(part 126) FIRETRUCK

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At some point in the climb, an extremely large fire truck positioned itself on Hollywood Blvd. in front of the Pacific Theater. It raised a very long extended ladder up to where I was on the tower. At the end of the ladder was what is called a rescue basket. All of this gear is hydraulically run from either the basket itself or from the truck on the ground.

A lone L.A. fire fighter was in that basket, dressed in full gear and fire hat; he held a huge coil of rope on his shoulder. As I watched him bobbing in the wind from my position, he carefully maneuvered the ladder and basket toward me.

I will never forget the look on his face--one of courage and terror all at the same exact moment as he inched ever closer.

When he was actually near enough for us to hear each other, if we yelled, I shouted to him, "How's it goin out there man?" He looked at me with eyes wide and hesitated while he fought the effects of the wind, which was bouncing the basket and him up and down and then sideways.

I could see it was rough going out there and he finally yelled back, "Why don't you come on down, buddy?" looking hopefully for my response. I yelled back at him, "Why don't you come on up?"

I will never forget his next look either, as my answer to his question hit home. A look of frustration, fear and disappointment, mingled with a little anger. It was etched on his face as he pleaded again for me to be reasonable.

I shook my head in the negative, refusing his request again. I then watched as he retreated downward out of the howling wind some 80 feet above the ground.

I watched him leave and was impressed, as the ladder, basket, and brave soul slowly descended toward earth. He will live in my memory forever as the face of courage and the offer of a helping hand turned away by me in my madness.

I turned away from the picture on the ground, with the fire truck and fireman, whose momentary presence had halted my progress. Once again my need to reach the top returned. With a new sense of urgency I commenced the final trek to the pinnacle.

My body was feeling the effects of no sleep, too much booze, pills, and over-stimulation from adrenaline. I stopped and took a drink and popped a chloral hydrate. For some reason this deadly mixture continued to bolster my stamina against exhaustion and the effects of the wind.

I'd been up on the tower for nearly two hours and my goal loomed before me. As my senses dulled, I forced myself to continue in the growing cold.

On and on I went, pushing myself like a dog, demanding that I accomplish what I had set out to do. Against my own desire to give it up and go back down, I continued my ragged journey upward.

I cannot tell you why this was so important to me that day, but it was, it seems. To me it was my last chance to succeed, if in fact it was only to succeed at reaching the pointed pointless top of my steel mountain.

My need to see myself as successful at something, anything, kept me blindly climbing on. I was almost there. Just a little further, a little longer and I would do it. I would shout at the world and tell them, "see, I said I would do it and I did. I made it all the way to the top."

And then I was there. I had done it! My thoughts and emotions exploded inside of me, as I pulled myself up to the very highest point of the structure. I was standing at the top. I grabbed the steel rod at the utmost portion of the tower with one hand, and raised my other arm in a triumphant gesture claiming my victory. Exhilarated, I downed the nearly empty pint in toast to the moment.

From far below, a cry from the crowd arose and grew in intensity, as if needing to share in the celebration of my achievement. Again I threw up my arm in salute to those who had followed me up with their eyes, and again they sounded.

From somewhere in the crowd below came a single voice rising up to me much louder than the rest. I listened to it and heard, "Jump you asshole, you're hangin up traffic."

My mood shifted to anger as I focused on a man in a red suit below waving his arms. He stood out from the rest of the crowd and I knew it was his voice I'd heard.

All at once a number of L.A. police officers appeared out of nowhere, running toward the man in the red suit, tackling him to the ground.

I stood alone on my perch and watched him taken away in handcuffs. As he a disappeared into the crowd, I felt exhilarated once more, and threw my empty bottle at him yelling, "Yeah, well fuck you."

(part 125) I KNEW THEY'D COME

Tower I climbed on the Pacific Theater.

After encountering the security guard during my initial siege of the tower, I calculated that he had probably called the police and reported me. I moved over to the southern side of the structure so I could get a better view of Hollywood Blvd. below me.

From my new vantage point I could see clearly any vehicle or foot traffic on the street. After 20 or 30 minutes, a black and white L.A. police cruiser slowly made it's way toward the Pacific Theater building and my location. As it passed directly opposite and below my position, I yelled out, "Hey!" Then again, but louder, "Heyyy!"

The officer's head jerked sideways, but he was still unable to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Again I yelled, "Heyyy, UP HERE!" I waved my arm back and forth and yelled out, "UP HERE!" This time his head cocked back and he locked eyes with me. That look between the two of us meant, "Go."

In that moment, the process came to life as the officer grabbed his radio and reported what he saw. I knew then that in short order the entire area would be swarming with cops.

I yanked my body into a standing position and looked straight up for some 100 feet or more. There above me was my challenge. My entire life's purpose at that moment was to reach the very top of this tower.

Once more, I took out the bottle of scotch and took a drink, momentarily delaying the inevitable. Putting the bottle back in my coat pocket, I felt the adrenaline begin to surge through my entire body as I started to move.

I methodically chose a point of engagement and began the tedious process of zigzagging my way upward along the black steel beams. Like a giant erector set, the tower's structure stood some ten to twelve stories high, with a three foot steel rod or pin jutting out at the very top.

From one side to the other, I made my way along the horizontal beams to the acute angled beams leading ever upward. I heard a sound in the distant sky and turned my head in it's direction. "A helicopter," I said to myself, "Here come the helicopters."

"I knew they'd come," I thought to myself. After the Continental Hotel incident I'd learned that. It began circling the area around and above the tower, like giant buzzard looking for roadkill.

The day's big story was unfolding below them. I imagined for a moment what this would look like on TV, as the L.A. news machine began shifting into overdrive. I will not lie to you and say I didn't expect this, because I did expect this, exactly this.

My broken and tormented mind had thrown out all things logical. I possessed little, if any, ability to rationally or objectively look at what I was doing. I could not put a halt to this drastic and pathetic act as it unfolded.

Once set in motion by my decision and will, there did not exist any force, at that time, capable of altering my course. In an explosion of emotional turmoil and rage, I had cast myself in the roll of a fine tuned and deadly focus point for the city of Los Angeles.

As I climbed ever higher, all of Hollywood Blvd. halted from Vine to La Brea, and the street filled with literally thousands of human onlookers. The large parking lots on the northern and back sides of the Pacific Theater filled with blank-faced forms staring upward at the aerial circus above them.

I halted my progress momentarily, and gazed downward into the massive collection of humanity. Once again I took a drink from my stash of booze which accompanied me on my journey upward this cold and windy day.

The mixture of drugs, alcohol, and adrenaline only served to enhance my desire to continue my madness. The higher I climbed, the higher I got, both literally and figuratively.

Each part of this bizarre psychology mirrored the other and spurred me forward by feeding on the exhilaration. I seemed at times to literally defy gravity. In fact, I had to stop my ascent in places to incorporate into my thinking a sense of logistical reality to prevent my accidental demise.

I was not there to commit suicide. I was there to get even with the world, if I could, for the express purpose of calling attention to my plight, and to rail against the record business machine.

To lay blame forever on the clever and dedicated con men who had systematically and methodically used me like a good whore, and then thrown me out like so much trash. That was my reasoning.

That, above all other things, was my need, my need to be heard. I could not see in my blind assault on the tower that I had forsaken any and all credibility I may once have had.

As I created an audience, I destroyed my very life...

(part 124) THE ASCENT OF MOUNT TOWER

My view from the tower at dawn

I was like an automaton marching forward through the streets of Hollywood that cold dawn. My singular focus was to climb that tower. I recall dismissing any thought to the contrary.

As I had done, while marching toward the Continental Hotel, I watched my feet tracking the ground toward my destination. With machine-like precision my body responded without question to the orders given it by my mind. I was ordered to take the tower in almost military terms.

I approached the backside of the Pacific Theater and surveyed the area, looking for a way upward. I came to a small alley that poked it's way into the building's structure with a steel staircase that led to the roof.

As I made my way forward, I reached the top of the fire escape stairs and was there. The twin towers stood majestically before me reaching upward into the growing daylight of the Hollywood sky.

They looked a lot bigger and taller than they had from a distance. I stood at the steel base of the closest one, and realized there was no easy way to get up. There was a single story utility shack next to the first of the two towers, so I picked that one to scale.

To get on the roof of the shack I had to climb on a wooden box and pull myself up. I moved to the edge of it's roof and got as close as I could to the tower. Once there it was about eight feet to the lowest crossbeam, so I jumped to it from the shack's roof. I remember how cold the steel felt when I grabbed it with both hands.

I hung there for a moment like a kid on a monkey bar. I began to shimmy my way sideways to the large outer vertical leg of the tower. Then I was able to use the horizontal and vertical connections, between those pieces of steel, to leverage my way up into a sitting position on the lowest crossbeam of the structure.

During this procedure I was engaged by a security guard who yelled at me saying, "You're not supposed to be up here," which I ignored. He then turned and disappeared through a doorway leading into the building's interior.

I sat on the crossbeam for some time, gazing out at Hollywood's skyline and L.A.'s vast expanse in the distance. I pulled a pint bottle of scotch out of my inside coat pocket and took a long drink. It burned my mouth and throat on the way down, but quickly and mercifully warmed my chilled body as I clung to the cold steel of the tower.

It was still early, and Hollywood Blvd. was virtually deserted. I looked east and then west from my position, while surveying the situation. I checked with myself to see if my plan had changed now that I was actually sitting on the tower instead of looking at it from blocks away.

"No!" The plan had not changed. It was full steam ahead. I thought about my life and what a disappointment it had been. I thought about the record business and how many times I'd been fucked by it. My anger was so complete that it had become the propelling force within me. It had no alternative but to find a way out.

This tower! This moment! This life! I was now going to put on a show that no one would ever forget after today. While I thought about these things my body tightened like a steel cable anticipating my work ahead, the ascent of mount tower.

The climb toward the top; to get as close to God as I could, in hopes he could better hear me, crying out through my tears and rage, "Why has everything in my Goddamned life gone so wrong?"

(part 123) THE TOWER

In 1972 and 1973, the world of Bobby Jameson had crumbled into a state of chaos. Once again, the dichotomy between the twin heads of publicity, and the true nature of events occurring in my life were at odds. The reality was, that I had become a walking time bomb.

The publicity, as in the Rolling Stone article, did not fully make clear the depth of the problem I was engulfed in. It lent itself more toward the view that I had irons in the fire, and projects in progress, without ever seriously analyzing the authenticity of my complaints.

Like most things written about me, both then and now, Rolling Stone's article was a cursory overview, or glimpse, at eight years of my life in a nutshell. I suppose it was due in great part to the fact that I was not famous enough to waste much time or space on.

Inside my broken world of thinking, the article was just enough to hold onto, but not enough to do any actual good in my life. No one particularly gave a damn that some "has been" or "never was" pop star had complaints about the record business, and not getting paid, which still holds true today. As well, the standard opinion was, and is, that I should be grateful that anyone even knows who I am.

I have never been foolish enough to ask, ever, for anything beyond what I was due for the work I did. My complaint then, as now, fell into the ranks of, "I just want to get what I earned." Even though this simple fact is a valid one, it was not dealt with then, and remains the same today. I have heard every conceivable reason, and variation of reasons, why I shouldn't and wouldn't get a thing.

This constant state of not being paid for my work, other than a few hundred dollars here and there over an eight year period, literally beat me senseless. The lack of any tangible assets for my work was devastating to my entire psyche, as well as my capacity to earn a living. No thought was ever given to how I could possibly afford to meet my basics needs.

From 1964 to 1972 I made virtually nothing for everything I had written, recorded, arranged, produced, and performed in eight years. Yet even now, as it was then, I am ridiculed for even suggesting that I be paid anything for my work. The point of this exercise, is to give you some idea of what kept driving me. What was it that I thought about for days at a time, while drinking and taking any drug I could get my hands on?

My anger and obsession over this problem, would pile up inside me like an over-stuffed closet, until finally, there was no room left to fit any more inside. I would literally run out of space to fit in more misery. It was at these times, when the dramatic and deadly effects of all that had happened, would explode into another self-destructive event in the life of Bobby Jameson.

In late 1972 or 73, I don't remember, I was standing in the parking lot of Hughes Market on Highland Ave. in Hollywood. It was just before dawn, and I had been loaded for days on pills and booze. I was frantically talking on a pay phone to Carol Paulus, but have no recollection of that conversation's subject matter.

I can only surmise that it was the same old thing, but don't really know for sure. I was just out on the street with no place to go and had called her out of desperation. I do recall vividly the end of the conversation though, and you will understand as I continue.

I don't know how long we spoke, but at some point she said she had to get off the phone and get some sleep, because she had to go to work the next day. Carol was a top hair stylist in the West Hollywood/Beverly Hills area. In the state of mind I was in, it felt like the last thread of hope had just been cut.

I held the phone tightly to my ear and turned around gazing at the Hollywood skyline silhouetted against the coming dawn. My eyes locked on the shape of two 125 foot steel towers on the roof of the Pacific Theater on Hollywood Blvd. They looked like twin oil derricks, poking up at the sky like skeletal fingers.

As I listened to Carol's final words, I said, "It's OK, don't worry, I understand." She then asked, "Are you alright?" "Yeah," I said, "I'm Fine. I'm gonna go and climb a tower." I hung up the phone and started walking toward my new goal, the tower.

(part 122) BROKEN

www.seanduggan.com

LOOKING OUT
THROUGH BROKEN EYES
I SEE THE BIRDS
IN BROKEN SKIES
THE YEARS HAVE PASSED
ON BROKEN CLOCKS
MY THINKING FROM
THIS BROKEN BOX

LEFT ALONE
ALONG THE SHORE
MY BROKEN SHIP
THE WINDS IGNORE
I WANDER NOW
ALONG THE ROCKS
MY THOUGHTS ARE BROKEN
LIKE THE BOX

BOTTLES DRIFT IN
ON THE TIDE
WITH BROKEN
MESSAGES INSIDE
AND I ALONE
THE WORLD STILL MOCKS
THE THINKER IN
THE BROKEN BOX

Robert Parker Jameson Jan 2009

(part 121) ROLLING STONE ARTICLE AND PICTURE

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Oct 26, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone


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Oct 26, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone

The reason I look so pissed off in this picture is that I had been pronounced dead twice with only months separating the events.