confessions of a glorified side man Jimmy Z

Now Tom Petty’s sense of humor was at the other end of the spec­trum.  He was a cross between Jed Clam­pett and Elvis.  He would get you all wrapped up on some sub­ject and be twist­ing and turn­ing the story until you found your­self drift­ing and think­ing to,“is this guy for real?”   Ten min­utes later you would find your­self reliv­ing the con­ver­sa­tion and real­ize that he’d just taken a com­plete piss on you and made you look like a pompous fool.  Tom’s humor was wicked and dry as Death Valley.

We had just done a con­cert in upstate New York, Saratoga Springs, I believe, and we were stay­ing in this really nice resort hotel in the pine trees com­plete with ten­nis courts.  There was to be a party in Tom’s suite and we were informed that the pres­i­dent of MTV was going to be there and to be on our best behav­ior.  I don’t know why they would say some­thing like that to me but maybe my rep­u­ta­tion was becom­ing less incog­nito.  At the time Player cig­a­rettes was spon­sor­ing the tour and there were always car­tons of them back­stage, on the plane or any­where we were.  I was sit­ting in a small liv­ing room sec­tion of the suite with gui­tarist Mike Camp­bell (one of my all time favorites and in my opin­ion highly under­rated) and Stan.  I said, “I’m gonna blow that guy up”.  They give me that, “uh oh, what’s Z up to now look”, and I pro­ceeded to pull out some explod­ing cig­a­rette loads.  I used to go to magic shops before tours and stock up on this silly crazy shit just to keep things inter­est­ing.  Keep in mind it can be a lot of fun on tour but it can be excru­ci­at­ingly bor­ing at times.

On all the cof­fee tables and side tables were fresh packs of Player cig­a­rettes.  I grabbed a pack and pre­ceded to put loads in two of the cig­a­rettes and posi­tion them so they would be the first ones some­one would pick up.  I told Mike and Stan of my plan.  No doubt we would be intro­duced to the MTV Pres­i­dent and at that time I would offer him a smoke.  They shook their heads but the antic­i­pa­tion was writ­ten all over their faces.

Sure enough, in comes Mr. MTV and Tom Petty begins talk­ing to him right in front of us.  We all got up to be intro­duced and when he gets to me I say, “Pleased to meet ya…hey would you like a smoke?”  He says, “Oh no, none for me, I don’t smoke”.  Mike and Stan are enjoy­ing this at my expense smirk­ing and snick­er­ing over on the couch.  So I go over to them and toss the pack on the side table next to the couch and sit down in a big comfy chair, as we are sit­ting there Tom comes over and grabs the “loaded” pack tak­ing a cig­a­rette out.  Mike, Stan and I are look­ing at each and I am try­ing to sig­nal them with my eyes, “be cool…be cool”.  Now the music is play­ing pretty loud and Tom and the MTV guy had their heads close as they talked in each other’s ear.  At which point Tom lights up and BOOM!

I don’t know if you are famil­iar with explod­ing cig­a­rette loads but they look like a half-inch of tooth­pick, which can be shoved into the tip of a cig­a­rette.  When they blow up it is just like the car­toons.  This one must have been on steroids because sparks and tobacco sprayed about four feet. Tom and the MTV Pres­i­dent just freaked. Tom starts yelling, “did you see that?!  Did you see that?  I think the fuck­ing lighter exploded!”  Mike and Stan are rolling and los­ing it on the couch laugh­ing and I’m try­ing to be cool because I’ve only been in the band a few weeks.  Now I have just blown up the boss.  So what does Tom do?  He goes over to the same pack of smokes and grabs another cig­a­rette, all the time think­ing it was the lighter.  We are all look­ing at each other and I am won­der­ing what the odds are that out of twenty cig­a­rettes, Tom is going to grab both of the loaded ones.  He goes back over and resumes the con­ver­sa­tion and now we are dying in antic­i­pa­tion.  I plead with my eyes for Mike and Stan to be cool and not blow it but they love every sec­ond of this unin­tended bit of enter­tain­ment.  Well, Tom finally lights up and sure enough it blows up too.  Now Tom is pissed and I real­ize now I have to spring into action to save my ass and career.

Jump­ing up I ran over to him act­ing con­cerned and asked him if he is going to be all right.  Tom keeps say­ing,” did you see that?  Some motherfucker’s gonna get it.”   I asked him what he’s smok­ing and he said,” Play­ers”, point­ing over at the pack on the table.  I walked over and retrieved the pack, exam­in­ing it as if I was a mem­ber of the bomb squad.  After care­ful analy­sis I extracted a cig­a­rette, know­ing the coast was clear now and light it up.  Tom said, “No, don’t do it, but I con­vinced him this one was fine and gave it to him.  By now I’m just try­ing to keep the con­ser­va­tion going ask­ing, “Whose cig­a­rettes are these and who smokes Play­ers?  Stan imme­di­ately jumped up say­ing, “Howie does!”  Tom takes the bait and says, “Yeah, that’s right! Howie!”

I have to explain some­thing here.  For rea­sons unbe­knownst to me there was no love lost between Stan and Howie at the time.  Howie, may he rest in peace, was the most mel­low, non par­ty­ing, nice guy of the group, at the time.  I mean, he was never at the party because he was in his room already most likely asleep in bed.  The most unlikely guy to ever do any­thing like that and here he was get­ting framed right in front of my eyes.  Mike Camp­bell had to leave the room as he was los­ing it laugh­ing and was going to blow it any sec­ond.  A few days later we were on the plane and Howie was play­ing cards.  Tom and I were sit­ting next to him and Stan walks by and says, “Hey Howie are those your Play­ers?”  At this Tom perks up.  Poor Howie doesn’t have a clue what’s hap­pen­ing.  Tom is being cool but basi­cally inti­mat­ing that, “Yeah right bro…I know you did it and you’ll get yours.”  Howie had to be won­der­ing what the fuck these guys are talk­ing about.  I don’t think he even knew what a cig­a­rette load was.  Silly lit­tle com­mando tricks can sure take on a life of their own.