(part 242) THE CALL TO MARTIN COHEN

I had run on empty before, but in 1985 I was completely out of gas. The wear and tear of twenty-two years of "keep on keeping on" had finally taken their ultimate toll.

Suicide attempts, record deals that never went anywhere, endless songs, no money, failure after failure, addiction and hopelessness, had finally won out over any resilience I may once have had.

I was sitting in the compound ruins of my life when I called Martin Cohen's office on the day I will never forget. Dialing his number was the direct result of having run into John Rhys.

It was that chance meeting that brought Martin Cohen's name up at all. It was John's success with Martin that gave me the idea to call.

The fact that Martin and Herbie Cohen still owed me $3700 dollars was a vague thought in my mind at the time. It was desperation at it's finest that led me to the slaughter.

"Martin! How are you?" I said uncomfortably.

"I'm fine," said Martin, "what can I do for you?"

"Well,"I said, "I ran into John Rhys the other day, and he told me that you were his lawyer in The Rose thing."

"Yes that's true," he replied.

"Well I told John I ought to call you, because I have been trying to get paid for stuff I did for years, and thought maybe you could help me get my money," I said.

"Money from who?" he asked.

"From everybody I ever made a record or wrote a song for," I said.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"ASCAP, BMI, record companies, publishers, everybody," I said.

"That's impossible," said Martin, "that can't happen."

"Well it happened to me Martin," I said, "It's still happening. I've never been paid in my life."

"I'm sorry Bobby, but that just doesn't happen," he said again.

"It does happen Martin," I replied, becoming more urgent, "I have never gotten a penny from anybody for any song I ever wrote or record I made."

"Listen, Bobby! That's just not the way it works in this business. What you're telling me just doesn't happen these days, there are too many ways to prevent it," he said.

"Martin!" I yelled, "Why do you keep saying that? I don't care how many things there are to prevent it. I have never been paid in my life."

"Look, Bobby," he said, "I don't want to sit here and argue with you about it. What you're telling me is an impossibility, so if there's nothing else you want to say, I don't think I can help you with your problem."

I stared at the receiver in my hand in disbelief, and then put it back to my ear. "Yeah Ok, Martin," I said, "I understand, sorry I bothered you."

"No bother at all, Bobby," said Martin, "Sorry I couldn't be more help."

"OK thanks. Thanks for taking my call," I said.

"You're welcome," he said, "have a good day."

I sat with the phone in my hand, listening to the dial tone. It sounded like an electric drill digging into my brain. My anger, and feelings of worthlessness, collided inside me like freight trains slamming into each other head on.

I wanted to drive to Martin's office and kick the shit out of him. "That fucking asshole!" I thought, "That can't happen! Yeah sure, Martin," I said out loud, "It can't happen except it did. It happened to me. Over and over and over. Fuck!" I screamed, "That fucking asshole and his brother are two of the pricks who did this kind of shit to me. Why the fuck did I ever call him? Why the fuck do I do this kind of shit to myself?"

My emotions spiraled out of control. I could not contain my reaction to Martin Cohen's arrogance on the telephone. "It can't happen! It can't happen! Fuck!" I screamed again.

My mind raced back to the day I'd tried to kill myself on St.Ives Dr. in the 70's at Gavin's house, because Martin and Herbie had cut me off, and now he had the balls to tell me it couldn't happen, when he had been one of the assholes that had done it to me.

Where the fuck was I supposed to go? What the fuck was I supposed to do? It seemed that everybody had an answer about me. No matter what part they played in it, I was always the problem.

No one ever looked at their part, just mine. Carol and that fucking telephone. Martin fucking Cohen and his asshole brother Herbie, my ex-girlfriend and her father, Dennis and George, Steve fucking Clark, Ken Handler, Randy Wood, Andrew Oldham, and Tony Alamo...

All of them had had a part in it. All of them had fucked me over one way or another. I couldn't take it anymore. I was losing my fucking mind.

I had to get out of this town before I killed someone, before I killed myself...

(part 241) KILL ME ONCE AND KILL ME TWICE...

The check was a vivid reminder of how deeply never getting paid for a single song had cut into my life. It was a bleeding gash in my psyche.

I was glad John Rhys got paid. I was miserable because Bobby Jameson never had. I was not part of that club in any way, and never had been.

No matter how many songs I wrote, or records I made, I'd never received a single dime in royalties from any record company, publisher, manager, or collection agency, such as BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, or Harry Fox Agency.

I was brutally aware of my lack of power in that capacity, and try as I may, and I tried a hundred times, I had not, and could not, get any of it straightened out.

My answer had always been to write another song, make another record, and hope that someday I would make it work. I had asked every person, in every new deal I'd been involved with for twenty years, to help me.

The truth was, nobody cared. They always said, "Let's hear what your new stuff sounds like, and if it's good, and you get a hit, then we can go back and straighten out your past, because then we'll have the leverage. So you gotta get a hit, Bobby."

I'd lived and died on that nonsense. I had watched my life and career disintegrate over two decades following that bullshit philosophy. The philosophy of future success, down the road happiness.

But now, the real facts were beating the crap out of me for the thousandth time. There had been no future happiness or cleaning up the past. The past was now present, and scrawled in blood on the walls of my future.

It was a circular hell I lived in. Whatever I had seen and done and managed to survive, was destined to reappear, at some point, to be relived again and again.

I could not convince anyone of any of this. No one gave a shit, they never had. No one knew what I was talking about, because no one but me had all of the facts and history.

People who knew me had no idea that I had ever done as many things in as many places as I had. They didn't know I went to England and recorded with Mick Jagger. They didn't know who Chris Lucey was, or that I was him, and they didn't care.

I was a multiple personality with multiple pasts, trying to pawn myself off as an individual, when in reality, I was a group of individuals splintered out of the life of someone called Bobby Jameson.

I was the only person in the world who knew all the parts in any cohesive way. I had not, and could not, make clear to anyone what this meant.

There were songs and records all over the place. There were starts and stops, and starts again, galore. It covered two continents, multiple countries, companies, and publishers, and had gone on for over two decades. But be that as it may, I had failed utterly to convey to anyone, at any time, the depth and complexity of the problem.

I had lived, and continued to live, in my own inability to stop the madness and get it straightened out. I stood at the crossroads of my life and knew it, as I sat alone in the dimming light at Carol's

All that I had done since 1963 was behind me, and what I would do now lay before me. I had no idea of what that would be or what it would mean.

I resolved in my mind to get Martin Cohen on the phone and see if I could get him to assist me in getting my money from ASCAP. I hadn't talked to him in years, and didn't have any idea if he would even speak to me, let alone agree to help me.

It had been Martin and his brother Herbie Cohen, in the 70's, who had been administering a publishing company of mine, and paying me a weekly salary.

I'd gotten into a beef with Herbie one night at the Troubador, which ended in a near fist fight, the end result being, I was cut off financially by the Cohen Brothers. Shortly thereafter, I attempted to kill myself by taking a masssive overdose of a hundred and twenty pills.

So this was the person, over a decade later, who I was now committed to asking for help.

(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.