TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2008

(part 69) ASSAULT ON A PEACE OFFICER, 2 COUNTS


I haven't felt much like writing here in a while. I guess all the trying to stick up for what I was saying just finally got to me. It's a work in progress and I don't have a lot of the skills that it takes to withstand what I'm already use to and that's criticism, a lifetime of it. I have many things to say, but I don't know if some of the people dropping in here can really handle the story of Bobby Jameson. I haven't even gotten to the bad part yet and I feel as though what I am moving toward is more than some will be able to handle. What I mean is, that every time I tell something that will make me look like I am an asshole, which I am sometimes, there will be those who use it against me and others who say that's not the part I want to hear, while still others will want to argue about it.

I am trying to accurately keep on track, but unfortunately I have lost sight of what I was doing here. The only one who this is personal to, is me, it's my personal confession in a lot of ways. I am the only one who knows where this is going and believe me it's going to get ugly. I'm probably reluctant, because I know what that really means. The disintegration of my life, based on repetitive losses and failures left me broke and resentful at best. Adding alcoholism and drug addiction to that equation is not a moral argument whatsoever, it is a factual depiction of how I changed from a kid who played guitar and made up songs to the guy who ended up fighting with the police in the streets of L A in the 60's and 70's.

Whether or not record companies did the right thing, which they don't most of the time is irrelevant to what I thought, believed and said at the time. Most of what I said and did was not a good idea, but it was what I said and did. The record and music industry is in a world of shit, because it made and still makes lousy choices about art, music, and lyrics. They are not just companies, per say, they are business's that deal in art, the emotion of art, which is different than selling tractors. Art is special and artists are special people, but when you ask art to conform to business instead of business conforming to art, you've got it backwards which the music industry is finally paying the long awaited price for.

I was a pioneer in standing up for what I believed in at the time and it cost me everything. I have no plans to argue with anyone about the price I paid for being Bobby Jameson/Chris Lucey. Most people could not and would not have done what I did. I don't need to pay anymore of a price than I already have. You go do what I did for as long as I did it and then come and tell me what you think, because I suspect if you live through it that you'd be worth knowing and I'd want to know you, but if you don't do that then maybe I know some things that few others know, because I did do that.

In 1968 at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Clark St., that's where the Whiskey A Go Go is, I and some friends were crossing the street going away from the Whiskey. We encountered 6 white guys in suits walking towards us and a few words were exchanged between both groups. My people asked these guy's if they were cops and they said they were insurance agents from out of town in L A for a convention and wanted to visit the "Strip." More words were exchanged and a brawl started right in the middle of the intersection. People were knocked down and some were lying in the street hurt. One of these was nearly unconscious and was being approached by one of the suits who was about to kick him in the head.

I ran at the guy, about to do the kicking, and shoved him off balance to keep him from carrying out this action, at that point the suits all announced that they were Los Angeles undercover cops and that we were all under arrest. They said I assaulted a police officer and I was charged with 2 counts of felony assault against a peace officer which carries a sentence of 1 to 5 years for each count, so I was looking at 2 to 10 years in a CA state prison, if convicted. I was on trial for over a year and I beat it, as I should, but it took a lot out of me and it was more reason to get loaded and frustrated, which I did.

It was this event and the year long trial that set the stage for what became the environment for my album "WORKING". During these times I found myself always living somewhere different. There was always someone who wanted to manage me, or fix me, or just have me around for a variety of reasons, but one thing was for sure, I was like a walking time bomb always ready to go off and never sure of when it would happen. During that time I lived in a guy's house for a few months whose name was Howard Gilliam. He was rich and used to say, seriously, that he controlled the world wide soy bean market at the time.

I never knew whether he did or not, but I lived with Howard. He thought he could manage me so I let him have a shot, so I could stay at his house, that is how I lived, I had no home, I was basically homeless for half the 60's and most of the 70's. I looked like I was doing pretty good because I always drove some one's nice car and lived in someone else's nice house or apartment, but in reality, I was just broke and loaded.