Keith Partridge kept a diary?
Yes, it's
true—Cassidyland
has unearthed Keith Partridge's private journal, tucked away in
the Partridge attic all these years. We'll be posting pages as
quickly as we can (though it's a challenge, since we've found Keith's
teen scrawl notoriously hard to decipher, and some of the entries
are even written in code, possibly to keep Danny from reading them)!
April 20
What a week! Gloria didn't show up for practice this week. Mom filled
in so we could do our demo tape. She did good. I broke the news to Gloria
that she's out of the Band. Now she's mad at me. Since Mom's in, we changed
the name from "Garage
Kids Six" to "The Partridge Family". Just found out that
Mr. Kincaid (he's a big record producer) is in town! Danny and Tracy
sold him on us! He must really love kids. We convinced Mom over dinner
that we really wanted to be rock and roll stars. She agreed that if we
were serious we could do it! Outa Sight!
Pot Roast for dinner
Strawberries and whipped cream for dessert
May 2
We had our first gig tonight! I wish we had more than one song to sing. I guess
I better write some more. A couple of days ago, Mom bought a bus. We painted
it with groovy colors, and wired the top in case we ever need it for a stage
in a pinch. We drove to Vegas. Man! Seeing our name in lights was the keenest
thing ever! Poor Mom. She had the worst case of stage fright. Every one of us
froze (well, not me though). I took care of everything. Once I snapped everyone
out of it, we did great. The crowd loved us! I can't wait for the next gig! I
think I love this!
Chicken for dinner
Chocolate pudding for dessert
May 8
A couple of days ago Mom ass-ended this old guy, Willie Larkin.
He's suing Mom for $250,000.00 because he thinks we have tons of
money. We knew he was just pretending to be hurt, so we came up
with a plan. We decided to trick him to prove he was OK. So, we
moved into his house to "help him out". When
we first got there, we screwed up his date with this chick, Doris.
It would have ended quickly anyway. He was wearing this tiger striped
smoking jacket. No chick would go for that! We killed him with
kindness. Mom and Laurie did his laundry (old bachelor laundry
smells). We even sang to him in his living room. The next day,
Tracey was dusting the picture over his fireplace. She slipped
and almost fell, except Mr. Larkin stood up out of his wheelchair
and caught her! Talk about egg on his face! He dropped the lawsuit,
so we packed up our instruments and suitcases, and went home. We
never saw him again.
Spare Ribs for dinner
May 11
Grandma and Grandpa showed up during breakfast. They just bought
this far-out yellow Corvette! Of course they are fighting again.
Grandpa jammed with us. He plays the ukelele. He has a wild sound!
I guess me and the kids laid it on too thick. We told him he was
good and should join the act. He actually decided to do it. He
even had a maroon velvet rock and roll outfit that matched ours.
I still don't know where he got it. Grandpa took off without Grandma
to join us on the road. We thought he would get tired of it, but
he didn't! He didn't even sing Point Me In The Direction Of Albuquerque
right or anything! It was really embarrassing. But Mom came up
with a great plan. She invited Grandma to the show, then tricked
Grandpa into singing a song called "Bye Bye Blackbird" to
her. As usual, Mom's plan worked. That was really close!
Turkey Club from room service for dinner
May 15
Our first album came out! The bird picture is pretty lame, but
Reuben seems to think it's a good connection - ya know, Partridge.
Chris got chocolate all over it. Reuben didn't even put liner notes
on it. I couldn't believe it. Oh, yeah, Danny (the little red-headed
pancake) got drafted! Mom was about to flip! We were just about
to go on the road to cut the album, when she decided she better
open the mail. There it was, in black and white. Reuben told us
just to go do the album and he would take care of everything. I
could see it now... Danny in bootcamp. What a far out idea! Anyway,
we just finished recording "On The
Road" and Reuben walks in. It turns out the army thinks they
actually WANT Danny! Man, did Mom have a screaming fit! She stormed
off to the recruiting office and the rest of us stayed behind to
record the instrumentals. Even though Mom had Danny's birth certificate
proving he was just a kid they didn't want to listen. He actually
had to go to the recruiting office and take a physical! He ended
up failing, but only because of his height (he could have been
20 and failed for that)! I wish he made it.
Chicken Pot Pies for dinner
chocolate cake for desert
May 20
Us kids caused a scene this week. Mom's old boyfriend Larry came back into the
picture. He was a far out guy and all, and Mom really liked him. They went to
dinner, and had some good times. It was kind of embarrassing the way they acted
like kids. They even shared a chocolate soda with two straws while us kids were
right at the next table! We thought for sure that he was going to propose to
Mom because he took Tracy and Chris out with him one day and they had to stop
at a jewelry store - to buy a diamond ring! Us kids weren't thrilled about it
either. Then, when Me and Laurie were out one day, we saw him give the ring to
another girl (and boy, was she outa sight, too)! We sort of confronted him about
it when he came to pick up Mom, (I sounded really mature when I told him that
we didn't want him hanging around Mom anymore). Mom was really really upset.
I never saw her like that before. The girl ended up to be his Daughter. We really
did it this time! But we were right in the first place. When we apologized to
Larry, we told him to go ahead and marry Mom if he wants. He came to the hotel
we were staying in and popped the question, but Mom said no! Boy, were we glad
that scene was over!
Shishkabobs and rice for dinner
jello for dessert
Sept 19
Summer was great. We started school about 2 weeks ago. I've been
too busy to write in you, journal. I promise I'll keep up for a
while. Wow, was it a screwey first couple weeks of school. Ever
since our album came out, girls have been chasing after me and
following me everywhere! At least it started out that way. When
I was registering for classes, 19 girls signed up for auto shop
to be with me. How can I learn to fix the bus in a pinch with them
staring at me?! During a game, all the chicks in the stands kept
cheering for me, even though I'm always on the bench! Then, to
top it all off, there was this girl that Mom found hiding out in
her azaleas waiting to catch a peek of me, and she invited her
in! Her name was Cathy, and she was just sitting in the corner
chair staring at me with these lovey-dovey eyes forever now! We
had some pretty heavy eye contact going on. The next day, I was
on my way home from school, and about a trillion girls came out
of nowhere. I ducked into a ladies underwear store, and the clerk
didn't even know I was a big rock and roll star! She didn't like
me. So I had to get her to go out with me. I finally convinced
her to come over for dinner one night to prove that we were a normal
family, not "show business" people (she
hates show business people). Just my luck, Mom invited googly eye
the same night! I hopped in the bus and went to her house to tell
her not to come so I could impress Janet (the underwear clerk).
When I got there, I couldn't do it. So, I told her to come an hour
later. On the ride home, I did some thinking, and realized that
I didn't really like Janet. I only liked that she didn't follow
me around like a groupie. So I un-invited her to dinner. Ya know,
Cathy was pretty nice, but I usually go for girls with long hair.
Spaghetti and salad for dinner
(Cathy made the salad - it was worth it's weight in salad)
Sept 22
Wow. Talk about screwy! We we're on our way to a gig, and stopped for a picnic
in the park (Laurie has this picnic thing - we always have to have a picnic).
I felt guilty not practicing though. I wanted to at least go over that new song
once or twice. Anyway, after lunch, we hopped back into the bus to get to the
hotel. The next thing you know, Laurie's saying that she doesn't want us to panic,
but there's a skunk sitting behind her! It must have sneaked in during the stupid
picnic. Mom pulled the bus over really fast and I (being the man of the family)
got the skunk out the door. Mom sprayed us with this awful perfume, and made
it worse. We stopped at Sunshine Motor Haven - a cheesy motel - on our way to
the really nice one so that we could take baths. The manager called the cops
on us! He said we were wearing hold up masks (bandanas - we didn't want to smell
ourselves). The cops believed us (how could they not) and sent us away. Arriving
at the Ambassador Hotel was a complete embarrassment. I saw a group of girls
in the lobby, and I know they could smell us. I bet I could have gotten a date
- they smiled at me until we got close to their noses. One of them was really
groovy, too. So, we got our room key chucked over the desk to us, along with
a message from good ole' Reuben telling us that we were to perform at a children's
hospital at 7 o'clock! Up to our suite we went - scaring everyone out the elevator
along the way. We got to our room and took showers. We thought that we'd gotten
rid of the smell till Reuben arrived. He could still smell skunk! Reuben called
room service and asked for 40 cans of tomato juice. They sent up the juice in
glasses. We all bathed in it (I swear I could hear my hair screaming). It did
take the smell out, but our clothes were still gross smelling, which got Reuben
to pull another brilliant idea out of his hat. Danny and Reuben ended up bribing
a bunch of people in the building out of the clothes off their back! We looked
like a bunch of morons. On top of looking like morons, this dumb kid tossed Simone
into the cab (the bus still stunk, so we couldn't take that) seconds before we
left, and he was still contaminated! Needless to say, now we were dressed completely
weird AND we smelled. But, the show did go on - we performed in an operating
room behind glass so no one could smell us. We sang Brand New Me for the kids.
When we were done, the hospital staff de-contaminated us. Suite 1506 at the Ambassador
Hotel was probably off limits for a while! I sure hope the dry cleaner knows
how to get skunk smell out of crushed velvet.
Burritos for dinner
Sept 25th
This afternoon, we were waiting to rehearse, but Mom said she needed to have
a talk with Laurie instead. You see, our dentist, Dr. Kessler, said that Laurie
needed braces. She was pretty wigged about it, because she's been trying to get
this guy to ask her out, and she knew that she'd look positively goofy with braces!
The next afternoon while Laurie was getting the metal in her mouth, the rest
of us kids were out washing the bus - you know - just havin' a ball. Danny noticed
that this guy, Gerry, that Laurie
wanted to go steady with was sitting across the street in his car.
He finally got up enough nerve to come over & ask if Laurie
was here. We promised not to tell him that she was getting braces,
so we kept our word, and made him get lost.Reuben has always had
perfect timing. And like usual, he picked that day of all days
to stop over to break the good news that we'd be on The Wink Burgess
Show on national TV the next day! Boy, you should have seen Laurie's
face when he said that! She went crying to her room. The poor kid,
she even had to eat her soup that night with a straw. She wouldn't
even talk. She wrote a note to Mom that she wanted us to cancel
the show. I was pretty bummed - If I couldn't get on TV, my chances
of getting a date with any chick in the world would be ruined!
Lucky for me, Laurie came to her senses pretty quickly, and said
she'd do the show. I thought she was back to normal then, but when
Gerry asked her to go steady, she said no! All because of a few
lousy scraps of tin in her mouth! She carried around this little
white hankerchief so that everytime she had to speak she could
cover her face. We were all ready to shoot the rehearsal. We were
all set up in the living room with the TV people and Wink. We started
our song, and Man!! Laurie sounded horrible! The music was in 2/4
count, but she insisted that her mouth was playing 3/4!!! she even
went so far to say it was the Rolling Stones! Yes, this is the
weird part. Laurie could actually hear the Rolling Stones in her
braces! We are such a lucky family, that our orthodontist comes
to our house when we do gigs there, and that he happened to be
there that day. He said it was really possible that she wasn't
goofing on us. Anyway, Gerry came over and said that even though
Laurie had an ugly mouth, he still wanted to go steady with her.
And get this - he was carrying a radio that played the same station
as Laurie's mouth! So Gerry turned off his radio, which seemed
to solve the Mick Jagger problem, and we recorded the show. I just
have to say that I looked really groovy for the show. Mom gave
me eight dollars to get a haircut that morning. The barber did
a really good job, and said that if I bring him a new customer
my next cut will be free! I love my hair.... anyway, after all
that, Dr. Kessler told Laurie that she could either wear the braces
for six months, or wear a retainer every night for two years! She
picked the retainer.
Vegetable Soup and bread for dinner
Sno-Cones for dessert (thanks, Tracy)
December 25
This Christmas was way better than last year since we got to spend
it at home instead of at Old Man Charlie's ghost town. Mom invited
him to Christmas dinner, but she told him not to bring his mule, so
he said no. I got some new picks and strings for my guitar, a new blow-dryer,
some far-out shirts, and a date with the girl at the record store.
I gave Mom a Tony Bennett album, Chris got Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots,
Tracy a Mood Ring, Danny a lava lamp and Laurie some toe socks. Reuben
came over for dinner and brought a stewardess. I think she really dug
me though because she kept on touching my feet under the table. Danny
thinks it's because she drank too much egg nog.
Leg of Lamb for dinner
Trifle for dessert