Michael Dare :Life and Death of Captain Preemo or Bob Woodward vs. John Belushi and Me
Michael Dare:

There was a knock at my door in 1978, I opened it, and there stood John Belushi. One moment earlier, I had been playing guitar on the sofa, writing a funny song, and if you had asked me who was the one person in Hollywood I wanted to meet, it would have been John Belushi, the man at my doorstep, smiling broadly.

“Are you Michael Dare?” he asked.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“Can I come in?”

“You bet.”

Turned out that day was his first on the set of 1941. It was his first big Hollywood picture after the success of the low-budget Animal House, which had just come out. He was in a great mood, having just spent the day on the set with Steven Spielberg. Turned out a friend who was also working on the film had bummed a joint from me the day before. Turned out he shared it with John. Turned out John was used to New York brown Colombian dirt weed, full of seeds and sticks, and had never had anything like fresh green pungent sparkly California sensimilla. He grabbed my friend by the lapels, pinned him to the wall and said “Where did you get this?”

At this point, my life could have turned out quite different, but my friend dispensed with all the standard drug protocol and just told John all about me. Armed with my address and phone number, John ignored the latter and headed towards the former. He knew he didn’t have to call first. He was John Fucking Belushi and he knew he was welcome anywhere, especially somewhere that was a source of fine bud. He was right.

I whipped out the bong, we both took a couple of blasts, and John headed for my record collection, complaining I didn’t have enough R&B. We found stuff to listen to anyway, I sat at the piano, and he started singing. We played together for hours.

Finally, when it was time to leave, he asked me if I could get more of that pot. I said sure. He pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills and handed them to me, saying “Take what you need,” turning his back to me to look through records, showing not a care in the world for how much money I took, an astonishing display of trust. I peeled off a couple bills and handed back the rest.

The next day, I went to my dealer and told him all about my visitor. He flipped out, took the money, gave me some pot, then asked “Do you think he might want some mushrooms? How about some hash?” before fronting me his entire inventory which I gladly accepted.

The next day John came by again, this time with Dan Aykroyd. They bought my entire stock.

The next day, John brought by another actor from the film, then another, then an Eagle, a couple of directors, the head of a studio, and basically everybody he met in Hollywood. My house became his hangout during the whole shooting of 1941.