(part 145) STILL ALIVE

Continental Hyatt House

The street erupted below, as I clung motionless to the bottom of the steel frame. I did not fight the situation by moving unnecessarily, for fear of breaking the awning frame loose from the soft stucco wall, and sending me to my death.

I focused like a laser on what I was doing, knowing full well I had a single opportunity to succeed. Gathering all of my strength, I pulled myself up as far as I could, and hooked my right arm over the the bottom part of the framework at my arm pit.

From this position, I was able to leverage the rest of my body up into the waiting erector-set of steel. I continued eyeing the fasteners, securing the framework to the wall, hoping they would hold just a little longer, while I pulled my body to safety.

The roof of the structure that held the framework I was on, was two to three feet above me now, and I cautiously moved toward it, until my hands reached the top edge. With my heart pounding, I slid on my belly onto the rooftop and safety.

I looked back over the side, and could see the TV cameraman inside the window below, still pointing his camera at me. With one last wave, I disappeared from his view.

Twelve stories down, the crowd was going crazy, wildly cheering my acrobatic antics, and showing their complete appreciation. Relieved I was still alive, I stood up and raised my arms in the air, as a salute to my conquest, and acknowledgment to those below.

I then sat down and laid back on the roof, exhausted, wondering how many more times I would put myself into these insane positions, and for what? I knew if I continued to test the limits, at some point I would end up dead or seriously maimed as a result.

I quickly brushed off the thought and pulled myself back up into a standing position. The pain in my feet and ankle seared through my consciousness, and I knew I couldn't continue this for much longer. I moved to the edge of the roof I was now on, and looked down on the patio and pool area.

It was crammed full of police and fire rescue workers, rushing around looking confused and unsure of where I was at that point. They'd obviously heard the crowd yelling down below in the street, but didn't known why. They had not seen me hanging on the steel frame from where they were.

Smiling, as I now made myself visible to them, I yelled out cheerfully, "How's everybody doin' down there?" Responding to the sound of my voice, most of them shook their heads in disgust, looking at me like I was completely fucking nuts.

With the incident on the Tower still fresh in my mind, I decided I had to be able to get off this building alive, and without doing any further damage to myself.

I'd made my point, whatever it was, and now turned my attention towards devising a plan to gracefully and successfully ending the current crisis.

Where I was standing was only ten or twelve feet above the authorities, gathered below in the pool area. I knew could jump down to where they were without any real damage being done to myself.

I figured that jumping down to their location would give them an opportunity to get their hands on me, and would also appear to onlookers, as if I'd been caught by them, thereby putting an end to the incident, which was now my single goal.

As I continued debating with myself over the way I would end the day's craziness, I drifted back to an earlier time when life still held the bright promise of things to come.

* * *

In 1958, in St. Johns, Arizona, my brother Bill and I were getting ready to go on stage at the high school assembly, and sing to the entire student body for the first time. We were still new to the town, and were basically unknown by anyone there.

Coming from Tucson, we'd found ourselves smack dab in the middle of the white Mormons on one side, and the Indians and Mexicans on the other. There was a deep racial line dividing this place, and Bill and I were standing on it.

As I heard our names being announced to the crowd, I wondered how in the hell I'd gotten us into this mess. We stepped from behind the curtain of the auditorium's stage and up to a microphone.

I looked out on the hostile faces staring up at us, as Bill started playing his guitar. He'd launched into the chords of Little Richard's "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny," which was one of our best songs.

My terror quickly dissipated, as the sound of my own voice came booming out through the school's PA system. I looked out at the now totally surprised and approving faces of the whole student body moving in their seats to the pounding rhythm of Jenny, Jenny, Jenny.

At that moment I knew exactly who I was and what i was supposed to do, and my heart was filled with joy and the power of music. An hour later, Bill and I had become overnight sensations in the little northern Arizona town of St. Johns.

* * *

I smiled to myself, as the thoughts of the high school assembly, so many years before, faded into the electricity of the day, and the current situation. I stood on the edge of the roof sizing up the distance, and then jumped into the waiting crowd of police.

What I didn't know, as the crowd of law enforcement surrounded me, was how fed up the West Hollywood Sheriff's Department had become with my antics and the drain on their resources and time.

Rather than ending the day's giant public happening positively, and without injury, I was being arrested, handcuffed, and transported to Camarillo State Hospital.

I soon found myself in the grip of an angry group of cops, who were determined to have me, not only locked up, but put away, and this would prove to be one of the most frightening experiences I'd yet to encounter.

(part 144) CONTINENTAL HOTEL #2

Continental Hotel roof

I was on that roof for one reason. I refused to be forgotten by all of those who had prematurely written my epitaph in it's varying forms. I was saying to the world, "I am here, I exist."

This was my need, to prove to myself that I had some modicum of power over my life, no matter how desperate. I owned this thing. It was an assertion of my presence in the world, and born out of my focus on those who had used me in the past.

In my abstract battle with the music business, this was my version of a thorn in their side. Ever since the days of Tony Alamo, and the massive Billboard ad campaign, local music industry's regard for me had been muted, and for the most part negative.

Their disapproving view of Tony Alamo was so complete that I had been held responsible for his sins. It doesn't matter to me whether the reader agrees with my conclusions or not, this is my belief.

They were my beliefs then, and they are my beliefs now. They are the things that drove me to do what I did. I had no capacity to sit by forever and be systematically swept under the rug by the self-annointed leaders of L.A.'s publishing, recording, and radio elite.

I slowly stood up, feeling the pain in my feet and ankle as my bones adjusted under the full weight of my body. It had been days since I'd slept and I was now feeling the effects.

Below, the crowd began reacting in anticipation of my next move, and as before I drew energy from them as they waved and yelled up at me. We were connected.

The atmosphere was more like a rock concert than a situation headed for possible tragedy. I stretched out my arms toward the sky in an attempt to recharge myself with the invisible energy all around me.

I moved along the outer edge of the roof, and headed for the extreme southwest corner of the building. There are a couple of things worth noting about the roof of the Hyatt House. The swimming pool is at the eastern end of the roof itself, and there is a structure at the western end of the pool.

This structure is constructed of nearly all glass on the side I was on. While making my way along the edge of the roof, I saw a television cameraman inside this structure, and he was aiming a shoulder-mounted camera at me.

Being the ham that I am, I could not resist playing it up to what I perceived to be a live TV broadcast featuring me on the ledge. The trouble with this was, I was not paying enough attention to what I was doing out there.

In my exuberance to put on a good show, I began looking for something I could do that was more than just making stupid faces. When I reached the very corner of the building, I noticed a steel frame of some kind, jutting out from the wall above the windows on the second structure.

It appeared to be a frame for an awning, but was not in use. I decided that I could jump from where I was on the ledge, and grab onto the frame with both hands, like a monkey bar, which I'd done before on the tower.

It looked like it was made out of 3/4 inch galvanized pipe, and was approximately two or three feet above my head, and stuck out of the wall some twelve to eighteen inches beyond where I stood.

I had not taken the time to notice that the wall of this other structure was made out of stucco, and not concrete, like the sides of the hotel itself, or that the frame was fastened to that wall with screws that didn't appear to have been designed to hold any extra weight.

Without thinking, I just leapt off the ledge, and flung myself out into midair, grabbing the bottom part of the frame with both hands. As I hung there like an idiot, I quickly realized that I could not get back to where I'd been standing seconds before. This was completely unplanned and scared the living shit out of me.

I hung there by my hands, twelve stories above the ground, and was in danger of falling, as the result of a stupid choice. This had been my downfall on the tower as well. The camera was now pinned on me at the window, and I was starting to panic.

Looking up, I knew I had one chance to save my life, because I was quickly running out of strength. It's amazing what fear can do for you when applied at exactly the right moment.

I had to pull myself up to the lower bar, like a chin-up, and then drag my entire body up into the steel framework. There was nothing to put my feet on for leverage, so I was stuck with what I just described, as my only way out of this mess. I kept looking at the fasteners on the wall and watched them moving in the soft stucco.

(part 143) SEYMOUR

Seymour Cassel


Seymour Cassel

Sunset Blvd. was closed down in front of the Continental Hotel, and for some distance in both directions along the Sunset Strip. The streets filled with onlookers staring upwards at the figure of me walking back and forth along the outer edge of the roof.

As long as I stayed out there, no one had any inclination to join me, except for one single person, Seymour Cassel. Seymour was a pretty well-known character actor at the time, whose face was known from numerous parts in motion pictures and television shows. I knew him from local restaurants and bars in the area.

While watching the coverage on TV, and then coming to the scene itself as it picked up momentum, Cassel had decided to make his way into the hotel and talk to the authorities on site.

Once inside, he convinced the sheriff's department to allow him on the roof, telling them he knew me, and might be of help in getting me to call it off. Desperate for a solution, they'd agreed to give him a shot.

As I sat on the edge of the roof looking down at the crowds of people, a voice yelled out from somewhere on the roof behind me, saying, "Hey Bobby, there's someone here who says he knows you and wants to talk."

I turned my head in the direction of the voice and saw Seymour standing there looking quite friendly and flashing me a big smile. "Hi Bobby," he yelled. "Hey Seymour," I yelled back, "How's it going?" He moved toward me and yelled out again, "You mind if I come out there with you and talk?" "No," I answered, "Come on out here if you can handle it."

Seymour ducked under the pipe railing that ran all around the roof area, and approached me smiling with his hand outstretched. I shook his hand, and a voice yelled out saying, "Watch it Seymour he might jump and take you down with him."

Hearing this Seymour hesitated a bit until I motioned positively for him to come ahead, which he did. Once there, he joined me in a sitting position at the edge of the roof.

We sat there with our legs dangling over the edge, eye-balling the sea of faces below. "Man," he said, "What a view!" "Yeah," I said, "it's a real trip isn't it." He then asked, "Are you going to jump off this thing?" "Hell no," I replied, "It would kill me." We both laughed...

"So you're not up here to commit suicide?" he asked. "Nope," I replied. "You're just up here screwin' with everybody, right?" he said. "Yeah, pretty much, I just got tired of the bullshit and figured I'd come up here and do a Bobby Jameson on them."

"Wow, man," exclaimed Seymour, "This is like nothing I've ever seen in my life." "Yeah," I replied, It's pretty damn intense." "Bobby, I was watchin' TV," Seymour said, "When they broke into the program with live coverage of this. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was you again, up here doin' your thing. It's damn near on every channel," he said, "I hope you don't mind, man, but I just had to come up here and get in on some of this publicity."

I stared at the look on Seymour's face, and started laughing. "Hell no I don't mind, I'm glad to have you. It's about time somebody figured out what I am doing, and how good this publicity is. If any of those dumb shits in the record business had any brains, they'd realize I was a walking publicity stunt and release every Goddamn record I ever made and use this to promote it."

"Seymour smiled and said, "Yeah, you can't buy this kind of publicity, this is incredible, man." He looked up at the various helicopters circling the area saying, "Look at em all, everybody's here checkin' you out."

He stopped for a second, and then asked,"Hey, Bobby, how bout a cup of coffee?" "Yeah," I said, "Coffee would be good about now." He got up and went toward the railing, yelling to someone about getting coffee.

After a couple of minutes, an individual showed up with two cups of coffee. Not paper cups, but two cups and saucers that said Continental Hyatt House on the side.

As I watched, Seymour yelled at me, "Whatta ya want in your coffee?" "Just a little sugar," I yelled. Momentarily he headed back to me, balancing the two cups as he walked. I wondered if those guys had any idea of why Cassel had come up here.

I took a cup and saucer from Seymour's outstretched hand, thanking him as he reclaimed his spot next to me. There we were. Seymour Cassel and Bobby Jameson, with our cups and saucers, sitting on the edge of the roof, twelve stories up, sipping coffee and watching the amazing happenings all around us.

As long as I live, I will always remember those moments, with great fondness, of me and Seymour drinking coffee on that roof. We sat in silence staring out at L.A., periodically glancing at the scene below.

After awhile, he said he'd better get going before the sheriff figured out he hadn't gotten anywhere with getting me to come down. He looked at me and asked, "Are you gonna be alright, man?" "Yeah," I answered, "I'll be OK."

We shook hands, and he slowly stood up. Then I watched as he made his way back to the others. He spoke to them briefly and shortly thereafter disappeared from view. I wondered what he said to them before he left. I smiled. "Seymour, what a trip!" I thought, "Seymour Cassel."

I sat alone, smiling at the thought of Seymour, and how he just showed up on the roof of the Continental Hotel that day in 1973 or 74, I don't remember for sure....

(part 142) BOBBY JAMESON: THE HUMAN SIDESHOW

I remember the sun shining through the window of the apartment as I picked up the telephone to make a call. I managed to get someone from NBC, or CBS, news on the line, and told them who I was.

It was odd, because they knew exactly who I was from the Pacific Theater Tower incident, and Continental Hotel coverage. They seemed surprised that I called them, and asked why?

"I thought I'd call and let you know I was going up again," I said. There was a noticeable pause. "Whatta you mean you're going up again?" the voice asked.

"I mean I'm gonna go up on another building," I said. "Wha, when?" came the response. "As soon as I get off the phone with you," I replied. The voice became more excited, "Where, what building, why?" I cut them off, "The Continental Hotel," I said, "The Continental Hotel on Sunset."

I hung up the phone and walked to the door. I'd calculated the amount of time it would take me to get to the Continental, so I moved quickly.

Heading for the hotel, I wondered if whoever I'd talked to would call the police and tell them what I'd said. "Shit," I thought, "they want the story more they they want to save my ass, or get me arrested; they won't call, they'll wait awhile before they do that."

I don't remember if I drove, walked, or took a cab, but I do remember getting there and looking for sheriff's cars and not seeing any. I just walked in the front door, as I had before, and got on the elevator. "It's odd doing this again," I thought,"very odd indeed."

I hit the button for the roof and pool area, and the elevator started its journey upward. I stared at the floor, thinking, "This is some crazy shit, man, this is some crazy-ass shit you're doing." "Fuck em!" I said out loud, "Fuck em all!"

The doors to the elevator slid open, and I paused, waiting to see if anyone was there before I got off. Nothing. The coast was clear.

I halfway expected the police, or security, to be waiting for me when I came out of the elevator, but no one was there. I went to the top of the hotel this time, not the floor below, like before. Instead of the back of the building, I was on the front side, overlooking Sunset Blvd.

From where I stood I could look straight down on the the driveway and entrance below, and see what was going on. In a while I noticed a flurry of cars and other vehicles begin to congregate below. I kept watching them, and soon the sheriff's black and whites began showing up.

As the adrenaline began surging through me, I moved to the outer edge of the roof, knowing no one would come out there and risk their life to get me. I was not suicidal or depressed. I had no vision of ending it all, or thinking I would be helped. I was there purely to fuck with the entire world at that point.

I had been stripped of any belief that I had the power to fix my situation. To the contrary, I knew I couldn't. This action was based on my absolute feeling of powerlessness. This was the only thing I knew for sure I could control, at least in the sense that I could cause the world around me to respond. Everyone I'd asked to help me had refused, so this act of defiance was a response to them.

Rightly or wrongly this decision, in my mind, was a way of taking control of something, of anything. When a human being is left with the belief that their life cannot be controlled by them in a positive way, then that human being will seek and devise other means of action to create a sense of power in their own existence, no matter how wrong that means may be.

This was Bobby Jameson's dilemma and choice on this particular day. I was well-known at that point for doing what I was doing. I just chose to do it again because I knew how. I couldn't resolve my problems in a constructive way, so I chose to assert myself negatively.

I am not saying, even minimally, that this was a worthy choice whatsoever. I am explaining, as best I can, the dynamics of both the predicament I faced, as a cause, and the choice I made of how to deal with it.

Powerlessness, at a certain point, can be lethal when a person feels hopeless enough, so in defense of myself, this act was more positive than the alternative, suicide. I eliminated the alternative of suicide by creating a false alternative to focus on, the building.

I turned, just as a number of bodies appeared on the roof. Standing on the very edge, I greeted them, "How's it going gentleman?" I asked sarcastically. They stared at me like I was the craziest bastard they'd ever seen.

There we were. Me on the very edge of the building, and them staring at me looking completely baffled as to what to do with the situation.

I, in my own weird way, smiled at them, knowing I was in full control. That moment was frozen in time, and only came to life again, when the sound of the first helicopter shattered the mesmerizing silence.

(part 141) MY NOW OF THEN

STORY TELLING
HELLING DAYS
LOST INSIDE
THE QUANTUM MAZE
OF THINGS REVERSED
BY PLASTIC PEN
THIS MY NOW
MY NOW OF THEN

TECHNICOLOR
STREAMING SLIDES
OF PHYSICS FOUNTAIN
FROM ALL SIDES
CRAWLING THROUGH
THE SCREAMING PAST
SHATTERED STILL
LIKE BROKEN GLASS

TIME UNDONE
IN WRITTEN WORD
SENTENCES
OF WHISPERS HEARD
I ALIVE TO DIE AGAIN
THIS MY NOW
MY NOW OF THEN

ECHOES FALL
LIKE DYING STARS
FINGERS TOUCH
TOMORROW'S SCARS
I ALONE
CAN NOT PRETEND
THAT THIS MY NOW
IS NOT LIKE THEN

Robert Parker Jameson

(part 140) A THING NOT UNDERSTANDABLE

click

As I write these most recent of posts, it may appear that I am rehashing old information. I am endeavoring, through repetition, to make clear the nature of the thing called insanity, or madness, not merely as words to utter or write, but as real terms, for the purpose of acknowledging and clarifying concretely, the actual aspects of mental and emotional disease, whether organic or substance-induced.

The nature of the insanity I became engulfed in, had as it's basis, an unceasing repetition of subject matter. I, for whatever reason, could not change the subject, not unlike a phonograph record that sticks in a certain spot each time it's played.

The term obsession, or preoccupation, refers to repetition as the very heart or nature of itself. To be doomed to always ask the same set of questions, led to an unchanging set of answers, no matter how many times those questions were asked.

As time passed, I became lost in the futility of attempting, unsuccessfully, to write not only my history, but my fate as well, on the head of a pin. Bluntly stated, I could not get off it. It is said that in heaven there are many mansions, but in the realm of the insane, there is but a single mansion with an infinite number of rooms, all of which are identical.

Repetition was life on the razor's edge and the force that annihilated me. In my life, the problems stayed exactly the same, year after year. And thus my solutions, which always failed, were repetitious as well. This is the mental illness labyrinth, out of which I could not escape.

The circular reality started and ended in exactly the place it had begun. I ran from it, and found I had run into it instead, trapping myself in a hall of mirrors, where reflections were only reflections of still more reflections.

Where had I gone? I could not find myself at that point. I walked through my life on a treadmill, expending myself completely, without moving an inch. As if in a dream, I ran but never got to where I was running, or away from that from which I ran.

I always found myself in exactly the same place with exactly the same feelings. I had lost all perspective. I obliterated myself with drugs and alcohol because I could not stand what had happened to me, and I falsely believed I had no power to change it.

I begged lawyers and publishers, managers and producers, each time I had the chance, to help me, but without exception, I was told it wasn't a large enough sum of money to bother with. This was akin to being told you weren't pretty enough to rape.

I recall the hideous feelings attached to being asked to accept such soul-numbing bullshit. I was made to feel like a starving man on the street, and when I reached down to retrieve a crust of bread dropped by one of the elite, was scolded for having the audacity not to return it to them.

As you read this, you may be saying, "OK, we got it, you were crazy," but you don't "got it." You have no idea what I'm leading up to, or why I'm making and remaking this point.

As I write, I remember, and as I remember, I have, to some degree, to relive those days and what they were like. I am once more temporarily trapped in the pathetic madness and pain of my own thinking. Each room I occupied, the furniture, the odor, the pictures on the wall, and me, lost as lost can be.

I am not repeating. I am drawing you a map. A detailed description of the clear and concise inability of a human being to simply drop it and walk away. I could not drop it.

It was nailed to my soul. It does not matter what you think or what you would have done, it is about what I did because I had to and didn't know why.

I stood alone in the living room of Carol's apartment. I'd run her off while in a drunken rage and for three days snorted cocaine and drank non-stop.

I did not sleep but a few hours during that time. I was more like a machine than a person, as I calculated and recalculated the past, present, and future.

Like a top spinning in perpetual motion, I wound myself up into a frenzy of flat-out revenge-oriented insanity. It had occurred to me, in that room, that the most insane thing I could possibly do was to go back on the ledge of the Continental Hyatt House.

I sat on a chair, amused by the thought, "Goddamn, Bob, that's fucking crazy," I said out loud. The more I dissmissed the thought, the stronger it became.

click

I was torn, on the one hand, to refuse it a place in my head, yet, on the other, to relish, in a demented way, the bizarre nature of even thinking it, let alone truly considering it.

It was brilliant, I thought, in it's absolute ruthlessness of reason. So extraordinary a concept that it's absurdity was also it's very beauty as a thing not understandable.