The Police were at my house tonite.

I asked them to come. Mike Decaro was harassing me on the phone.

Again.


posted by gathering moss at 4:02 AM

Yes, again. You see, it's my housemate, Delene.

She met this MikeDecaro fellow a few months ago. He says he works for the Rolling Stones. He offerred her a good amount of money for her time. He wants her to help him sell things. What things?

Himself, mostly. Rolling Stones memorabilia actually.

Pie in the Sky

Delene has Multiple Sclerosis (but she doesn't let it stop her from trying). She is a divorced mother of two, trying to get by on a fixed income, disability. Delene has worked for Mike Decaro and the Rolling Stones since April. She has delivered her time. Has she been paid? Not a dime.

In that time, Delene has served as chauffeur, taxi, and emotional punching bag to Mike Decaro. He has given her nothing for gas or mileage travelling back and forth from her home in NE Connecticut to Stamford many times. She paid these expenses herself.

Mike always seems to be broke.. He has her buy him cigarettes, because he has no money.

He has her buy him chicken sandwiches at McDonalds, because he has no money.

No Worries

Mike Decaro has no money worries. He peddles influence and access to the band to radio stations and others foolish enough to buy it. In addition to working for the Rolling Stones and running miscellaneous errands for Keith Richards, Mike Decaro has placed a virtual saddle on my Friend Delene. Mike Decaro has apparently found a Beast of Burden.

Princely Sums and Prevarication

Maybe the Rolling Stones can not afford to pay Delene the princely (or should I say Knightly?) sum that Mike Decaro contracted to pay for her time.

Or maybe it is just that Mike Decaro is not authorised to hire anybody.

Or maybe it is just the policy of the Rolling Stone's organisation to try to get People to work for free, and offer their time for free. After all, maybe they are no different than any big record company that puts Artists on the road to promote their work and keep the bulk of the money for themselves. As Courtney Love observed a speech reported in the Salon article Courtney Does the Math, "The system's set up so almost nobody gets paid."

Liars and Thieves

I do know that I like some of the Stones' music. It is this business practice of defrauding their contractor's by theft of time and services that I have trouble with...especially when the victim is a Friend.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A Veteran, Herdsman, and Pet Pal

Delene is a Veteran of the United States Army. She worked for many years for DHI (Dairy Herd Improvement). It was on a trip for DHI during the Steel Wheels tour that Delene happened to meet Keith Richards.

Among other things, Mike Decaro says he runs errands for Keith Richards.

Later, Delene became the Dog Warden for four northeastern Connecticut towns. She loves animals. She works with Pet Pals, an animal rescue and adoption organisation. She has done this for years.

I like Delene. She is kind to animals, and People. She helped me when I needed it, because she could. And I would help her in any way that I could.

I plan to.

posted by gathering moss at 2:55 PM

So, why were the Police at my house?

As I said, I asked them to come because of his harassing me on the phone, invading the peace and quiet of my home, disturbing me while I was working on something.

You see, it's because Mike Decaro has not cultivated his listening skills. He is much too busy enjoying the sound of his own voice, usually going on and on about how important and powerful he is because he works for the Rolling Stones, and how his buddy is Keith Richards (I wonder how much we are judged by the company we keep versus the content of our character), and how this tour is so big, why it's bigger than big. ("Come in here dear boy have a cigar your gonna go far..."- Pink Floyd) .

Mike will run on and on never stopping to listen or take turns or have an actual conversation, rather he will try to bulldoze over any participation by the target of his blather. He would appear to write the same way.

Nope. Mike just doesn't listen. When he called yesterday the first time Delene had gone on an animal rescue/relocation mission for Pet Pals. I told him what she told me: She would not be back home until sometime tomorrow afternoon (that's right now as I write this). Did he listen?

The second time he called, I repeated to him that Delene was not here, and please don't bother me as I was working. He continued talking, as he is wont to do. Again, obviously not listening. I hung up.

The third time he called, I told him he was harassing me, that Delene wasn't here, and that he would have a visit from the Police if he rang the phone again, and that this time it would not be a false report. (refer to the entry in this journal headed "A False Report")

The fourth time he called, it was his elderly mother calling, with him standing next to her putting her up to it. (She is a sweet lady whom I once showed how to play back songs on her electric organ). Mrs. Decaro asked me if Delene had returned from the doctor? I had no idea what she was talking about, and said "I don't know anything about that, but she won't be back until tomorrow afternoon." She thanked me and hung up.

The fifth call was from a fellow who works with WAAF, a station that is promoting a contest to win a night with the Stones. The fellow was nice, and we spoke for a few minutes about web logs, and I told him about blogger.com. Evidently Delene was working with him on the contest in conjunction with Mike, and he was looking for her. I told him that she would be back tomorrow afternoon, that she was on an animal errand with Pet Pals. After I hung up, I wondered if Mike had had him call, but dismissed it.

I knocked off work to go to a bluegrass concert nearby to raise money for a local museum. As I was leaving, the phone was ringing...

When I returned from the concert the phone was ringing...

I answered and it was Mike Decaro. The sixth call (fifth if You discount the radio guy).

When I recognised his voice, I hung up.

The seventh call was from the WAAF radio guy. Now, he had seemed a reasonable sort earlier when I spoke with him, and I had told him Delene would be back tomorrow afternoon. But he must have forgotten...He was asking for Delene. At that point I began to wonder if he was being put up to calling. It was then that he mentioned that they were working on a contest. I said that I hoped he wasn't doing it on spec, and he laughed, thanked me and the conversation ended.

The eightth call was Mike Decaro. He didn't say hello, he just went off rambling a mile-a-minute, giving his simulation of a radio announcer calling a lucky caller who had won a contest....

This was Mike Decaro's way of telling me he had put-up the radio guy to call and disturb me just out of spite I guess. Mike can be that way, I've noticed.

I hung up and decided to call the State Police. Enough was enough. They sent a very nice Trooper named Trott to speak with me.

I hated to waste their time with it. There are too few State Troopers covering too many towns spanning too large an area in northeastern CT. But since the other night (see next entry) I figured they may have an interest in this.

Trooper Trott was professional. I explained what was happening. As I explained, the phone rang. Guess who?

That's right. Lucky Caller Number Nine. Mike Decaro.

I put it on speaker so the Trooper could see/hear what I was dealing with.

Mike began slowly, which was unusual for him. He calmly said that he had a right to talk to Delene, and that I could not block his calls, and that (picking up speed now) when (Delene's former housemate) left he was assured the phone would be available and...

I interrupted his snowballing rapid-fire assertions to repeat that Delene was not here; that she was running an errand with the animal People; and that she told me she would probably not be back before tomorrow afternoon. I repeated that I had told him all this when he had called the first time.

Trooper Trott listened.

I walked into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, shaking my head, no longer listening to Decaro's senseless blather. Ever hear a junkie or speed freak ramble? Or somebody with cocaine psychosis? Or a bipolar Person on a manic high? You get the idea.

Since I had stopped verbally responding, the Trooper began supplying the "uh-huh"s. At one point I started to interrupt and said, "Mike, I'm hanging up now..." and began to reach for the phone, but Trooper Trott stopped me and softly admonished me, "No, let him go on a bit, give him his say...". I shrugged and said okay.

posted by gathering moss at 4:21 PM

The Connecticut State Trooper stood in my living room, staring into the speakerphone in growing disbelief. As he listened to Mike Decaro's idiotic self-important mixture of threats and assertions and maunderings, he looked at me. "This guy must be on drugs." I explained Mike's medication ingestion to the best of my knowledge, a certain maintenance program.

When he had heard enough, the Trooper picked up the handset and tried to get in a word. He repeated his identification several times. It was clearly spoken, calm, and professional.

Mike Decaro rambled on.

Finally, the policeman looked at me, at the phone, and banged the handset on the worktable several times. Putting it back to his ear, he said, "Hello. This is Trooper Trott of the CT State Police." He still had to repeat himself several times before Mike realised that he was no longer ranting at me.

Trott remonstrated with Decaro that we had had quite enough phone calls for the night here.

It didn't work. Off went Mike Decaro at a mile a minute again.

posted by gathering moss at 5:49 PM