"DON'T YOU DIS MY MAN ERIC CLAPNER!"
Posted on 06/06/2010 1:03:36 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Let Eric Clapton fight his own bar battles
Clapton would be proud: Local performer Merv Roland was battle-scarred defending Eric Clapton's honor.
By Steph Greegor Published: Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:18 AM EDT Merv Roland plays acoustic guitar in front of a few folks on the weekends for a little bit of cash and some sweet brew...not to fight battles for musicians he’s never met.
“To have a gig where I can trade musical notes for alcoholic beverages—it’s what I do,” said the self-described “48-year-old, fat, bald guy.” “I’m not Eric Clapton. And I don’t want to take an ass-kicking for Eric Clapton. Eric Clapton can do his own ass-kicking. I’ve got a full-time job and so does my wife.”
Roland took some time off from being a full-time stock trader to watch James P. Herrick, 59, of Dublin, be arraigned and sentenced May 12 at the Shawnee Hills Mayor’s Court. Herrick, who pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault, bum-rushed the Largo’s Place stage that Roland was performing on April 23 following a dispute over the 1991 death of Clapton’s 4 ½-year-old son, Conor.
Herrick was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $750 plus court costs. A jail sentence of 60 days was suspended.
The trouble started when Roland stepped to the Glick Road bar for a glass of water before his set and stumbled into an ongoing conversation about the death of Conor, who fell from the 53rd-story window of his mother’s condominium in New York City.
According to Roland, Herrick had engaged two other young men at the bar in the debate, arguing that Clapton had killed his own son.
“I was like, ‘No, he didn’t. It was a terrible, tragic accident,’” said Roland. “Then he says, ‘Well, where the (hell) was he?’ And I was like, ‘Maybe at his work?’”
Roland exited the conversation and stepped on stage to play a few cover songs—including Clapton—when Herrick started screaming at him.
“I’m looking at (Herrick) and I’m like, ‘He’s gonna jump on this stage.’ So, I took my guitar off and he jumped on stage in a golf shirt, no less, and hits me over the head with his great big draft beer glass,” said Roland. “Well, I go backwards over the soundboard and he gets me on my back and he tries to scratch my eyes out. He puts one thumb in my left eye and is scratching at my right eye with his other hand. That’s when those two guys, who were about a foot behind him, pulled him off me. I still have eyeballs in my head because of those guys.”
Roland said Herrick, also ordered to complete an alcohol assessment at his expense, “never stopped fighting,” adding, “The bar maid came over and started sweeping up the broken glass while they were still holding him down—it was like the wild west.”
“It took five guys to hold him down until the cops got there,” said Roland. “I got all tore up. The cops took my picture. They took written reports. It was strange.”
Roland said he’s been playing bars in Columbus for 30 years and, while he’s been in a few provoked fights—“One time I was playing in a band at the High-Beck and I was having a dispute with one of the female members and her boyfriend dragged me off the stage. But that doesn’t count.”—this was his first genuine “unprovoked” attack.
“People, for the most part, are extremely well behaved,” he said. “But as far as bum-rushing the stage, this is my first. Maybe the drugs are different now. I remember just sitting around smoking pot and enjoying the music. I have no idea what the (hell) was going on with this guy, but he hated Eric Clapton, that’s for sure.”
“I have a lawyer,” said Roland, who will go back to court for a “miscellaneous” hearing July 21 in which Magistrate Lawrence G. Stephens Jr. is expected to determine additional expenses. “If I can get $200 from him because of this, well, that’s twice what I made that weekend."
The death of Clapton’s son has been a source of urban legends. Many people believe Clapton was at the apartment and could have prevented the boy’s death, according to media reports. In fact, Clapton, who wrote the hit “Tears in Heaven,” about his son’s death, was at a hotel in NYC and was not in the apartment of the boy’s mother when the death occurred. A cleaning person had just cleaned the window and left it open to vent the room when Conor came running in and fell through the window to his death, according to news reports.
Whatever the myths surrounding the death of Clapton’s son, Roland said it’s not his battle to fight—and for now, the magistrate has ordered Herrick to stay away from Roland and stay out of the “premises in Shawnee Hills jurisdiction.”
“I’m not worried but I might keep my eyes open a little bit more,” he said. “The whole thing is so (messed) up. The eye scratching, the Eric Clapton, the whole she-bang. Man, I hadn’t even had a shot (when it went down). Unbelievable. But hey, between the cops and the paramedics, it was one of my best crowds yet.”
Just another night on the local music scene.
Bizarre Ohio ping!
MYOB
Ahh , drunken pigs . So much fun ..
"DON'T YOU DIS MY MAN ERIC CLAPNER!"
“But hey, between the cops and the paramedics, it was one of my best crowds yet.”
LOL! An optimist.
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