Me, Alice: The Autobiography of Alice Cooper

Glen and I became friends basically because he was forbidden. Cortez was a school of goody-goody kids. There was no juvenile delinquency in our clean American Phoenix suburb and Glen was considered a tough kid. His swagger and unlit cigarette was as close as we got to what the principal, George Buckley, called “negative influences on the community.” Buckley, who was a well-known community leader in Phoenix, a Mormon elder and member of the draft board, was obsessed with uncovering “negative influences on the community.” My friendship with Glen soon tainted me. Glen was suspended from school a half a dozen times for long hair and smoking in the bathroom, and when Buckley saw me walking around the Cortez campus with him I was automatically put on his suspicious character list.

In the fall of my junior year I got shafted with the job of organizing the Letterman’s talent show. My biggest problem was that nobody had any talent. Nobody even deluded themselves. I put up signs all over the school and all I found was a freshman who wanted to do magic tricks. I called a meeting in the locker room before a track meet one day and asked for suggestions.

“All right,” I said, clapping my hands together to get their attention, “who wants to do what in the talent show?”

“Let’s put Dunaway in a dress and have him sing ‘I Enjoy Being a Girl,’” John Speer said. John Speer loved to torture Dennis Dunaway. Speer was a senior, a tall well-built eighteen-year-old with a good mid-western face. He was a scene queen. He had to be the center of attraction and everything had to be his way, which he usually achieved because he was long-winded and determined not to fail. He brayed at people, donkeylike, insistent.

Dennis Dunaway was exactly the opposite and Speer hated him because of it. Dennis was my height and almost as skinny, with deep set, moist brown eyes. Speer was frantic and impulsive, Dennis lethargic and good-natured, like a farmer in Iowa. He had the slowest heartbeat on the team, a good advantage for a runner, but he was so very retiring sometimes we didn’t think he could have had more than two heartbeats a day. His placidness drove John Speer nuts, but all of Speer’s venom just splattered on Dennis’ impenetrable hide.

“C’mon. How about if we all sing?” I said. We had been making up parodies of Beatle songs as we ran around the track: “We beat you, yeah, yeah, yeah,” or “Last night I ran three laps for my coach.” But nobody was listening to me. John Speer was hovering over Dennis Dunaway like the Angel of Death, trying to get him angry. I stepped between them and Speer pushed me aside.

“Listen, Dunaway, I want to make a deal with you. Whoever wins this meet doesn’t say one word to the loser. I know it’s going to be a big deal if I beat you, but I won’t say nothing to you if I win, and if I lose you don’t say nothing to me.”

Dennis just sat there nodding, and I forgot about the talent show until after the meet. John Speer beat Dennis. At the last minute he took over in an incredible sprint. When they got back to the lockers Speer was screaming, “Ha! What’s the matter with Dunaway? Didn’t win the meet, did you? Huh, old slow poke?”

Dennis couldn’t have cared less. As he was getting dressed, he said to me, “You want somebody to sing with you? I’ll do it.” Speer was at his side instantly “Sing what? Track songs? Is that what you’re gonna do? Make it look like you’re the big track stars? Not without me, buddy. I represent the track team around here.”

That’s how it started. I convinced Glen Buxton, who already played guitar, to join Dennis and John, and along with the track coach, Emmet Smith, we formed the Earwigs. An earwig is a water scorpion. If you step on one, it releases a terrible stink, and if one gets in your ear it’ll chew right through the ear drum, get into your brain, and drive you crazy.

The night of the Letterman’s talent show we got dressed up in our track suits and long Dynel wigs. Save for Glen, none of us knew how to play any instruments, so we faked it. We all stood on the stage in the cafeteria/auditorium, singing Beatle parodies feeling like idiots. During the last number we arranged for three girls to rush on stage and scream, “Earwigs! Earwigs!”

We caused an uproar in the school, mostly because we were so bad, but I loved the sudden attention. Everybody was talking about it. People complimented me the next day for having the guts to do it, and girls started talking to me who never before would have anything to do with the skinny guy with the big nose from the track team. It stimulated my entertaining chemicals like never before. I got hooked on the limelight. That’s why I went into rock and roll. For fame and sex. I wanted more and more from that night on. To this day coach Emmet Smith hasn’t forgiven himself for letting me taste that moment.