(part 268) ANOTHER LIFE FROM ANOTHER TIME

I had become a complete loner, staying to myself as much as possible. I knew that making myself useful, by working, had secured for me, to some extent, a place amongst people who otherwise didn't want me around. They disapproved of my looks, the long hair, and thought of me as an outsider in their midst. So it was the work I did for them that made it somewhat easier for me to co-exist in this environment.

For the most part I did not see myself as an artist anymore, although I would still write an occasional song or poem. But somewhere down deep inside me the real desire of creativity continued to pump away as usual. At times, I would allow myself to think that someday I would wake from this bad dream, and by some unforeseen miracle, rise again out of the ashes of my life.

I always dismissed this notion though, fearing it would cause me to reject even further, the reality of the life I was living, and make it harder to cope with than it already was. I had learned, by sheer force of will, to accept my lot, for the most part, and just do what was in front of me, no matter how objectionable it was.

Working in a mobile home park, amongst mostly older homes, was a learning process that taught me much about how to deal with things I would otherwise have no interest in. Solving problems and keeping the cost down, became a talent I honed for years. Where otherwise people would have to lay out a lot of money, I was able, in many cases, to do it for far less, by learning to understand how old mobile homes deteriorated over time, and how to deal with them. It was this, more than anything, that kept me working year after year.

With the same mind that had once learned to write, perform, record and engineer a session by myself in a bedroom on micky mouse equipment, I now figured out how to repair old dilapidated mobile homes for nickels and dimes. With the same intensity as before, I crashed head long into each new endeavor I encountered, no matter how mundane it was. I took pride in what I did and would always explain the problem, and its solution, to everyone I worked for. If it was something I couldn't do, I told them they had better get it done by someone, or the problem would get worse and cost more later.

As long as I kept busy, I had little time to spend on the past. I would turn away from it over and over again, avoiding it like a pit of quick-sand. I could not afford the luxury of thinking about Bobby Jameson the singer/songwriter anymore. I trained myself to see me as a guy who worked hard for a living, doing jobs of all kinds for people. I had become a regular person for the most part.

The years kept stacking up, one on top of the other. They turned into a decade, and then nearly another. It was a long way and a long time since I'd left Los Angeles in 1985, and the past had been pushed into the background. It sat there, like an old trunk, locked away in the attic of my mind. In a way I was grateful that I had learned to leave it alone, because it was full of too many bad memories and disappointments. I always knew it was there, but I let it be for the most part, regarding it as another life from another time.

From 1997 until 2002, I pushed on and on in a pointless line to nowhere. There was nothing new, other than some problem with work, and nothing exciting about my life whatsoever. I didn't go anywhere or meet people. I had no girlfriend or hobbies, I just worked, ate, and slept. I bought a small keyboard that I played, but other than that I just existed from day to day in some sort of hardcore exercise in futility.

I stayed clean and sober, and I fought through the headaches which plagued me day and night. My sleep patterns were erratic, because of the pain, and my disposition would always be subject to the effects of that reality. At times I'd lose hope altogether, but would ultimately force myself to go on, in hopes that I would someday get better.

It was a dismal reality, and felt more like a punishment than a life. It seemed to become a contest to see how much I could endure. I'd question deeply whether there really was a god, and say to myself, "If there is, he must hate my guts!" Day after day I would look for something to keep me going, and year after year I would say, "What's the point?"

(part 267) FROM GUNS TO WEED WHACKERS

From 1987 to 1991 I devoted my attention to the store and the firearms business. I did well at it, and thought my life had finally begun to make some sense. I worked and I made headway. I could pay my bills and look ahead with some conviction that I would prosper. I had all but forgotten about music and the music business as I pushed ever deeper into the realm of buy and sell living.

I became well known at gun shows in multiple states, and traveled by motor home throughout the west. I pulled a trailer with a Harley Davidson on it. I had a pocket full of credit cards and cash, and felt free to pick up and go anywhere at anytime, day or night. This period ended abruptly in Reno, Nevada, where I was surrounded at gun point by numerous Federal agents from the ATF and Marshall's Service in a sting operation alleging illegal firearms sales.

For the next few years I studied Federal Criminal Law and Constitutional Law at the courthouse law-library in San Luis Obispo. Day and night, for a few years, I read law books to aid in my quest to be done with the entire mess, which I ultimately succeeded in doing.

Once again I was broke, and without any irons in the fire. I had lost everything and possessed nothing but a used car. I moved into a mobile home park in San Luis Obispo where my mother had purchased an old home that needed a lot of attention. It was depressing as hell, but was at least a roof over my head.

Without a job, or any other prospects, I had to come to grips with the situation as it existed, as opposed to what I thought should exist. I had to make some money to live, but no one was offering the likes of me a single thing. I began doing yard work at my mother's place, and a neighbor asked if I'd do some for her. I agreed, and for $6 an hour I began to do chores for people in the park. This was to become my job for the next twelve years of my life.

In 1997, while digging up a neighbor's old bermuda lawn, I noticed something happening to my body. At first I believed it was nothing more than a reaction to hard work in a 100 degree heat wave, but later found it to be something far more debilitating.

After a year of repeated visits to doctors and emergency rooms, I began to get daily headaches that literally progressed to the point of complete despair. Finding no help, and faced with the prospect of becoming a total invalid, I regrouped internally, and made up my mind that dying while working was better than a slow helpless decay into darkness. With that as a premise, I went back to work and fought my way forward for the next ten years.

I worked, and worked hard, as if to say, "This may kill me, but at least I will die standing up!" As a side issue to this activity, the headaches got worse and worse, and at times caused me to become highly volatile and aggressive in my responses to those around me. There was no way to gauge how the work would effect me on any given day, or how much the effect would alter my coping skills.

Part of the problem was who I had to deal with, or whom I worked for. Many of the people were rude and cheap, always wanting more, and to pay as little as possible for it. I did a good job, and wanted fair pay for it, so at times this became a source of complete frustration. To be talked down to, while working hard, was off limits, a point I made vividly clear to anyone and everyone.

I saw myself differently than the way I was perceived by those I worked for. I knew who I was, but they didn't. To them I was no more than a nobody doing odd jobs for them, and they treated me as no more than that. It was hard to take, at times, to say the least, and I lost more than one job as a result of trying to defend my integrity, which many thought I did not possess.

As the years tumbled by, I only occasionally thought about who I had once been, and what I had spent much of my life doing. I had no instruments to play, or equipment of any kind. I possessed only an old cassette tape of some of my songs and recordings. I only told a couple of people what I used to do, but other than that it was an unknown fact by most who knew me.

As I worked, I would sometimes break into song as a way to entertain myself and pass the time. People would react oddly to my doing this, because it would come out of nowhere, and it struck them as strange. Undaunted, if I just felt like singing, I would carry on as if it were no big deal, and enjoy the confused look on their faces.

HE'S THE CLOWN

WHO'S THAT MAN
BEHIND THE FACE
OUTTA TIME
OUTTA PLACE
HE'S THE CLOWN
THAT NO ONE KNOWS
WATCH HIM AS HE
COMES AND GOES

IS THAT LAUGHING
CATCH HIM CRYING
AIN'T NO LIFE
JUST SOMEONE DYING
HE'S THE CLOWN
THAT NO ONE KNOWS
WATCH HIM AS HE
COMES AND GOES

STARS AND KISSES
IN HIS HAND
WRAPPED IN PAPER
RUBBER BAND
OLD AND TATTERED
BROWNED BY SUN
JUST A CLOWN
HE AIN'T NO ONE

WHO'S THAT SHUFFLING
DOWN THE STREET
WITH BROKEN DREAMS
AND BROKEN FEET
HE'S THE CLOWN
THAT NO ONE KNOWS
WATCH HIM AS HE
COMES AND GOES

Bobby Jameson Jan 24, 2012
8:07 am

(part 266) YAY, NAY, AND THE UNDECIDED...

As I try to continue writing this blog, I find myself coming face to face with my own reluctance. Not because there isn't more to the story, there is, but because my experience with writing here has become jaded. Over the years, since I first started in November of 2007, I have lost faith that anything I write here makes a difference. It certainly has made little difference in my life.

Nothing has changed or improved whatsoever. I still live the same way I did before writing a single word. I would imagine that if there are any differences I have derived from this experience it would have to be that I have placed myself squarely in the middle of a target for little or no benefit.

I know there are a few people who are glad I have written this, but that does not get to the heart of my own discomfort in having done so. I am struck by the fact that in telling my own story there is not much to be gained from the doing of it, other than to say, "Well there it is!" The truth is, that it is different when thought about than it is when actually undertaking it as an action over time.

When I first had the story in front of me, as a thing not yet done, there was a motivation that occurred in the doing of it, which replenished itself, simply by knowing there was more to say about it. Now that I have said most of it, and experienced the response to it, that motivation has collapsed into a feeling of, "Who cares?" That feeling or thought is admittedly my own, but is real for me as a question.

Rather, in some cases, too many perhaps, than look at the story of Bobby Jameson as a real person discussing real events, this has degenerated, to some degree, into a comic book character who does nothing but complain, encounters negative circumstance after negative circumstance, and always seems to make stupid choices in the face of wonderful opportunities. If you think I am wrong I would suggest you pay closer attention to many of the comments posted here in the last few years.

Interest is one thing, but interest in a subject purely for the sake of disagreeing, and/or belittling it, because your mind is already made up, is as useless a proposition as I can possibly imagine. It starts to feel like 24-hr cable news, where the yays and nays exist as sides, predetermined to agree and disagree on cue, with nothing ever changing as a result. We have the "we like Bobby," the, "we don't like Bobby," and the undecided. A clown show judged prematurely by prerequisite beliefs and supposed moral standards, which supersede the facts by default.

TO THIS VERY DAY

TURPENTINE MEADOWS
SALISBURY DAY
LEFT AT THE CROSSROADS
WITH NOTHING TO SAY
WHO CAN I TURN TO
WHAT CAN I DO
ALL I REMEMBER
ARE MOMENTS WITH YOU

COBBLESTONE DREAMS
OF YESTERDAY'S HEART
LIKE VINCENT ALONE
IN A ROOM FULL OF ART
BRUSH STROKES OF FEELINGS
COLOR THE PAST
THE FIRST TIME I SAW YOU
WOULD BE THE LAST


Bobby Jameson Dec, 2011

(part 265) THE STORE...1987 AND BEYOND

Me in the store

By 1987 I had saved about $5,000 to go back to L.A. This was accomplished by filing for unemployment, as a result of having worked for Pacific Freight in Southern CA. a couple of years earlier, selling tools on the telephone. I filed for it in 85 and saved most of it. I then had a decision to make that would alter the direction of my life again.

I recall being in Santa Maria with my brother Bill, another small town about forty miles south of where we lived. I had taken him with me to the Harley Davidson dealership to look at a Sportster. I told Bill that I had enough money to buy the bike or go back to L.A. for another shot at the music business.

"Whatta ya think?" I asked.

He said, "If I were you I'd buy the bike Bob, because if you go back to L.A. it might kill you!"

I stared at him and then laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean," I replied, "I think you're right!"

The outcome was that I bought the bike and stayed in the Five Cities area of Central CA. It was a decision that once again changed things. I was clean and sober, and though I had encountered many obstacles and difficulties in Grover City, CA., I had been free from the meat-grinder of the music business. I knew that if I went back to L.A. it was going to be more of the same, or at least that is what I believed, so I opted to pass on it.

In 1987 my mother owned and ran an antique store, something she'd done a lot of in her life. It was called "The Browse Around," and was located in Grover City on the main drag. It sold a lot of different kinds of things, such as jewelry, art, knick-knacks and collectibles of various kinds, and antiques. I started finding things to put into the store to sell and worked there as a salesman.

Eventually I took over the entire business when my mother decided to take a break from it. Rather than just closing it down altogether I told her I'd run it and pay her for things she left in it when they sold. She was happy to do it, because it meant she didn't have to pack it all up and put it in storage. The store quickly took on a new personality, and was frowned on by local law enforcement, but in reality The Browse Around became an immediate hit in the area because a lot of the locals liked the way I ran the place.

My brother Bill, me in the back, and my mother in the store

I began selling things like electronics, tools, motorcycle leathers, knives, and continued with the jewelry, antiques, collectibles, and art. Eventually I started selling firearms, and became a Federally licensed gun dealer, much to the dismay of the various police departments in the area. To some extent it was me pushing back against a community that had gone out of its way to rid itself of my presence, but at the same time it was me searching for a new identity.

I had always known, at least in my own mind, who I was, or who I thought I was, but my move to the Central Coast of California had left me in a quandary about that subject, so I kept trying to re-identify myself in some new capacity. Harley Davidson motorcycles, guns, and knives were part of that search to find a new version of myself, one that I could commit to. The Browse Around, and it's distinctive personality and merchandise became, for me, the way I chose to interpret myself at the time.

In part, it was that I'd been condemned as an outlaw before I really was one, so my response was to become the outlaw I'd been portrayed as, with an in-your-face decision to accept the judgement and wear it with pride. Not only did I consciously choose this route, I made the decision to shove it down the throat of any and all who objected to it, which initially was the city council, the police, and various citizens.

I am not trying to convince you that what I did was a good thing or a bad thing. It is just what I did with my life at the time. I can always look back at my decisions and question them, and I do, but I cannot change them. The best I can hope for is to attempt to explain them and report what happened in the past.