MICHAEL WHITE - Ballpants

Michael White (NZ) passed away Friday June, 19 2015

Michael White 2015

Recollections from Michael White
"Does Anybody Remember the Ballpants"

.. I remember it.....firstly, thanks Izzy for accepting my request and thanks Google. The BP was always a warm place to walk into. I got to the X early '69 and like a lot of others I was searching for the fabled "summer of love" and the source of the uprising against the establishment. I didn't find either but had fucking great time trying. The memories of the X at that time tend to be fairly romantic but the fact is it was a monster that sucked people in and spat them out as quickly as they arrived. I saw fresh faced people with big smiles on their faces and a sense of adventure only to see them six months later looking wide eyed, homeless, hungry and desperate. It could be very cut throat and you needed a keen sense of survival. I spent just over two years there and left because the police were after me. I had been busted for possession of a "prepared opiate, to wit morphine" for a second time. I was given a six month suspended sentence and ordered to live where directed by the probation office. I was also ordered to stay away from the X....yeah right! A couple of months later I was walking down Williams St. and the cop who had arrested me was driving up the other way...he saw me, I saw him and I ran and ran and ran.. That was the end of my days at the X.

However, the good times....Waldo and Izzy doing The Fugs, Fish and Fire Engines, Phill Raymond "Season Of The Witch", Brian Wakefield, anything from Big Bill Broonzy, Steve Hat doing the whole Beatles catalogue, Rusty (Andrew MacKenzie, I'm still in contact with) doing Dylan and Sarstedt, Lynley ? (i was in love with her) doing Universal Soldier and Cohen, Pig great voice and harmonica) anything bluesy, Pete (Popstar) Canon doing Animals covers, Ralph Graham and his Rickenbacker, also a great voice, who seemed to be able to belt out anything. And my dear mate Frank Kotoudges who sat there and plugged away on bass behind most of them. There were the characters that made it all insanely sane as well.

Remember Adam? He was always half naked and wearing a builders apron, Dutch Andy, who stood drunkenly on the gutter outside The Goldfish Bowl and threatened the cops that he would jump if they came any closer, Old Mick, guardian of the fountain, the GI's, Sunday at Hyde Park with Webster, tripping at Coopers Park in Coopers Bay, Acid Tests at the Mandala Theatre in Paddo, muso nights on Mondays at Caesars In Place, The Mandarin Room, the French girls, Whittys Wine Bar, the little Italian restaurant just past The Coconut Jungle where you could get a bowl of spag bog for 75 cents....I often wonder what happened to all those people I met during those days. Frank and Rusty I found by sending a letter to the Wollongong newspaper. Anyway, I could go on...everything's cool and it would be great to read any add ons to what I've written. Peace out....