(240) ME AND THE BOXES OF MY LIFE...

My mind was going a million miles an hour. The check John Rhys had shown me was another deadly reminder of how completely broke I was and how dependent on others I had become.

He had gotten more money for publishing one song than I had received in my whole life for writing hundreds of songs.

I headed back to Carol's apartment to try and organize my thoughts and emotions into some sort of cohesive plan of action.

She'd said that I didn't have to leave immediately, that I had time to make other arrangements, so I was determined to use the time to figure out my next move.

As I drove, I stared out at the city around me, feeling the emotions of twenty years slamming me against the seat of my car.

I stared into the past, recalling the young boy who had come here with his guitar and dreams so many years ago. I felt his excitement and power, the sheer magic of his expectations.

But there was no magic now. Just a forty year old nobody with a used car and empty pockets, driving back to a place where he had been told he was no longer welcome. "The story of my life," I thought, "always leaving, never staying anywhere for very long."

I had repeated this so many times it had become my life style. Coming and going, from this place to that, with next to nothing to show for it in the end.

The only thing I had a lot of was songs that nobody wanted, records that nobody cared about or remembered, endless home recordings done in rooms where I labored unnoticed for too many years.

This was my legacy. Cardboard boxes of Bobby Jameson's life. Boxes with no home. Boxes of emotions, my emotions, trapped on paper and magnetic recording tape, sitting in silence and not welcome...anywhere.

I had become a derelict over time. A wandering hobo with my dreams in a box and no place to put us. I'd worn out my welcome in every single place, with every single person in twenty two years. Twenty two years had passed since I first walked into United Recorders on Sunset Blvd. and recorded Let's Surf in 1963.

I laughed at myself for remembering it, amused by the naive kid who sang his heart out back then. Back when it was all in front of me instead of behind me, chasing me...

This was my life. A bunch of spiral note books filled with words that nobody saw, melodies that no one ever heard or cared about. This was my life that day in 1985...This was it, as I drove back to Carol's alone.

I unlocked the door and called out. No answer, she was not there. I went in and stared at the tape recorder, still waiting to go to work, but there were no songs to record, no ideas burning to be noticed and captured on tape.

The amp, equalizer, and speakers sat like mutes, staring at me, waiting to be commanded into action, waiting to light and hum their way into activity, but no such command would come.

I dropped like a heap on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor. I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl upward into the dim light of the room where I'd worked so hard for months.

I glanced out to the hall and saw the telephone sitting there in a mass of twisted cord. I replayed the pictures of me throwing it against the wall out of frustration.

I broke down in tears, and watched while tiny puddles began to form on the floor next to my boots. I was alone and tired. Alone with my thoughts, feelings, and the nagging picture of that Goddamn fucking check of John's. Just me alone, with the boxes of my life.

(part 239) A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

The Rose

John Rhys

Carol's stern look of, "I'm gonna teach you a lesson," peered back at me from across the room. She had too much power over my life, and I knew it to the bone at that moment.

I was subject, at any given time, to the decisions of others, because of my living circumstances. I had next to nothing of my own, so those who I fed off of were in charge, one way or another. It seemed to always be their house and their stuff.

I thought about getting mad and fighting with her for position, and I probably would have prevailed had I done so, but inside I was tired. Inside I was losing the will to keep pushing back.

As I studied Carol's face, I remained silent, wordless, which was odd for me because I always had something to say, but not this time. There were no words at all. I looked down at the floor like a hurt child, and then walked away.

She called after me, "You don't have to leave today, you can have some time to make plans." I didn't respond to her words, I just left it where it was, like a dead piece of meat hanging on a hook.

My emotions raced. "Fight back, Bobby," I said to myself, "you know you can get her to change her mind."

I walked back to the room where Carol was and said, "There's something I gotta tell you, Carol. Don't worry, I'm not gonna try and convince you to change your mind, but there's something I gotta say."

She looked up at me from the couch and said, "OK, I'll listen."

"This is your place," I said, "and you can do whatever you want, but for you to listen to some broad in Alanon who never met me, and doesn't know shit about my life, or what I been through, and then follow her advice to throw me out, is about as fucked a thing as I have ever heard from you."

"Well she's my sponsor," said Carol, "and I have to follow her advice or what good is it to have a sponsor?"

"Yeah," I said, "well she may be your sponsor, but you picked a real asshole to take direction from. Did you bother to tell her why I threw the phone at the wall? Or did you just leave that part out so you could be the poor little innocent victim?"

"I told her I was afraid, because you scared me when you got so angry and broke the phone." she replied.

"Yeah," I said again, "but did you tell her how many times I asked you not to do it, because I was recording, and when the phone rings it ruins what I'm doing?"

"No, not exactly," she said, "I didn't put it that way."

"Well thanks a lot, Carol," I said, "Thanks for giving her a clear picture of what really happened."

"I was afraid," she said.

"Afraid of what?" I asked.

"I don't know, just afraid, you got so angry and I was scared."

"OK," I said, "I got it, you were afraid. You set it up by putting the phone there, and I finally got pissed off and threw it against the wall and it scared you."

"Yes!" she replied, "I was afraid."

"Well maybe if you didn't keep putting the phone there it wouldn't have happened, Carol?"

"Maybe not," she said, "but I still got scared, because you got so angry at me."

I left it at that and exited the room. I didn't want to keep going until I got her to change her mind. I didn't even know why. I just didn't want to do it anymore.

For the next few days I wandered around trying to figure out what to do with myself. I was in Hollywood and ran into John Rhys outside Hollywood Recorders. John had produced Rastus for GRT Records, and had invited me to Ohio in 1970.

"Hey, brother," he said, "How ya been, Bobby?"

"Not that good, John," I said, "just got thrown outta where I was living."

"Where was that?" he asked.

"Carol's place," I said, "I threw a telephone against the wall cause it rang when I was recording something. It happened too many times. Anyway, she got all tripped out and said I had to go."

"Man! I can't believe she'd ever throw you out. I thought she was madly in love with you," he said.

"Yeah, well I guess she didn't love me enough, John, because now I am pretty much homeless, and I'm out here trying to figure out what to do and where to go. How's it going with you?" I asked.

"Great man, I won my case."

"What case?" I asked.

"Well, you know I published the song The Rose, and it was in the movie, right?" he asked.

"No, John, I didn't know that." I said.

"Well I did, years ago, he said, "for a chick named Amanda, who wrote it, Amanda McBroom"

"Yeah, OK," I said.

"Well, when the movie was a hit, and money started coming in, I didn't get paid," he said, "somebody else was claiming to be the publisher. So my lawyer, Martin Cohen,"

"Mutt Cohen?" I interrupted, "Herbie's brother?"

"Yes!" said John, "Herbie Cohen's brother Martin sued Fox six years ago, and we finally won.

"Wow!, I said, "that's great, John, I'm really happy for you."

John, smiling like a Cheshire cat, pulled out the evidence of his victory, saying, "Check this out, brother."

It was a check to John for just shy of a quarter of a million dollars. I stared at it in fascination because of the amount. "Wow! I've never seen a check for that much money, John. Man, that is a real trip!"

I looked at John's smiling face and I remember my feelings as I realized the depth of his good fortune, which stood in stark contrast to the bleak realities of my own existence.

"That's great, John," I said again, "I know Martin. He used to administer a publishing company of mine with Herbie: Arizonz Music. I'll call him and see if he can get my money from ASCAP for me, they're in the same building."

"Yeah!" said John, "you should give em a call, definitely."

(part 238) GROW UP AND ACT LIKE A MAN

Carol Paulus

I left the building, hurrying as I went, not wanting to encounter the police in the mood I was in. I knew if that happened it would be bad, worse than it already was.

I felt like shit. A combination of anger, disappointment, and confusion. How the fuck could I have money, but not be allowed to access it? It was like going to the bank and being told you couldn't withdraw your own funds.

Things never changed in my life that they didn't get worse. "I live in some cosmic joke," I thought to myself, "like a starving man allowed to look through the windows of restaurants, but not allowed to eat the food he saw."

It was driving me insane. I cursed my life and God, as I scurried along the sidewalk in the hot California sun. I felt conspicuous in the pounding brightness of afternoon, like a night walker suddenly caught in the glare of daylight.

"What could I do, who could I call, where do I start?" I wondered. This was my life. An unending series of desperate moments, piled on top of each other, like logs. Always another problem, rarely a solution.

I had no money to get a lawyer. I was just out here by myself, trying for the umpteenth time to cope with the latest pile of crap that fell on me.

I headed back to Carol's place off Olympic Blvd., just east of La Cienega. It was an older style California Spanish looking duplex, where she lived on the ground floor and the owner lived upstairs.

I found a place to park, and gathered up my pile of old records from the seat, fearing they would warp in the hot sun. I made my way inside, feeling like a man running from a crime scene. As the door closed behind me, I relaxed slightly, assured that I was safe for the moment.

Another crappy day for me, another shit outcome that favored my opponents. It was another lonely moment in a life of lonely moments. I looked around for Carol, to no avail, she was not there. Didn't know if I was glad or not about that. I was in need of talking, but had no one to talk to.

Later on, she showed up, and I began relaying my story about ASCAP and the fact there was money of mine, but that they wouldn't give it to me, and the part about the non-existent co-writer who was getting paid.

I blasted my way through the day's adventure in a flurry of angry rhetoric, but sensed that she was not in any way connecting with me. I finished abruptly and sought some sort of response from her.

Carol was a member of Alanon, a program for those affected by others, such as me, who were drunks and/or addicts. She had been to see her sponsor and had told her about me throwing the telephone against the wall, because it had rung while I was recording.

She informed me that her sponsor had suggested that I be asked to permanently vacate Carol's apartment. She had said, "What I needed, was to be tossed out in the street for my own good, and that maybe that would make me grow up and act like a man."

I stood in stunned silence, looking at Carol's face, waiting for the part where she said she would never do that, but it didn't come. It was just an empty deadness that filled the air. A place where words no longer existed in my favor. A moment in time that never ended...-

(part 237) ASCAP AND A BROKEN HEART

There was no interest at all in what I had done in the past, or was doing in 1985. My endless frustration at continuing to try, was now reaching lethal proportions. In a final gesture to accomplish something of consequence, I gathered up as many records of mine as I could find, and set out for the offices of ASCAP.

They were located on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, where I'd been before when I'd signed with them in the early 70's, so I knew exactly where to go. I got off the elevator and made my way inside where I told someone who I was and why I was there.

Within a short time, I was talking to various persons and showing them my identification, to prove I was who I said I was, and showing them a pile of records with my name on them. My point was that I had made all these records, but had never been paid a single penny for any of them.

I told them I knew there had to be some money, because some of the records had sold fairly well, and I was there to find out how much, and then to get paid whatever the amount might be. They all looked at each other in a confused way, as if I were the first person in history to have ever shown up in their office to make such a request.

Soon, another individual was put on the case and began looking through a computer for information about me, and sure enough there I was. He acknowledged that there was indeed money, but said he could not tell me how much. Confused, I pushed back and asked, "Well, it's my money so I have a right to know how much it is."

Again he refused to give me an amount, but said it was substantial. "Substantial...what does that mean? If you have money that belongs to me, I want it, I'm broke, I earned that money."

Once again he said he could not tell me how much it was, or give it to me. "Why not?" I asked, "it's mine."

"It shows that payments were made to the co-writer," he said.

"There is no co-writer," I said, I wrote that stuff by myself."

"Well that's not what it shows here," he said, "It shows payments being made to the co-writer."

"Well who's the co-writer, then, what's their name," I asked.

"Sorry," he said, "I can't tell you that either."

By this time, I was getting pissed off at the explanation I was getting from him. "You know," I said angrily, "I have fuckin had it with this bullshit! If you have money of mine, I ought to be able to get it right now."

"I'm sorry my friend," he said, "that's not how it works here."

"Well, how does it work here, man," I yelled, "How does it work? Seems to me it doesn't work at all. I tell you who I am, you say I got money, but you won't give it to me. You say there is a co-writer, which there isn't, but you won't tell me what their name is. Sounds like nothing fucking works, if you ask me."

"OK! Ok now! You can't come in here and start acting this way. This is a business office and we are here to insure that things get done fairly and accurately, so if you have a dispute, you need to get a lawyer and deal with this issue properly," he said.

"Properly!" I yelled, "No one has ever dealt with me properly in my life. All I do is get fucked around, over and over again. That's properly according to you and the rest of this Goddamned music business. You got my money and you won't give it to me and you tell me to get a lawyer, but I don't have the Goddamned money to get a lawyer, man, I am fucking broke!"

This guy's eyes were getting bigger and bigger, and the whole place was now aware of who I was and what was going on. Another person came out of an office to intervene, saying, "Mr. Jameson, the police have been called, so unless you want to be arrested, I suggest that you leave the premises now."

I looked at her face, wondering how in the hell I always ended- up at the ass-end of every single problem I encountered in this God-awful industry for all these years. I didn't know whether to scream at her or punch her out. I looked around at the faces staring at me like I was nothing more than a wild animal...Inside, my heart broke for the thousandth time, I hesitated for a moment, and then turned and walked out the door.

(part 236) THE MEADOW

my life was
a promise
of everything
with the
reality of
less

decades passed
and piled up like
old timber
in a neglected
meadow
out back

occasionally
someone
stopped by
acting
interested
in the wood

they came by
like the
years and
i always listened...
but they
just talked

that's some
good old
timber there
they'd say…
ever try to
sell it...

i used to
i'd reply...
but don't
anymore
no one
wants to pay

whatta ya want
for it
they'd ask…
nothing
i'd say...
just take it

awhile ago
i looked
and
the old
timber was
still there

like me
it has
learned to
be at home
out back
in the meadow...

Bobby Jameson Feb 28, 2011 edited dec, 2014

(part 235) L.A. NIGHTMARE

L.A. Nightmare was, and is, a summation of all that my life had been, and had become, as a result of my time in Hollywood pursuing a career in music.

It is not a great song by any means, but does bring into focus my feelings and thoughts in 1985 about how I perceived myself in relationship to L.A. and the music industry.

It is in many ways a position of resignation and anger, more than anything else, capturing the deeply troubled nature of what had happened and what had not happened.

For some, it is a deeply negative portrayal of loss and failure, that many have questioned as accurate or necessary. For me, it is a clarifying capsule of history crushed into a few minutes of my life.

Whether I was wronged as much as I have said, and believe that I was, is for others to debate. I know what I was like when I started in 1963, and what I had become by 1985.

The seven songs, known now as the Closet Recordings 1985, stand out in a unique way because they are the last recordings I made.

Their significance to me, looking back at my own history, over a quarter century later, places them in a particularly important square on the checker board of my past.

I have often wondered why these recordings were, and are, the last ones. This question will hopefully be answered in the continuing search through my own memory.

In the beginning, I was an excited kid whose vision of making records had catapulted him into the limelight in the 60's. Twenty some years later I was a forty year old has-been, who many had less than stellar opinions about.

But in the writing and recording of these seven songs, I had, in my way of thinking, captured, as best I could back then, a product that I had done all by myself at almost no cost, which stand out as at least adequate.

The ever rising costs of making records back then was proven to be more folly than reality, by my own efforts in managing to produce these recordings in a bedroom on basic equipment.

It was proof that making music and capturing it, by any means, was far more possible than what a bloated industry continually claimed as legitimate costs to produce recordings in a studio.

I was not only writing songs and recording them, I was saying, in my own limited way, that what had become acceptable, as far as costs, was in fact unacceptable nonsense conjured up by charlatans in positions of power.

In many ways I was proving to myself that I had learned the art of recording, and was proving it by creating this series. I had been in need of the test, as it were, and wanted to see if I could pass.

When I finally finished the project, I felt as though I had succeeded, but soon found that others either did not agree with that assessment, or were just flatly uninterested in me or my work.

Those who listened halfheartedly to the tape, had nothing but negative comments about the work, saying, "It's dated, and not commercial. No one's interested in this kind of music anymore, Bobby, sounds like you're stuck in the past."

After awhile I resigned myself to the fact that once again I failed at creating anything that anyone would ever consider valid.

I was torn between my own sense of failure and the conviction that those who I tried to get interested in the work were idiots, and incapable of hearing what I was doing or how I'd managed to do it.

As for recording at Carol Paulus's apartment, and her part in this particular undertaking, I recall vividly the day when the telephone had been placed directly outside the door to where I was hard at work.

In the middle of a take on one of the songs, it rang, and destroyed again what I was doing. On that occasion I flew into a rage and grabbed the telephone and threw it as hard as I could against a wall.

Carol's horrified reaction to my rage further infuriated me because it lacked completely any real concern for why I was upset, or for the work I was doing.

I'd spent five months on the project and was exhausted by then, and had had, one too many times, endured the ringing of the notorious telephone.

I did not hide my anger in any way at that point, and flatly accused her of not giving a shit about my work.

"Ya know Carol, if you gave a shit about what I was doing you wouldn't keep leaving the fucking phone right outside the door where I'm recording. It's got a Goddamn fifty foot cord on it, so why do you keep putting it here?" I yelled.