(part 301) A Man Of Means By No Means

Even though there are some who have strongly suggested that I quit writing and thinking about the music business, this post will pursue that subject once again. I will be 70 years old in a week. I find myself in difficult financial times since my mother's death, because we shared all the bills which made it possible for both of us to be basically covered. But now all of it falls on my back alone. So the subject of this post is about money, not money from record sales or publishing, of which there is none, but money for making records in the past, of which there were many.
(list of records I made)
I was a member of both Local 47, the Musicians Union, and AFTRA. That means I had the right to be paid when I played on a session, or sang on a session, which for the most part I was not. The reason this is important now, is because by not being paid for work I did on sessions in the past means the necessary monies that were to be paid into the fund, which becomes your Social Security in later life, where I am now, was not paid. this means I do not get Social Security. I get something different called SSI (supplemental security income), which I am grateful for, but which is considerably less than I would be getting if I got Social Security. At 70 years old I find myself with more bills than income, and I live in the least costly way I can, with no frills at all. It is my past in the music business, and the failure of those who did not pay me, for session work only, that rears it's ugly head a half a century later in my current life. Once again, I am not talking, at all, about record royalties, or publishing royalties. I am speaking specifically about union money that I earned for work I did, but was not paid for. Money that would have meant I got Social Security decades later, which is now. It is hard, if not impossible, to disassociate myself from old facts that are currently making my life extremely difficult to live now. As much as I would like to put the past away, I find myself forced to deal with the problems I have today, which were caused by events long ago. When I was young I wanted to make records. So, what I should have demanded, from those who did not pay me, was left up to trusting them, and accepting their explanations for why I wasn't being paid for my work as a musician and singer. I didn't know enough back then to see fifty years into the future and realize how I would be affected. But I'm here now, and it's as clear as a bell how it happened. I do not want, or like, to complain about these things, but find myself forced to face the day to day hardships I encounter whether I want to or not. SSI does not permit me to get any outside help, or to work, unless I report it to them. If I report it to them they turn around and take any money I obtain, from any source, and deduct it from what they give me that month. So if I went and cut someone's hedge, and made $75.00, SSI would allow me to keep $60.00, but would deduct anything over $60.00 a month, whatever it was. If I don't report it to them, or lie about it, I am guilty of a crime under Federal Law. It is not like Social Security at all. Social Security is your own money and you have the right to it, and can work, or get other money, without it affecting your Social Security in any way. SSI is considered not to be your money, but the government's, and with it they force their rules and regulations down your throat for getting it. This is why, and how, the music business keeps being a part of my daily life now, even though I have not been part of it for over three decades. For those of you who seem to relish each opportunity to find fault with me, and to school me in how to live, think, and feel, I post this, as my latest invitation for you to once again issue forth your superior intellectual comments about my endless shortcomings.....

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(part 300) The Eagle

THE EAGLE
(To my son, Bob)

How proud and angry
The eagle in his flight
Wings outstretched
High, high, higher than the peaks
Higher than the mundane world below
Higher than all the sparrows
He glistens in the sun

Yet I have seen him bound to earth
Full of sorrow
I have seen him with his wings folded
Struggling for breath
Struggling for meanings
Struggling for truth
Yes, I have seen the eagle cry
And his tears fell into my heart
Each one leaving a wound
That will not heal

Oh, eagle
Lift your wings
Fly in the sun again
Be not only proud, but wise
One can see much up there above the peaks
Close to the sun


Written by Troy Parker Farr


This particular piece was written by my mother, 2010, about me. It is her recollection of watching my struggle back to life from a coma after a drug overdose an attempted suicide in 1972. Her words, "struggling for breath" refer to that day in the intensive care unit of UCLA Hospital in Westwood, CA. I cannot change the circumstances of why she wrote this. I can only share what she wrote and why she wrote it. Fortunately she was able to see me get clean and sober in 1976, and stay that way for the rest of her life.

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(part 299) Willy-Nilly

It is the dream thing. The thinking of it before it is, the hearing and seeing of something not yet, becoming something in the now. The artistic, co-creationistic universe at work in the human mind, and emotions, that gives life to art in many forms. It is something I have played with since I was a child. It is not something I thought to do, but something I noticed I did, and still do. It just happens, whether I like it or not, or notice it or not. I cannot stop it from happening, and would not even try. I sat down at nine years old, and wrote my first song on paper, while at my mother's piano in Tucson, Arizona in the fifties, and have been writing ever since. People who do not know about this, because they have never paid attention to it, specifically, still do it whether they know it or not. Maybe they do it when they're cooking, or thinking of a flower arrangement, or something, but they do it nonetheless. It is an activity that goes on willy-nilly during everyone's life. It could be a person thinking about flying an airplane or dancing on a stage. It does not matter what it is, only that it is. We all create within ourselves what we pay attention to. We can create almost anything without exception. "As a man thinketh, so is he," is a saying that attempts to convey this message to whomever. There are many such messages on this planet that have existed since time began, but they are only adhered to by some.

If one becomes caught, as I have been in my life, in the rut of too many negative experiences, then they tend to expect, as I do, more of the same, simply based on past experience. The trick is, to consciously attempt to rework that thinking into new thinking that proposes better circumstances now, and in the future. As simple, and true, as this is, it is not at all easy to do. I spend a lot of time in trying to recreate my own expectations for something better. I have found myself besieged in the last few years with one catastrophe after another, which is something countless persons experience. So it becomes even more difficult to look past these occurrences to brighter days, yet that is exactly the point. Whether it is Ernest Holmes, Buddha, Jesus Christ, or some other version, the point is always the same. See what you want to see, not what you don't want to see, even if you are currently engulfed in it. If not, you will continue creating for yourself exactly what you don't want, but have had.

When one is ill, like I have been for years, it is of paramount importance to try and bend one's own vision of him/herself into the belief of wellness, even in the face of dis-ease, or disease. If I tend to continue to see myself as "sick" then my message to myself is sickness. So I have to fight to recreate this picture, and belief, into a better picture and better belief. It is like a piece of art, perhaps a painting. You get to decide what it is you are going to paint, and if you make a mistake, you can fix it, or change it and make it right. The same is true with writing. If you write something poorly, you can always go back and change it, or fix it, and make it the way you intended it to be. The biggest problem is not knowing, or believing, that you can do this, or giving up on it, simply because you don't get the results you want immediately. Stick with it, it works! Stay the course and you will be intrigued by what you can accomplish. Everyday I believe I can do better at everything, even though a times it seems futile. The only true mistake I will ever make, is giving up on what I am trying to correct.....

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(part 298) FUCK YOU!!!

This comment was posted by an anonymous commenter on my post "This Time Will Be Different" a couple of days ago. I will attempt to decipher the actual meaning and intent of this comment, which congratulates me on my success at staying clean and sober, but quickly switches to a quote of mine to set up the needed groundwork for what is to come.

"But I still need to learn that me and the music business are done"

Following this quote, the commenter launches into the real point of their comment, which is to belittle me, while pretending to offer helpful advice. It fails completely at understanding the difference between being in the music business, and writing about the music business, while not actually being in it anymore. 

The commenter goes on to trash the music business with a number of hyperbolic words, that I wonder if the commenter really understands from their own experience, or has just chosen to make a point. I am congratulated for some of my work, while at the same time, dismissed, for the rest of my work. Each bit of praise is followed by a dismissal of the praise just given. In other words, no matter what you did, or do, right, you are still not right enough, in the commenter's opinion. I suffer from bad luck, according to the commenter, but on the other hand am lucky I didn't make it, because if I had, it would have killed me.

i love this part of the commenter's comment,

"I took the time to post this on your blog with good intentions, and if it comes across as unwarranted criticism, lecturing, or some inept or sanctimonious attempt at "tough love" it is intended to be none of those."

"Really? That's exactly what it is you fucking moron. It is you coming here, and taking a lot of time, and effort, to post your sanctimonious, unsolicited advice, and criticism of me, on my blog. You set yourself up as being, not only critical, and condescending, but excuse yourself from any intention to be that way, while being it."

The commenter goes on to say I did a good job of telling my side of the story, but again reverses course to demean me for continuing to post my thoughts and music here. At the same time, the commenter belittles anyone, and everyone, who likes what I do, as unknowing weaklings for liking it.

In finishing up. the commenter tells me I will never find true peace until I submit myself to promising never to utter another word about the music business, or post another repetitive story, or song, involving my past. And then re-clarifies the fact that I am sober, but restates that peace will elude me until what the commenter suggests, as a remedy, is done.

I don't think you are in a position, anonymous, to talk about peace to anyone. I think you are a person who builds yourself up, in your own mind, by belittling others under the guise of help, much like a narow minded pastor in some god awful little cult like church in never land.....FUCK YOU!!!!

AnonymousMarch 30, 2015 at 9:18 PM

Nearly forty years of sobriety is definitely nothing to be sneezed at, and certainly seems to be, in your case anyway, a really good thing. You deserve congratulations.

"But I still need to learn that me and the music business are done ..."

True that. But how can you ever be "done" with the music business when you keep bringing it up all the time and constantly keep posting your same songs & recordings over and over again?

I think it's great and admirable that you have managed to purge alcohol and drugs from your brain & bloodstream, but I doubt you will ever find peace until you someday manage to do the same with your musical past.

I also, like you seem to have implied, think you should put the music business behind you. All of it. It wasn't in the cards for you for whatever reasons.

The music business is, or at least at that time - as you know - for the most part was more often than not an evil dirty lowlife business, controlled by and teeming with greedy, uneducated lazy predators,nutcases, conscienceless "merchants" and organized crime scum.
And had you achieved "success" fame and money in such a business, especially based on your then predilection for alcohol and drugs, it more than likely would have destroyed you, as it did so many that we all miss today.
Granted, some of your music is just as good, and to be fair, some of it just as shitty as all the stuff that was on the radio at that time, but you should know as well if not better than most that getting that first big "hit" is as much about luck, "right place / right time" etc. than it is about talent
(though maintaining that success in my opinion is a somewhat different story).
You were, based on what I have read, unlucky, and even a bit self-destructive career-wise as well.

It's a free country, and you have every right to say and do and post anything you damn well please, and I would vigorously defend your right to do so.
I took the time to post this on your blog with good intentions, and if it comes across as unwarranted criticism, lecturing, or some inept or sanctimonious attempt at "tough love" it is intended to be none of those.

You have told your whole side of the story, and told it well.
But I think that as long as you keep dredging up the music business, posting the same stories and music over and over, etc.
- and while certainly there will always be plenty of online yes-men/women, toadies, inexperienced clueless "civilians" who are starstruck about the music business,
and even genuinely decent well meaning people who, in search of "friendship" or simply in what they think is well-meaning support, will encourage you to keep doing so
- they just might unknowingly be doing you more harm than good.

In the end I doubt you will ever find any true peace until you close and LOCK the door on that whole sad ugly pathetic chapter of your life, as well as put to rest any remaining desires or temptation for "recognition," strokes or even justice
... and just let it go.
Feel free to throw rocks.

Again congratulations on your sobriety, and here's hoping one way or another you eventually find some true peace in this life.

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(part 297) 39 years clean and sober

In 2 days I will have been clean and sober for 39 years. For a guy no one believed would get clean and sober in the first place, I feel vindicated to say the least. I may not be mr. happy, but I have not had to get loaded, no matter how rough things have gotten, in the last four decades. While I have fought bitterly, at times, with people in the music business on this blog, I have never lost sight of the one thing that was most important in my life, and that is maintaining the single thing that allowed me to be here at all. People have come and gone, but I am still here attempting, poorly at times, to communicate the ups and downs of a person who has experienced life, in both the fast lane, as well as the slow lane. For some, my achievement means little, while to others it is proof that no matter how crazy you are you can still get clean and stay that way... I may not always look like it, but in the background I measure all that has gone on here by the fact that I am still sober. In my life, without sobriety, I would be, and was, a madman running wild and headed for disaster at all times. My past is riddled with countless stories about nearly achieving my goals, and the reasons why I never did. My reactions to what happened and what didn't happen are the subjects I have tried to explore on this blog. I have failed, and succeeded, at doing that over the years, and continue trying to tie it altogether as I go. I have learned that my allies, over time, may turn into my detractors later on, and visa-versa to some degree. It has been a massive learning experience for me, writing this blog, and still is. What tomorrow may bring has proven to be just about anything as far as I can tell, and no one is ever qualified to predict what it will be, least of all me. I ride it through, and decipher it as I go, and then again in hindsight. It has proven to be difficult as hell to do this in public, as it is happening, but that's the way this blog has been from the beginning. For those of you who find fault with me, give it a try sometime. Put your life on display for anyone to see, and try dealing with the myriad of responses you may get while attempting to do so. I can't really complain about it, because I'm the dumbbell who decided to do it this way.

The good part of writing this blog is that I have been able to tell a story that needed to be told, if only for my own peace of mind. It was the complete lack of a cohesive beginning to the story, and the lack of any context or continuity to it, that bothered me originally. People had written things that weren't true, and had the history all wrong. For years, decades really, I felt the need to say, "Hey, wait a minute, that's not what happened," so finally I just said, "I'll do it myself," and did. it has been a labor of both love and frustration for me. An opportunity to have a voice about the facts and fiction of a crazy son-of-a-bitch who wrote and recorded a lot of songs, and who did a lot of things, with a lot of different people, in a lot of different places. It has been a way for me to make known recordings that no one ever knew about, to tell you about who they were made with, and why. To give, to some degree, insight into the inner workings of things you may, or may not, have found interesting. All in all I have attempted to take up your time, and keep you interested enough to keep coming back.

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(part 296) This Time Will Be Different

My brother Bill and I used to talk about the day I got a phone call from some stranger about an old album of mine from the 60's. Up until that day, in 2003, I had pretty much quit thinking and talking about my time in the music business. I would say to Bill, "I wish I never got that call that day!" And he would say back, "Yeah I remember it well, it screwed your life up again!"
"Yes it did," I'd say, "it started the same old shit all over it again!"
Again! That's the right word alright. That word represents my life in general. I did it again. It happened again. I tried again, and I got fucked again. Man what a lethal word.

Bill had watched me change a lot over the years we were in San Luis Obispo. He had seen me become more considerate, and reliable, when it came to doing things that helped the whole family, as opposed to just serving my own interests. Things like work. Work meaning physical labor and getting paid, which in my life had been something that mostly didn't happen. But that fucking phone call had landed smack dab in the middle of my life of responsibility, and began eating away, like termites, at the foundation of what I'd accomplished. I know I've said this before, and recently, but this event looms as the single most devastating thing that happened back then. Bill knew it, and wasn't afraid to say so. I knew it too, and so we spoke about it on numerous occasions. When you watch someone get better, like Bill had watched me, you know when that progress gets threatened, and in clear terms Bill saw the whole thing happen in one afternoon. The old obsession had been given entry into the quietness that life had become. The old uncertainty, and questions about an old record, quickly became the topic of too many of my days. In Bill's mind I had become more human, and less impressed with my past. But in the space of less than an hour he witnessed the dynamics of unwanted change stick it's ugly-ass face into his world, through me, and that telephone call. He was supportive, but feared the worst, because he knew me, knew how important all of it had once been to me. And that day he saw the old glint come back into my eyes, and heard that old mile a minute talk rumble out of my mouth. Like I said, he was supportive, but feared the future, if it was going to be filled with my past.

The call led to the internet, and connecting with people in the music business, and those who were interested in it, or otherwise had some sort of connection to it, real or fancied. In other words my focus had been completely altered because of that single telephone call. Everything I did after that was different than what I would have done had the call never come. My mother, and brother Bill, were as clear as a bell on what had happened, but knew that to question me would have been useless, so they did their level best to support my choice. They listened to me scream and yell about, not one, but two different albums that got reissued as cd's. They listened to me argue on the telephone with record companies, publishers, and others, about song rights, money, and the past. They watched me turn into a crazy person all over again and stood by helpless to assist, though they tried repeatedly to do so. My favorite thing to say to them was, "You don't understand," but in truth they understood perfectly. It was me that didn't understand...

Like a drunk who thinks, "This time will be different!" I traveled the same route that had led to my original downfall. I had to learn that it was a lie. A lie I wanted desperately to believe, but a lie nonetheless. Like getting clean and sober, I had to admit where and when I was wrong. It was, and is, the hardest thing I have ever had to do. To say, "No!" to myself. "Not again! We're not gonna do that again!" I wish I could have spared them, in their last few years of life, the turmoil that my choices brought them. I wish I had been unselfish enough to put them first instead of me first. I have had to sit with myself for many a long day, and look deep into what happened, and realize the damage my obsession with the music business has done, both to myself, as well as to others.

I don't pick up a drink, or get loaded, and haven't for 39 years, come April 1st of this year. It is my single true success in life. But I still need to learn that me and the music business are done, and until I understand that I will always be subject to trying just one more time, thinking, "This time will be
different!"

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