SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2009

(part 98) SUICIDE, A WAY OF LIFE, THEN AND NOW


I woke up this morning in a pool of tears, because the pain in my head is so bad, In the last number of months I have been in agony. This morning I looked out at my life and saw only hopelessness and misery. After a couple of hours I wrote what is here to try and continue this story. I don't suppose that some who read what I have forced myself to post here can fully appreciate the devastation this is causing me to recall, rehash and feel all over again. To remember and write down some of these things is like detoxing from heroine and booze over and over again. I have had great difficulty in remembering, in context, the sequence of events in their correct order. Forgive me if I make mistakes here and there. This is something of a double edged sword, in that I don't want to do it, but feel compelled to finish what I've started. Almost every day I think that maybe ending my life would be the best thing and every day I talk myself out of doing that today. Maybe tomorrow Bob, but not today.

Because the two songs, "Junkie Jesus" and "Jesus Was An Outlaw Too," were in the movie, "Clay Pigeon," as background music, I went to ASCAP and signed up with them and got a $1500. advance, the only money I've ever received from either ASCAP or BMI in my life. It helped at the time, believe me, because as usual I was perpetually broke as I still am today. None the less, I felt at the time that it was a sign that things were going to get better and looked to the future with positive anticipation.

For months, after the Jesse Ed Davis and Randy Newman session, I'd been hanging out at Gavin Murrell's house in the hills along with his roommate Ron Radkovitch. Gavin also believed things were looking up for me, as well as for himself, because of his work on the "Clay Pigeon" film. At some point during that time, I met with Herbie Cohen and his brother Martin Cohen, who represented Frank Zappa in various ways. I'd met Hebie Cohen before, with Frank, so it was a not a meeting without some prior context. Herbie was aware of the songs I recorded with Davis and Newman and the movie and wanted to hear what else I had written that was unpublished. I invited him up to Gavin's house on St. Ives Drive, in West Hollywood, which overlooked the Sunset Strip near Doheny Drive. It was a nice place with large windows and a deck that looked out on the panoramic view of the entire city below.

As usual, I had a lot of new songs. Some fully finished and others partially completed. I played some things live for Cohen and then played him a rough demo tape of other songs I'd recorded in Gavin's living room, both on piano and guitar. Herbie seemed somewhat impressed with what he'd heard, but was such an understated guy, that it was hard for me to get a real read, emotionally, out of his reaction. I guess the best way to put it is, that if he didn't say anything bad about the stuff I played him, it was good. He told me he would speak to his brother Martin and we'd all get together again at their offices in, Hollywood, in a week or so which we did. After Herbie left I asked Gavin what he thought and Gavin told me that in his opinion it had gone very well. Playing music for someone is different than just talking with them. When you create something and then play it for someone you kind of want to get an emotional response from them to guage they're reaction, with Herbie, this did not happen. As I said, Cohen was real low key. Gavin on the other hand, was an onlooker, so he viewed the situation from a far less emotional position than I did. He was convinced it was positive, so I opted for Gavin's opinion on the matter.