On a recent episode of The New Roth Show, Van Halen frontman “Diamond” David Lee Roth shared a story about how he suffered an accident involving himself, his motorcycle, which was a beloved Harley Davidson and his beloved fling [at the time], a woman by the name of “Dottie the Body”. Alternative Nation transcribed Roth’s comments:
Roth: And here’s one of the inside stories that I rarely tell, I tell it from the inside because I want to set the scene. I got Dottie the body who now we’re now starting a caravan because you gotta go so slow that the cars start to queue up around you. However, if you are looking good they don’t care. Sort of like when I drive my 51 Mercury and I take four minutes to get around the corner – nobody complains, and with Dottie the body in the car you could take like, twelve minutes to get around the corner and everybody is going: “slower, slower” because they are fishing for their smartphone cameras. We are coming on the bike, low and slow and everybody starts to back up.
[Dave imitates an engine]
Roth: This is royal court power – position, presence…
[Dave once again continues to imitate an engine]
Roth: I have these kinds of glasses on, no shit, the only thing that is missing is a string. Everything is shaken, including Dottie. Dottie’s body is shaken. The thing is, you know how this happens, I’m gonna get you in the mood, I’m gonna pull up in front and there is the curb in behind you. You know this is a process and the king, like in sumo, okay, when you’re first fighting, you’re just starting out as a sumo wrestler, you get into the ring, fight..
[Dave claps]
Roth: GO! And you’re done. Yet the real guys, the heavyweights, the four-hundred pounders, they can take up to seven minutes to park that shit. Get ready to slug it out, boom, collision and it’s just like that in the Troubador bar and grill. Here I come, I am the Lawerence of LaBrea, The California Cassanova and everybody knows it, Dottie knows it and we [are] making sure everybody stays knowing it and they love it. So you get to park the bike seven times. You know that thing where you get to bring the bike up, pull it up and then you can bring it back? That’s once, that’s for beginners, that’s opening act shit. This is Van Halen, this is Running with the Devil, this is might as well Jump, this is Ain’t Talkin’ About Love so I get to do it seven times! Dottie steps off and the crowd goes silent, you could hear the air over the bike. That’s some shit, think about that.
[Roth gasps]
Roth: Then I get to pull that shit right up front.
[Roth once again imitates an engine]
Roth: You are gunnin’.
[Roth still imitates an engine]
Roth: You start to bring it back to the curb and you look down and you realize your shit is off by a millimeter, fuck that because I’m never off. Hold it forward by four feet and shit, he’s gonna park it this time! What happens after he parks it, man? They’re gonna go inside and everybody’s all watching and shit, hotboxing the cigarettes and sunglasses steaming up. I pull the bike up forward.
[Roth impersonates an engine]
Roth: Then pull it back, look back: “yeah baby, yeah, not quite fucking yet!” [engine noises] Pull it forward, you’ve seen the process, right? Dottie is standing there and she is doing that Jayne Mansfield shit, getting ready for everything to follow, I get it all right and I’m ready to get off and I realize, I realize that I forgot to put the kickstand down and the fuckin’ bike falls! I gotta get Dottie to help pick the thing up. Oh fuck!