Category Archives: Autobiography,memoirs and confessions

Knee

Posted on by

(2008, I think.)

Crutches…I swear I spend so much time on those things. I am as beat up as athlete….I did a lot of physically strenuous work when at US Borax for a decade, I was the big strong guy lugging and lifting and carrying (and the chicks there loved it….sigh….)….but man does that ruin the body later. All the veteran heavy lifters warned me, they were all crippled and I would be too. They were so right.  Especially as I have always had a defective knee–part of the package deal that included epilepsy, malformed knee, general lopsidedness. I never realized they were all connected till I saw the results of my epilepsy diagnostic exam and it discussed that stuff. One fucked up hox gene will affect various things.

I thrashed that left knee dozens of time and never ever took care of it. It would come apart under me and I’d crash to the floor in excruciating pain, I mean it’s a blinding, breathtaking pain, you can’t do anything but writhe. But it would subside fairly quickly, so I would just wait a couple minutes till the pain became tolerable enough to stand again, and then go on about my business. Which was the worst possible thing to do. Eventually they had to do arthroscopic reconstruction (I was out in the clubs on crutches almost immediately….) which worked well for a long time but arthritis set in. Last time they opened it up the doctor told me it was 90-95%  destroyed already (I’d had no idea) but since then I had gotten it to the point where it was getting me up the stairs easily enough and I could walk plenty, but it feels fucked up now. This was a bad fall (a severe twist, actually, ouch) and I probably ruined it for good (I didn’t). We’ll see….but my guess is knee replacement inside a year. (Nope.) We’ll see if I can get it back in shape enough to be functional first (which I did).

You know, I’ve never paid much attention to pain. I always forget to take painkillers. Don’t like anything stronger than Tylenol or Excedrin, and even those I avoid. But maybe that’s wrong. I ought to start paying attention.

Not sure when I wrote all that, but I was obviously hurting. When I whine like that it usually means I’m in a lot of pain…. I found out later that a seizure drug I had been on for years had exacerbated the arthritis and pretty much dissolved the knee. I mentioned that to the knee surgeon. He shrugged. Que sera sera, he said. Which is as good a philosophy as any.

A drunk lady

Posted on by

(2010)

A drunk lady in a jazz bar thought I was the bass player last night. She loved the way I played bass. Asked if I was doing another set. I said no. Then the music’s over? I said no again. Then they’re playing without you? I said yeah. Why? I was fired. Oh, she said, I’m sorry. I said I’ll be OK. Later, half way through the next set, I get a tap on the shoulder. It’s her. Hey! You’re not the bass player! I said I know. She blinked and wobbled, thinking. Then she figured it out. You’re you, she said. I said I was. She smiled. That’s good, she said. I thanked her. She was about to say something else when she fell off the barstool. I helped her up and slipped out the door.

Elvis sideburns

Posted on by

I was born with a head of jet black hair. Had the Elvis sideburns as well. That was 1957, in Long Branch, New Jersey, and all my uncle’s rock’n’roll hoodlum friends came round in leather jackets, baby oiled my hair into a tiny pompadour and sang Hound Dog. Then they went out and ruined civilization with their devil music. I haven’t been the same since.

My first baby picture.

My first baby picture.

Hospital

Posted on by

(Just found this, from 2013)

Thanks to all for the get wells to me, tho’ I was just a big guy with a little cold. Nothing special. As was hers at first, even less so. The pneumonia popped up after she seemed almost perfectly fine again. Kinda snuck in there. She’s responding well to antibiotics, her vitals are back to normal, fever gone, feisty, funny, insulting. There was talk of her being released tomorrow tho’ I suspect she’ll be there till Monday (they kept her there an extra night and she was home on Tuesday). Such a room they got her today….big and spacious, comfortable bed and a beautiful view down Sunset Blvd. Dusk was gorgeous. I was tempted to pull the lever that converts the guest easy chair (seriously, it’s a compact, little easy chair) into a bed. A hospital with a convertible easy chair. Only thing missing was a wet bar.

Spent most Sunday back at Kaiser just hanging with Fyl who’s just about fully recovered. Coming home tomorrow (it was the day after tomorrow, actually). Her room was comfortable and the National Geographic Channel was showing hours and hours of the new Cosmos series. It was one of those oddly comforting experiences you can have in a quiet part of a hospital, you’re sealed off from everyday reality, they bring in food and the occasional medication and take the occasional vital sign. She’s virtually mended and was bored as you can be when you feel near well in a hospital bed, but episode after episode of Cosmos was pure escapist mindfuckery and I was sad to see it end. The only real distraction was a stunning sunset that bathed the room in pinkish light. Nice.

Second Best

Posted on by

I remember years ago I used to hustle poems to enter contests. I was broke, I needed the money. One time I got a hundred dollar check and some tacky certificate that I’d won second prize. The first prize was a thousand dollars. The collection–it came with the check–was appalling, the third prize and runner ups were pure dreck. I remember wondering who the bum was that got my thousand dollars, so I read his poem. It was easily ten times as good as mine. There were two hundred bad poets in the book, then me and one guy way better than me. I hated that guy. If not for him that thousand dollars would have been mine. The book and certificate went into the trash can, though I cashed the check.

Fortunately there was no internet back then, and no blogs, and my F-bombs were in longhand on a pad of paper now tucked deep in my closet somewhere.

All is fair

Posted on by

(2013)

I remember when you guys met. Pretty steamy romance going on there!! I love you both.

Yeah that was 34 years ago next month–1979. I remember we hooked up at the FUBAR in Goleta–it was a Robbie Krieger show and we were bored to tears–and went back to her pad, partied with her boyfriend–he had sake and hash–and then kicked him out. I didn’t realize it was his pad. But I was bigger. All is fair in lust and war….

He was a nice guy and I felt a little bad–well not that night, maybe, but later. He was hurt, left her an angry note and called her a facist. But I was bigger and could spell. So I won.

Brick'n'Fyl c. 1982

Fyl and me in 1982. It’s the earliest shot I can find online. Photo by Spike.

 

Addiction

Posted on by

Many, many years ago I had a job for a few weeks at one of the Skid Row missions downtown, setting up their databases. Worked with lots of recovering addicts. That was interesting. My assistant had been an executive in an aerospace firm, with a huge house, expensive cars, a yacht, some beautiful children and a trophy wife. Speed had helped him get more work done. He’d been through every addiction program his company offered but finally wound up on the street and then in the mission. He showed me the ropes. The addicts there had a hierarchy, he explained, almost like a caste system. The cokeheads–strictly powder–were the aristocracy, the Brahmin. Even in the mission they wore bling. Then came tweekers. Very busy. Then junkies. They were the thinkers. Then the boozers and winos. Theirs was legal, they could leave anytime they wanted and get a bottle, or not. They always did though. Finally, at the bottom, were the untouchables, the crackheads. Even the sorriest Skid Row winos were above them. None of the other castes at the mission had any respect for them. They’d order them around, drive them off like stray dogs. They aren’t even human, my tweeker assistant told me, they’re just pure addiction.

My wife is the lady in waiting in the south of Ireland

Posted on by

(I wrote this in 1980.)

There was a crazy man on the bus today, twitching and jerking, rocking back and forth, singing, talking to everybody about the Royal Army and Lord Mountbatten and that he himself was the ambassador to somewhere. He scared everybody with his broken brain. “My wife is the lady in waiting in the south ofIreland” he said, chain smoking cigarettes, lighting the next one from the butt of the last. He muttered about the Royal Army, and counted off British sounding names, and then sat there forgetting his cigarette until; something set him off again, drumming his fingers on the seat, clutching his bag, tapping his foot to some long lost march.

Good drummers are a dime a dozen

Posted on by

(I have about 500 stories in my draft file. Most are unfinished or just ideas, but occasionally I find something that I just never posted, like this. It’s a few years old.)

I knew I was a lousy drummer the day I popped myself in the eye with my left hand stick. I never lost a beat, however. Nor an eye. I was also never able to quite figure out how I’d done it. But it was punk rock, so no big deal.

I feel a story coming on. My drumming career. I mean good drummers are a dime a dozen, but the true fuck ups are something special.

My favorite drumming injury was when I noticed the crash stand, a big heavy thing, hadn’t been tightened properly and when I reached over to adjust it and the whole thing slipped and tore out a big chunk of my index finger. Blood everywhere. My wife ran up, duct taped my fingers together and I was ready to go before the guitarist was finished tuning.

I hear duct tape is good for severed limbs too.

At some point stuff like this stopped happening. No more injuries. No more screwball pratfalls. I had learned to play. And I got bored. Nothing went wrong anymore. You set up, sat down, played, got up, tore down. No fights, no riots, no naked dudes falling into my kit or naked chicks running across the stage. No crazy bouncers or outraged club owners. No demented mountain men threatening to kill me. No onstage joints laced with PCP. No police. No nothing but nice, safe rock’n’roll. It became tedious. At some point in a drummer’s life he’s cramming his bass drum into the trunk of his car and thinking why am I doing this? The real drummers know why, they’re real drummers. The amateurs know there has to be a better way of not making a living.

So I took up writing. There’s no money in it either, but at least I don’t have to lug a drum kit around.

Bikers

Posted on by

I used to hang out at a Hells Angel bar. Used to go see bands in a record store and when my throat got a little dry I’d head around the corner for a beer. So I’d hang with the Angels. They had better beer. Got a little tense in there a couple times but at least I didn’t have to drink Miller. The place eventually got shut down for beatings and murder and drug deals, but that was later. By then I was hanging at a pool hall run by bikers. They booked bands, too. Big biker goons running security. I saved a guitar player from getting his teeth kicked in one night. He’d had a fit, smashed his guitar and chucked the body clear across the hall where it destroyed a lighting fixture. Sparks and glass everywhere. Luckily he missed the pool tables. When he split stage left two or three bikers were waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. I was overdressed and big myself and rushed between them, laying down a bogus lawyer rap. Said if they laid a hand on him I’d sue. Said it again. They backed off. Got him the hell out of there so fast. As we drove off they were outside, giving us death stares. Not long afterward another biker gang torched the joint to get even with somebody inside. They did too, burned him to a crisp. A bad scene. Great bar, though. I miss that place.

.