WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2008

(part 83) "WORKING" AND NOT "WORKING"


1969 sucked! It drug itself along like a carcass looking for life. GRT RECORDS released "WORKING", but no one ever knew it. It was like it didn't exist at all. No promotion of any kind, no nothing. It just got pressed up as a piece of vinyl and put into a jacket and that was that. As the reality and facts of this drained into my consciousness I just started giving up as a person way down deep inside myself. I began to realize at depth, the pathetic nature of my time in the record business. With the exception of "I'M SO LONELY", everything that followed had been, at the time, a dismal failure. I'm not talking about what people ultimately felt and thought about my work 40 years later, I'm talking about the sixties, when all this happened.

At one point I had Bobby Darin hear "WORKING" so I could get his opinion about it. After listening to the album he began chopping it to bits and telling me why it was bad here and why this didn't work etc. I left even more deflated than ever. All I wanted to do was get loaded and stay loaded. I was tired of my life and trying to fit into a business and town that didn't seem to want me on any level.

At some point Bob Ross announced to me that he would NOT continue to pay me the $100 a week for writing songs for his company, TERESA MUSIC. My response to this, was to go to Bob Ross Music, in the little frame house, and take the 24 track master of "WORKING" and walk out the door with it. I was met by a guy named Howard, who was Bob's lackey, and confronted at the door. "What are you doing with that tape?", he asked, "I'm taking it!" I said. "I can't let you do that Bobby that belongs to the company." Howard said. "Fuck you and the company." I replied, "Now get the fuck outta my way." Howard knew about me and was none to eager to get into a direct conflict, because everybody pretty much thought I was nuts by that time and they were afraid of me. Howard let me pass and I left with the tape, which I still have in my possession today. The only thing I regret is not getting both tapes, I have half of the entire "WORKING" master on 24 track, I do not know which half.

I was busted for grand theft auto in 1969, in Benedict Canyon, by LAPD Valley Division, along with Ed Durston and Harvey Dareff, Diane Linkletter's boyfriend. We didn't steal a car or anything, we were driving a rental car that no one had paid the rent on, which we did not know at the time we were driving it. I was the driver. It was a Cadillac and I had gone up to Benedict Canyon to show these guys where I used to live in 1964, with Lois Johston. I had continued up through the canyon where we were stopped by the police and arrested.

3 days later they got the story straight and let us all go. The reason I tell you this is because Benedict Canyon is where the Tate Murders occurred some time later, which is why I'm mentioned on the Manson site along with Harvey Dareff. We had been in the vicinity prior to that event. The two things were not connected, but the record of our having been nearby caused us to be looked at by the police. I in no way believe my explanation will satisfy you, but I offer it anyway, as factually accurate.

After going through the last year of my life I no longer believe in the good intentions of human beings. Some people are fine, but many more of them are looking for every crappy thing they can dig up on me, as has been the case for decades. This is my story and I have to expect the worst and hope for the best in telling it, but I need to reiterate my dismay at the human condition, which has not improved at all since I dropped out of sight 23 years ago and then returned only 1 year ago, to pretty much the same old shit, but worse.