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12.192003
The Guest List
BY JENNIFER LEVITZ
Journal Staff Writer
Inside the Doors of Perception tattoo parlor, the humming of the electric tattoo needle mixed with the sound of heavy metal. The air was thick with the aroma of spicy men's deodorant, used to slick down the skin, and the scent of medicinal ointment, used to heal it.
The gargoyles on the tattoo artist's elbow changed expression with each bend of his arm.
And the buzz was on.
Skott Greene had taken a call from an '80s rock star -- or at least someone claiming to be. The performer was going on stage at 11 p.m. at The Station, a mile away. He wanted a tattoo before the show, and he wanted it at Greene's shop.
Greene, 35, said the call might be a prank; too many jokers knew his dream of inking a celebrity.
Leaning over, Greene sketched with a pen on the neck of one of his favorite customers, Mike Hoogasian, a Coca-Cola delivery man in for a tattoo to celebrate his 31st birthday.
Mike and Skott both knew The Station. Mike even had a favorite spot, near the stage, where he could be close to bands that once played at the Providence Civic Center. Skott had been a regular at the club, until he started working every day to get his shop going.
Mike asked if he could hang around and meet the star.
FIFTY GUYS came to Mike Hoogasian's bachelor party at The Station.
Mike was almost 30, with dark Armenian good looks, and a smile and laugh so engaging that his buddies called him "the mayor."
They were all there -- one week before Mike and Sandy's wedding in October 2001 -- the childhood pals, the coworkers, the customers Mike knew from his deliveries for Coca-Cola. Many of them noticed just how many friends Mike had collected in his life.
Two of them noticed that The Station, a ramshackle wooden building on a commercial strip in West Warwick, was no ordinary club.
Mark Moretti was intrigued by the soundproofing around the stage.
Knobby gray foam cloaked the drum platform and covered the back wall of the club.
Moretti, a singer in a bluesy rock band, surmised that it was professional acoustical material -- the decent fireproof kind the state's fire code demands.
He had looked into soundproofing foam to quiet his own practice rooms. He'd even taken a course in how to set up a studio, and knew acoustical fireproof foam wasn't cheap.
He approached a Station employee and complimented him on the incredible stage setup "that must have cost a fortune."
It wasn't as expensive as you might think, he was told.
Moretti brushed off the reply.
"I figured maybe they bought it wholesale."
The other guest who was struck by the condition of The Station was Jay McLaughlin, Mike's brother-in-law.
McLaughlin had talked Mike's sister into leaving Cranston and moving out to rural Chepachet, where he built their house in the middle of the woods at the end of a long country road.
He liked to tease Mike about his long-hair days and gave him a hard time about his tattoos. About 10 years older than Mike, McLaughlin also considered himself to be Mike's tougher, big brother, even a father figure since Mike's father had died years earlier. He always tried to look out for him.
McLaughlin is also a firefighter, who had 17 years in Pawtucket's fire department. As he walked around The Station, he scrutinized the building like a father inspecting a dormitory, and with the discriminating eyes of a trained firefighter.
McLaughlin had worked plenty of nightclub details, and he believed that bar owners tended to cut corners at the expense of safety. He had gone after one Pawtucket bar for overcrowding and locked exit doors.
He didn't like what he saw at The Station.
The place was a maze, with partitions and little rooms and a hallway to the bathroom that felt like a tunnel.
McLaughlin walked over to the row of greenhouse-style windows near the pool table. If there were a fire, he told himself, this is how I would get out. He didn't realize that many of the windows were made of thermal double-pane glass and would be resistant to people who would kick them and hurl their bodies at them.
On his way to the bathroom, he saw that the walls were partly paneled with what looked to him like old wood, and there was no way out for people in the rear of the nightclub.
And there were no fire sprinklers.
He imagined that The Station must have firefighters on duty on big concert nights and that they must have noticed this, too.
He didn't know that The Station didn't always have a firefighter on duty, though it was supposed to during "bigger shows." With a uniformed firefighter on duty, the club was allowed by the town to have 404 people inside.
When McLaughlin returned to the main bar, he saw Mike, giddy and surrounded by his friends and platters of chicken wings and pasta.
McLaughlin knew Mike liked The Station, but he had to tell Mike what he thought. He went up to him and said, "You hang out here? This place is a firetrap."
MIKE HOOGASIAN grew up outside Providence, in a Cranston suburb with a dense mix of businesses and Capes and two-family houses and little yards.
His father started out as a forklift driver in a liquor warehouse, then was hurt on the job and had to stop working. Mike's mother was deeply religious, a Roman Catholic.
Everything was right there. The Hoogasians lived one block from the high school. One block from one of Cranston's busiest intersections, at Park and Reservoir. St. Matthew Church was just down the street.
There were few reasons, really, to even travel to Providence.
Except maybe when heavy-metal bands played at the Providence Civic Center.
Mike was about 12, in 1984, when he went to a concert with his best friend Derek Knight. They unbuttoned their shirts to show their bare chests and wore bandannas around the ankles of their jeans. The show opened with singer Jack Russell and his band, Great White, from California. Free T-shirts were flung into the audience. One looked to be coming for Mike, but it landed a few rows back.
Mike and Derek bought Great White's albums. They imagined themselves as rock stars, which wasn't a stretch, if you read the heavy-metal magazines. In interviews, Jack Russell described himself as just a kid who was lucky.
Mike grew his hair long. He used hot-oil treatments and got a perm. He and his friends would bend their heads over, brush hard, and then come up, flipping their manes until they looked like the Breck Girls.
And Mike found religion in the metal music. He loved the band Stryper, which took its name from the Bible. Isaiah 53:5 had prophesized how, because of man's sins, Jesus would be wounded and whipped -- until there were stripes on His back.
Stryper used part of the verse with its logo:
And with His stripes we are healed.
Mike chose Isaiah as his confirmation name, and he painted the scripture on his bedroom wall. Mike's father, as he was dying of cancer, wrote each of his three children a goodbye letter. He finished his letter to Mike with the Isaiah passage his son liked.
Mike got his first tattoo when his father died.
It was a crucifix with the words, "In Memory of Dad."
AFTER GRADUATING from Cranston East, Mike landed a good job delivering soda for Coca-Cola Inc. He rose before dawn most mornings to start his route, and came to know just about every worker at Ro-Jack's and Stop & Shop. He didn't want a promotion because he liked going into the markets and meeting people. Eventually he could -- and would -- get the Cranston route.
He was 23 and stocking soda at Wal-Mart when he met Sandy Leocadio.
She was 19, the youngest of four children whose parents had moved to Warren from the Azores. Her father worked in a suitcase factory, her mother in a cable factory. Sandy had lush brown hair, huge brown eyes and long lashes. She was shy, but in her family she was known as the rebel. She had a tiny tattoo, a tribal arm band that she had gotten on a whim.
She left a note on Mike's car, saying she thought he was nice, and the couple grew inseparable, as their lives filled with achievements and friends.
When Mike was 26, he moved out of his mother's house, and he and Sandy bought a white cottage in Cranston. They invited Mike's mother to move in with them. Sandy's father gave them a weeping cherry for the front yard. They started saving for an addition on the back, so they could hold big family gatherings. Sandy, a professional visual designer, decorated down to the light-switch plates, which she painted in funky designs.
Everyone was in awe of Mike and Sandy's relationship. They worked hard, but they lived a balanced life, never too busy for each other or the people they loved.
But as rich and full as his life was, Mike felt as though nothing came easy. He never beat the speeding ticket. He was the friend of the guy who won the raffle. He could be too trusting and naive, assuming that everyone did the right thing, just as he did.
The running joke was that Mike was never in the right place at the right time. For his birthday one year, Sandy and Mike's sister threw him a big party with the theme "Almost Famous."
MIKE'S CRISP Coca-Cola delivery uniform usually hid his collection of tattoos, which had grown since his first one as a teenager. A sun, a tribal band, and Celtic symbols covered his shoulder and started down his arms; he was working on two quarter-sleeves of tattoos.
And Mike trusted only one person to do his tattoos: Skott Greene.
In the fall of 2001, around the time of Mike and Sandy's wedding, Skott opened his tattoo parlor in West Warwick.
The business was the culmination of years of work. Skott had started as an apprentice in East Providence, toiling to make a name for himself. At night, he collapsed into the waterbed in his trailer, tips spilling from his jeans. He stuffed money in a crock pot.
Skott became known for his talent as a portrait artist, and for his dry humor. At one point he tattooed alongside his brother, Terry, and the two Irishmen worked up a routine.
"Please forgive my brother," one would say. "He's slow of mind."
Ten minutes later, the other would respond:
"Slow of mind? What do you mean, slow of mind?"
When Skott learned in the fall of 2001 that a tattoo parlor in West Warwick was looking for a new owner, he jumped. He thought it would be too much trouble to open a tattoo parlor in Cranston and Warwick. Nicer towns tend to think the parlors draw the wrong element, and aren't classy enough. West Warwick welcomed him.
He moved into space 709 at the Quaker Valley Mall and he made the place his. He named it the Doors of Perception and declared that there would be no smoking. He filled shelves with his Star Wars and Planet of the Apes collectibles.
Skott cut a quirky figure at the brown strip mall. He was so big and tattooed that his wife joked he looked dangerous. He resembled a Viking with a long, full beard that was sprouting a tuft of white, and a brown floppy leather hat he picked up at King Richard's Faire.
He was serious about his craft. He believed tattoos were the markers of life. His customers came to him to celebrate a new baby or business or true love. As 2002 rolled around, Mike Hoogasian came into Skott's new shop in West Warwick to get a portrait of his wife, Sandy, on his arm.
Skott, though, talked about the one client he craved -- a rock star.
He dreamed of seeing his work up on stage, glistening under sweat and shimmering lights. "He was dying to do a celebrity," says his brother.
JACK RUSSELL and his band, Great White, were on the road.
It was January 2003.
Russell had tried to leave Great White and go solo, but his album sold only 770 copies nationwide. He went back to his band and began a 25-stop tour of second-tier towns. West Warwick was on the schedule and The Station nightclub was ready.
The club had passed inspection and won a new liquor license, despite the soundproofing foam. West Warwick's inspectors missed or ignored the fact that the foam was not fireproof; it was ordinary packing foam put up to keep the noise down and the neighbors happy. It was cheap and flammable.
Great White's act included pyrotechnics, flashy '80s-style indoor fireworks that harkened to the day when the band played huge venues -- not small-town clubs with paneled walls.
Great White played in Florida, at Pinellas Park, on Feb. 7, blasting off pyrotechnics, and then the band's white tour bus headed up the Atlantic Coast.
On Feb. 12, Mike Hoogasian saw a childhood friend at a gym in Cranston. They talked about the Great White show. Mike wasn't too excited. But he went home and downloaded Jack Russell's solo album.
On Feb. 13, Mike turned 31.
On Feb. 14, Sandy and Mike celebrated Valentine's Day. Great White was in New Jersey.
On Feb. 18, as the band shot off indoor fireworks in a bar in Maine, the Hoogasians went to dinner at Mike's mother's apartment. She had decided to move to a high-rise to give Mike and Sandy a chance to start their own traditions.
She served veal cutlets, Mike's favorite, and chicken cacciatore, Sandy's favorite. She told Mike she had found his confirmation project, a cloth painted with his favorite passage from Isaiah. She gave it to Mike for safekeeping.
She put two candles in a giant cookie.
One candle was for another year of life for her son, the other was for good luck.
The next day, Wednesday, Feb. 19, Great White pulled into Rhode Island.
JACK RUSSELL found Rhode Island gray and cold, and West Warwick dreaming big.
The town wanted to bring a casino to its southern end. There was talk of putting apartments into an old mill, where time and weather had collapsed the top floors and the Pawtuxet River had filled the basement. A plan was in the works to return Main Street to its glory.
"On the Verge of Greatness" was the motto.
The band stayed at the Fairfield Inn -- over the line in Warwick.
And then, Russell began meeting his fans and inviting them to the show the next night. He told them he would put them on his guest list, so they could get in for free.
At the hotel, he invited a housekeeper, Tina Marie Ayer. She was talkative and kind and hard to miss with blond highlights in her black hair and so many rings on her hands that she was known as "Mrs. T," after "Mr. T," the flamboyant '80s TV star. Russell also invited Ayer's best friend, Jacqueline Bernard, another housekeeper.
At Denny's, Russell struck up a conversation with Rick Sanetti, a construction foreman who was eating with his crew after a day's work, installing ceramic and porcelain floor tiles at the new Hampton Inn in Coventry. Sanetti had listened to Russell in the '80s, and had even wooed his wife by sending her words to a Great White ballad.
Russell invited the crew to his show at The Station. He would put them on his guest list under Sanetti's name. Sanetti invited about 10 people, including his niece, a 24-year-old schoolteacher who had never heard of Great White, but thought it would be cool to go to the concert to make fun of all those people stuck in the '80s.
On Feb. 20, the day of the concert, Jack Russell called Skott Greene at the Doors of Perception.
"I heard you were the best."
RUSSELL ASKED Skott to bring his tattoo equipment to the band's tour bus, but Skott wouldn't leave the shop. Mike Hoogasian was coming in to get a tattoo.
Skott was skeptical that he was talking to a real rocker. But he told everyone that day, including Sandi, his wife, that Jack Russell might be in.
A mile away, around 6:30 p.m., Russell sat at the dinette in his tour bus in the parking lot of The Station. He had agreed to be interviewed by two disc jockeys from the campus radio station of Nichols College in Dudley, Mass.
The interview was a coup for Jimmy Gahan, 21, a strapping 6-foot-2-inch college junior from Falmouth, Mass., and his buddy, Michael "Mikey" Ricardi, who was 19, and from Worcester.
Jimmy was building a portfolio of recorded interviews with big-name musicians. He had tried to interview Tim McGraw after a concert at the Mohegan Sun casino, and he had hopes of getting to Blake Shelton, who was coming in the spring to Plymouth, Mass.
For their interview with Russell, the young men arrived with a video camera, and five prepared questions each. Their plan was to interview Russell, and then return home to watch their work. They found Jack Russell in a good mood, and full of guidance.
"Things have their time," he said of the '80s.
"I got to grow up in those times, those days of hedonism," he said. "It was great, you know? Now things are a little different. They're a little more morose."
He said he was biding his time, contemplating another Great White album. He hoped to end his career on a high note.
"I love going out there and seeing people smile, you know, and have a good time and enjoy themselves and forget the crappiness of the world around them right now."
He was grateful for his die-hard fans, some who even get shark tattoos in honor of his band.
"That's so cool," Russell said, "because it's like it was part of a day. We grew up in those days and those days were special to us. A lot of people seem to forget that. They get older. They get responsible."
Jimmy Gahan also wanted some advice, about life, and about how to contribute to the music industry.
Russell told them to find something they like and stick to it. "If you're happy with what you do, you're successful. If you're flipping burgers and you're happy, you're successful, man. You know? Never, never, take no for an answer."
Then Jimmy asked a favor. A friend, Fletch, had been shipped off to Kuwait with the military, and Jimmy wondered if Russell could give his pal a shout on video. "Hey Fletch, man," Russell started,"God bless you . . . safe return . . ."
It was near 7:30 p.m. Jack Russell told Jimmy and Mikey that they would be on the guest list for that night's show at The Station.
Russell was off to get a tattoo.
INSIDE THE Doors of Perception, Skott was working on Mike Hoogasian's birthday tattoo.
Mike's wife, Sandy, was there -- because she and Mike went everywhere together. Mike had brought a design of Jesus' Sacred Heart. Catholics believe the heart is the symbol of unity, love and salvation, of how Jesus's love for mankind was so great that he died for others' sins, so they could go to heaven. The picture Mike brought showed a flaming heart and a crown of thorns. Mike planned to get the tattoo piece by piece.
He wanted to start tonight with a strip of flames.
Around 8, the door swung open, bringing in a blast of winter air and a man looking for a tattoo.
His ash-blond hair fell limp from the bandanna, which he tied on the side of his head like a pirate. His full face was a map of hard living and highway food. His bare arms displayed a web of ink. His gray T-shirt read, "If you're gonna bitch, go home." His speech, laid-back and carefree, told that he wasn't from around West Warwick.
Mike took out his cell phone and called his best friend, Derek Knight, with whom he had seen Great White almost 20 years earlier. Knight, a corrections officer, was at home, tucking his 3-year-old daughter into bed.
You'll never guess who's here, Mike said.
Who?
"Jack Russell! Jack Russell's here!"
AS MIKE and Sandy were heading home to Cranston to change for the show, Mike called Knight again to invite him. Knight was tempted, but it was after 9 p.m. and he was in for the evening.
Mike went on and on, almost breathlessly: Jack Russell had sung at the tattoo parlor. He was impressed that Mike knew Russell's older music -- not like the newer fans -- and his solo stuff. He had admired Mike's tattoos.
"He put us on the guest list."
Mike called his older sister, Paula McLaughlin. She was at home in Chepachet, talking on the phone with her husband, Jay McLaughlin, who was on duty at the Pawtucket fire station.
When Mike couldn't get through, he tried her cell phone and left a message. After Paula hung up with her husband, she called her brother back.
"I got to hear him, Paula. I got to hear him sing," Mike told her.
"He put us on the VIP list. Anyone I want can go. He said if they give me any trouble, come to my trailer. Come get me, he said. You're on my VIP list."
"Mike, you're going to go?" Paula asked.
"Paula, Great White, Paula."
She laughed.
"Oh, Mike, don't join the band."
As Paula hung up, she told him:
"You were finally in the right place at the right time, Mike."
Around 10 p.m., Mike called another friend, Steve Cole, who worked a broiler at Twin Oaks restaurant. He was just off his shift.
"I've got to fill you in on a whole cool story," Mike said. He said he could put Cole on The Station guest list, courtesy of Jack Russell. Cole could save $20.
Cole wasn't up for a night out.
Mike was still on the phone with Cole as he and Sandy neared The Station. Cars filled the parking lot, jammed up against snow banks, and lined the nearby side streets.
"If you change your mind, we'll be here," Mike said. "I'm turning in now."
With staff reports from Mark Reynolds
SUNDAY:
Life and Death
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