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The sixties had been a mysterious time for me growing up. So much coolness going on and all around me were the sights and sounds of a changing world. A world of illusion. The seventies were my true coming of age with awareness of the macro universe around me. Tricky Dick prepared his farewell address while Chuck Colson took notes. Disco was hatching. Folk Music was at its height and Rock was diversifying its genres. People submitted to pop psycholists for the first time in search of Nirvana in their tanning beds....and everyone elses beds!
When I was 14, I snuck into my Moms record collection and was mesmerized by "In-uh-Gawda-Duh-Vida (Iron Butterfly with an incredibly long drum solo)' the Four Tops and Creedance Clearwater Revival.
Mom was a good dancer and even had go-go boots with pink liptick and dippety-doo.. I'd go to Kmart every week to by 45 records that were top ten (for only 45 cents each) . I listened to Casey Kasem on American top forty and soaked it all in. Puberty hit pretty hard and in my fourteenth summer grew 3 inches taller with raging hormones.. .There were alot of behavioral problems in my family tree, most of which I won't go into, but the music helped me cope through it all.
You know, I think I always wanted to be a songwriter because of the effect songs had on me all through my life.. Favorite songs in '74? "Please Come To Boston", "Tiny Dancer", "Seasons in The Sun", "Wishin you were Here", "Life is a Rock", "The Streak", "the "Wildwood Weed" , "Funny Farm"and countless others.
Television was highly experimental in this free love culture and our family favorites were "The Partridge Family", Archie Bunker", Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man", I Dream of Jeanie, The Mod Squad, Nightstalker, The Courtship of Eddies father, Johnny Quest, Davey and Golieth and Gumby. My moral code developed most from seeing "The Waltons" and "Little House on The Prairie", although my Mom often scooted us off to churches. In retrospect, I believe parents often use media role models as surrogates that are way bigger than life, impossible to emulate..
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Okay, so now I'm 15 years old. My third stepdad, Tom beat me so bad that I ran away from home and I never came back. He had killed in Vietnam and I wasn't going to be his next victim. I lived under a bridge across the freeway from the Zoo for the first three days feeding off supplies I sold my ten-speed to buy. After two weeks at a runaway house in Hillcrest ( ironically called "The Bridge") I became a ward of the court and avenues of worldly knowledge were opened up to me that I still wish I'd never been exposed too. I fell in love with a traumatized girl named Jeri Lee at Hillcrest Recieving Home. In the next two and a half years I would shuffle through five foster homes, Juvenile Hall, Mesa Vista Mental Hospital, three group homes too and finally got emancipated at 17. Jeri and I were married on my 18th birthday. I was disgarded after four years of Fatherhood when she coveted the role of Master Parent. Single parenthood brought the same parade of Daddys I endured and no wonder my Kids grew to hate me, given the way they were raised. I never got to be a part of my childrens lives beyond that crippling divorce and for that I have VERYdeep regrets. I named my children with J's after their mother...
Jessica, Jason and Jarrod
I want my music to someday be appreciated by them.
Hopefully, while I am still alive to see it. |
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