In 1970 our band, the Doomsday Refreshment Committee (DRC), went to Vietnam to entertain the troops. We started out with me, Ken (on guitar), my friends (Steve Hyde-on piano and Skip Metheny-on drums) and my wife and her sister (Ginger and Margie Kane - dancers). Later I was to steal 3 more musicians: Gerri Iris Bryant from the only other American band in Vietnam (when we found Gerri performing at an Australian base camp she was drinking Southern Comfort and crying backstage. I asked her what was wrong and she said she wanted to tour with our band - and so we arranged it), Sammi Moutayapoulet [his name means mustard chicken] who played in Saigon with the Flowers, a Supremes copy band (when Diana Ross left the Supremes their lead singer left the Flowers). Sammi was a French Vietnamese Indian who listened to underground American music in Vietnam. In Thailand we were fortunate to acquire Terry Thaddeus, a most fantastic guitar player [ala Terry Kath in the group Chicago] . Ginger and Margie made their own costumes and practiced their dance steps as the band learned songs that we felt the GIs would dig (from "We Gotta Get Outta This Place" to Crosby, Stills and Nashs' "Suite Judy Blue Eyes"). We were in Vietnam for about 8 months and entertained everywhere from Ca Mao (southern tip) to Quang Tri (near the DMZ) . We wanted to go to Thailand but they wouldn't let Sammi out of Vietnam. Finally, in September, 1970 (on Ginger's birthday) we left for Thailand (without Sammi but with a promise that he would join us within a week) where the locals built us an "after hours" club called The Tug. The nightclub was named after a famous gambling ship that floated off-shore just over the 3-mile limit in international waters. Within a week Sammi joined us in Bangkok .

We began by touring American military bases throughout Thailand while the Tug was being built. After a mere 2 weeks the club was finished. Ginger and I stayed at the Nana Hotel for about a month, then moved into our own 2-story teak house with 2 servants, a dog and a cat. The house was beautiful, on a large lot with a circular driveway and lush greenery all around. The 2 balconies upstairs, off from each bedroom, were spacious and had French iron tables and chairs. Even from there you couldn't see any neighbors - only coconut trees and lush foilage.

While in Thailand a film company wanted to use Ginger in a beer commercial. They arranged to film by a waterfall in Burma so we took a train (it went over the bridge that was the subject in the movie "Bridge Over the River Kwai") until it dead-ended near the Burmese border. Nighttime had befallen us and we all rested and ate from one gigantic cauldron. Then we continued our journey taking a small boat up the klong, passing elephants and water buffalo drinking and bathing by the riverbank. After a short distance we reached the waterfall and began to disembark. As one of our other actresses-to-be, a beautiful redhead, stepped on the bamboo dock, it suddenly gave way and she promptly fell in and disappeared. After a few seconds a bit of red began to appear on the surface of the water and our starlet reappeared sans her Nicon camera.