(part 91) "WORKING" AND NOT WORKING

1969 sucked! It drug along like a carcass looking for life. GRT Records released "Working," but no one even knew it. It was just 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 of this drained into my consciousness, I started giving up as a person way down deep inside. I began to realize at depth, the pathetic nature of my time in the record business. With limited exceptions, pretty much everything I'd done had been 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 got Bobby Darin to listen to "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 want me on any level. I remember the day Bob Ross announced he would not continue to pay me the $100 a week for writing songs for his company.

My response to this was to go to Bob Ross Music, and grab the 24 track master to "Working," and start to walk out the door with it. I was stopped by a guy named Howard, a Bob Ross lackey, and questioned by him.

"What are you doing with that tape?" he asked, "I'm taking it!" I said. "I can't let you do that Bobby, it belongs to the company," Howard said. "Fuck you and the company," I replied, "And get the fuck outta my way." Howard knew about me and was not too eager to get into a direct conflict, because everybody pretty much thought I was nuts by that time, and were afraid of me.

Howard let me by, 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 was busted for grand theft auto in 1969 in Benedict Canyon by the LAPD Valley Division, along with Ed Durston, and Harvey Dareff, Diane Linkletter's boyfriend. We didn't steal a car or anything; we were in a rental car that no one had paid the rent on, but we didn't know that at the time we were stopped.

I was the driver. It was a Cadillac, and I'd gone up to Benedict Canyon to show those guys where I used to live in 1964, with Lois Johston. I continued to drive up through the canyon, when we were stopped by the police and arrested. Three 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'd 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 forth anyway as factually accurate. After going through the previous year of my life, I no longer believe in the good intentions of human beings. Some people are fine, but many more are looking for every crappy thing they can dig up on me. This has been the case for decades.

This is my story, and I have to expect the worst, but hope for the best in telling it. 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 returned last year. Things are pretty much the same as before, maybe worse.