suite at the local TV station, and “borrowed” a few hours at a time. He eventually cut all the footage together. He showed us the two videos.They had a certain charm, for sure. Maybe the cinematography wasn’t gonna win an Oscar, and our acting wasn’t gonna keep Robert DeNiro up at night worrying about us stealing his next acting job, but the videos had a unique down-home allure.Griff sent them to MTV. We, the BootCamp Boys, didn’t think much about it after that. We had no idea how big MTV would be.When the network launched, MTV included the two BootCamp videos. They were two of the first 100 videos MTV ever played. They put us in regular rotation. MTV caught fire. We started getting calls…labels, agents, producers.It was an exciting time. I gotta give it to the camera guy. His name is Kurt Kolaja. He did a great job doing everything, from shooting to editing.MTV took off. So did BootCamp. We were in for a crazy ride…Asparagus with Parmigiano
When you’ve just finished a video shoot outside a strip club, ain’t nothing like a little asparagus to make your pee-pee smell funny.I like to use thin asparagus—the size of a pencil. They’re more tender and tastier than the big boys.So try to find asparagus that’s not the size of a tree trunk. As a general rule, the larger the vegetable, the tougher it is.If the asparagus are really thick, you’ll have to peel the skin off the outer stalks.This dish should serve four people, depending on the people. Members of my family eat like horses. That’s why I feed them in the barn.INGREDIENTS1 pound thin asparagus2 tablespoons olive oilKosher saltFresh cracked black pepper¼ cup fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus a little more for sprinklingHere we go…Rinse off your asparagus and pat dry with paper towels.Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.You need to break off the bottom ends of the asparagus. Grab an asparagus spear. Grab one end with your thumb and forefinger, and the other end with the thumb and forefinger of your other hand, and bend until it snaps. Discard the bottom end.Do this to all the asparagus. Rinse well, pat dry with paper towels.Put them in a glass or ceramic baking dish.Drizzle with olive oil, about 2 tablespoons.Mix them up; make sure each spear is coated.Add some kosher salt and some freshly cracked black pepper.Mix them up again.Put the dish in the oven.Bake for 15 minutes. Check the asparagus, make sure they’re done. If they ain’t, put ‘em back in for 5 minutes. They should be firm, but not crunchy.Take the dish out of the oven, sprinkle the asparagus with the grated cheese.Set the oven to broil. Put the dish back in the oven for A MINUTE OR TWO! Keep an eye on these guys!When you see the Parmigiano start to brown, take the baking dish out of the oven, try an asparagus spear, make sure it’s done, and dish it up!This dish goes well with Slim chicken Marsala, or chicken Milanese, or lemon chicken.
MANGIAMO!!!!!!!!
Slim Man Cooks Carrot and Onion Sauce
Carrot and Onion Sauce and The Funky Shack
People use the word “literally” in the wrong way. For instance, my niece once said, “I literally puked my guts out” which is so wrong on so many levels.But way back when, when I was literally a starving musician, this was a sauce I loved to cook. I still do. Why? You can find the ingredients anywhere. It is quick, simple, healthy and delicious.It is cheap to make. Pine nuts (pignoli) are a lot more expensive now than they were back then in 1492, but still, this dish doesn’t cost much to make. This was important back in the early days. We didn’t have much do-re-mi.I was in a band called BootCamp. We started off with a bang, had two of the first 100 videos ever played on MTV, and we were getting a lot of attention from folks in the music biz.Our manager, Carl Griffin, called and asked if we wanted to spend the summer playing at a beach club in the Hamptons. On the beach. Long Island. New York. The Hamptons! It’s where all the rich and famous folk spend their summers.We took the gig.We packed up all our stuff, and headed up the New Jersey Turnpike. We were based out of Baltimore, Maryland; it was a five-hour drive to Long Island.The club had rented a house for us right across the street. We had visions of mansions, and pools, and tennis courts…and as we drove to the club, we saw all of that. Every house we passed was fancier than the one before. Swimming pools. Fancy landscaping. Garages bigger than our houses.
But when we pulled up to the club, and saw the house right across the street, our hearts sank. It was a shack. Literally. We walked in…there were spaces between the boards of the walls that you could see through. We called it - the Funky Shack.There were mice camping out, who later became our friends. There were a few really small rooms. The ceiling was maybe a little more than six feet high. I’m 6’ 2” and my head literally almost touched the sagging fiberboard panels that made up the ceiling.There was no heat. There was no air-conditioning. The only water that came out of the faucets, including the shower, was saltwater. The one and only bathroom was the size of a coffin.This would be our home for three months. The glamorous life of show biz.We went across the street to the club. They were still building it. It looked like a half-finished barn. There were construction materials all around. Workers standing around looking confused. It was a mess. Literally.There was no way we were gonna play any music in that place anytime soon. We walked to the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous. To the right was the private beach that belonged to the movie stars that lived on the ocean.To the left was a stretch of public beach, and then a canal. The only commercial zoning they had was this one little stretch of a couple hundred yards, where they had two nightclubs. Ours, the future Neptune Beach Club, was a rock club, and the one next door, Summer’s, was a disco. There was a small bar on the other side of the street next to the Funky Shack. It was called Cat Ballou’s.We went over there and had way too much to drink. Then we stumbled back to the Funky Shack.It got really cold that first night, down to the low thirties. We were freezing. We hadn’t brought any heavy blankets, not thinking we’d need them, and we were close to frostbite. There was no heat in the Funky Shack. Being incredibly resourceful musicians, bolstered by booze, we walked across the street to the club, borrowed a bunch of 2 X 4s, and started a fire in the shack’s small fireplace.The next morning some workers came over and asked us if we saw anybody taking any lumber, and we said, “No” as we were kicking the ends of the 2 X 4s we’d pilfered back into the smoldering fireplace.The Funky Shack was right on the bay. And when I say right on the bay, I mean it was literally on the bay. When the tide was high, the water came onto the back porch. I call it a back porch but it was more like a small rotted wooden raft.It’s not like the shack was on stilts, or had a pier. It sat flat on a marsh, and the bay was right out back. It was not really a bay, more like a big shallow body of swamp water.
Billy Joel stayed in that house. So did Leslie West. We heard more than one story about each of those guys living in the Funky Shack.We tried to make it habitable. The guitar player, who was also a carpenter, made a screen door. He made a wooden platform for the shower; because it didn’t drain, and the water would back up to your knees.When you took a shower, which was saltwater, you stood on the platform, and the spray literally hit you in the you-know-whats. I had to crouch over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, because the ceiling was so low. If you wanted to wash your hair, you had to stand on your head.That was how we showered for a little more than three months.They eventually finished the club after a few weeks. After they did, we played six nights a week, seven hours a night, until 4 AM, with double shifts on Saturday and Sunday.And as crazy as it sounds- we were really happy.And late at night, after the gig, if we wanted a dish of pasta, we’d walk across the street, sneak into the club, and fill our pasta pot with fresh water.Then we’d come back to the Funky Shack and cook. Are you sure Billy Joel started off this way?CARROT AND ONION SAUCE
Ingredients3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil2 cups minced onionCrushed red pepper (I use about ¼ teaspoon)3 cups grated carrots2 cups chicken broth½ cup dry white wineA handful of Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped (about 2 to 3 tablespoons)A handful (1/2 cup) of pine nuts (if you can’t find pine nuts, you can use sliced almonds, as a substitute)1 pound of pasta — fusilli is my favorite, but you can use farfalle, or spaghettiKosher salt to taste Here we go…Put the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-low heat for 2 minutes.Add the onion. Add some crushed red pepper to taste. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes until the onion is translucent.Add the carrots, chicken broth and white wine.Raise the heat to high.When it comes to a boil, let it cook for 2 minutes.Reduce the heat to medium-low. Taste for salt, add some if needed.Simmer for 20 minutes or so, until the broth is nearly absorbed, and the carrots are tender but not mooshy.Just before the sauce is done, add the chopped parsley to the pan and stir.
Put the pine nuts in a dry pan over medium heat. Cook and shake for a few minutes until golden brown. Don’t burn your nuts!You can use this sauce over rice or on a bruschetta or flatbread; but I put it over pasta.Put a large pot of cold water on the highest heat, you got. When it comes to a full boil, add a few tablespoons of kosher salt, and the pound of pasta.Follow the cooking directions on the pasta box. Two minutes before the time is up, taste the pasta. You want it to be al dente, which means “firm to the bite.” Bite through a piece of pasta. If it is chalky in the center it is not done. Cook it until it is not chalky or too chewy.I cooked some penne rigate pasta the other night. It took 5 minutes longer than the instructions on the box. So keep on tasting the pasta as it cooks. You’ll know when it’s done.When it is, drain the pasta in a colander and put it in a bowl. Drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil and mix. Add most of the sauce to the pasta and mix’em up.Dish it up! Put some pasta on a plate. Add a little sauce on top, and some toasted pine nuts. You can also add some grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese or even some Romano-pecorino, which is a little sharper and saltier.
MANGIAMO!