Life of Santa Lucia was
serene, hectic, calming and nerve racking all at the same time. Universal Data
Supply’s new headquarters in the West Valley meant that I could no longer
service my local Hollywood customers as easily. One of them was Entertainment Tonight,
the company where my sister, Susan, worked and she had gotten me that account
years earlier. I think I must have made fifty thousand dollars off of that one
account—thanks Susan—you’re the best sister I have, even if you are the only
one.
The
middle bedroom was my new office, recording studio and the place where I
practiced my new, red MSA Supersustain pedal steel guitar. I was getting pretty
good and diligently learning new things by studying the cassette tapes by Paul
Franklin, Buddy Emmons and Jeff Newman I would get in the mail. It was time to
take my knowledge to the next level; I looked for a country band to add my
skills. I saw an ad in the Music Connection or one of the local papers (in the
days before the internet became a mainstay) and found a band called The Jeffrey
James Band. They were a bunch of twenty-something rednecks from Texas. Before
that I had hooked up with another poser country band called Platte River
Crossing. They thought they were the best thing to happen since sliced cheese
but they weren’t half as good as they thought they were and were a bunch of
assholes. For short, they were dubbed, PRC—I called them “the pricks”. That
didn’t last long so I was off to the next—The JJB. I had no acronym for them—I
guess I could have called them the jujubees, but it didn’t fit.
Donna
was still driving her red, TR-6 to Centinela Hospital in Inglewood but had
found a much more pleasant route, even though it took her more than an hour to
get there. She would take the ten mile stretch of Topanga Canyon to the ocean,
turn left and wind her way through Santa Monica, Venice, toward the airport and
make a left on Manchester. I, on the other hand never left the house except to
walk Bridget and Ginger at the rustic part of Mulholland Drive east of Topanga.
It was a dirt road that backed up to quaint homes; one in particular had the
most intricate rock garden that incorporated some of the strangest knick knacks
and bric-a-brac I had ever seen. Donna and I would take that walk every weekend
which would amount to about two or three miles.
By
August 1991, Donna was having morning sickness and was just beginning to show.
What is it about pregnant women? They look so beautiful with a natural glow and
aura—I thought she looked amazing. Even though she was as sick as a dog, she
kept on working. Scottish work ethic—she’s a good lass—the best! Around that
time, Donna and I drove down to Centinela Hospital for her first ultrasound. I
really didn’t know what I was looking at when the nurse pointed out that a
healthy baby was growing nicely. Staring at the monitors that showed what was
going on inside Donna’s uterus, I thought it looked more like a lava lamp from
the sixties and I could hardly believe there was really a baby in there.
somewhere. The second ultrasound at four months, the same nurse asked us if we
wanted to know the sex of the baby.
“You
can tell already?” I asked.
“It’s
all right there, if you know what to look for,” she said.
Donna
and I decided that we would rather be surprised, but I thought to myself that
if there was something to see, it was most likely a boy since a willie would be
more prominent than the female thing. But what the hell did I know—I was only
guessing; although I had a feeling I was right.
I
couldn’t really fit my pedal steel and amp in my Austin Healey or my Tr-250 so
I bought a 1974 Ford LTD in a rusted coffee color from Paul Downing for $300.
It was a gas eating hog. I had a gig in Simi Valley as a solo act in a seedy
bar called The Main Office while I rehearsed with JJB in their garage in Van
Nuys. Jeffrey James (who sang and played guitar) and his bass player and
drummer were gigantic—all well over six foot six. Not only that, they wore
cowboy boots and ten gallon hats. I’m about five foot eight and wore flat shoes
since I couldn’t maneuver the pedals on my steel in heels. I felt like Danny De
Vito next to those guys but at least I was sitting down. We secured a gig at a
place in Canyon Country called The Buffalo Chip—a fitting name. The place
looked like a dried out turd.
Every
night before I went to the gig Donna would recite her checklist. “You got your
picks, your bar, you’re cables, extra strings, your tuner, gas for the hog,” on
and on and on. I never did forget a thing with her to back me up. After the hog
blew a piston rod on the 118 freeway, my days at the Main Office had come to an
end. I managed to get all my gear in the Nissan and continued with JJB for
about four or five months. I just couldn’t take it anymore—that redneck thing wore
me down and they all began drinking and doing hard drugs becoming more and
undependable. At least I didn’t have to hear Rocky Top again (until I moved to
Tennessee—their national anthem).
We never
made enough money to cover the phone bills. The straw that broke the camels
back with The Jeffrey James Band was this: One of the band members had a
girlfriend who was a moose of a woman. She had to be at least six foot two and
weighed in at two hundred if she was a pound. She always gave me a hard time.
Maybe it was because I was from New York and nobody from New York should be
allowed to play country music, or so she thought. I think down deep she had a
crush on me. I was wearing a shirt that used to belong to my father from a show
he did called, The Couch. It was a
white bowling shirt with black geometric shapes that made it look like a
leopard skin from a distance. I could still smell my late father’s sweat and
greasepaint even thought the shirt had been washed dozens of times since he
last wore it. The fool of a girl began chasing me around my pedal steel like it
was some kind of twisted game of hide and seek. I was in no mood for it at all.
She reached over my steel and grabbed me by the shirt and tore it to shreds. I
was devastated. I packed up my gear and left never to return.
In mid December
we decided to take a trip up north. We visited Hearst’s Castle and San
Francisco. We saw all the sights, the Fisherman’s Wharf, Haight Street, Golden
Gate Park, and had some of the best Chinese Food ever. Donna was definitely
showing now as we hiked up Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County which is a part of the
John Muir Woods. The steep and narrow path up that mountain was exhausting. I
don’t know how in the world she was able to keep going but she was a real
trooper and somehow plodded along with me step for step. I thought back to the
time my father was playing in a show called Flower Drum Song in San Francisco
and we had rented a house in Tiburon for the summer of 1962. I remember when I
went to school there for the last month of the year I was referred to as the
dark haired kid since all the other kids had blonde hair and blue eyes.
While
my dad was rehearsing in town, my mother had decided it would be fun to do a
little sightseeing in Marin County. She was driving a 1953 Buick Roadmaster
coupe that was a monster of a car. My mom was less than five feet tall and had
to prop herself up on pillows just to see over the steering wheel and
dashboard. We were driving up a curvy mountainous road with no place to turn
around. She was beginning to panic as we climbed higher and higher. My sister
was up front next to my mom and she decided to climb in the back with my,
brother and me. Robbie was six years old at the time and was scared to death.
He began to whimper. There was a song that Susan and I had learned in camp
called Down the Mountainside and,
just to taunt Robbie she began to sing. I joined in. Down the mountainside we go oo we a oo we oh. Where will end up no one
knows oo we a oo we oh.
“Stop
that singing, your both driving me crazy,” Mom shrieked from the driver’s seat.
We kept singing and Robbie was crying full force. It was an innocent teasing
but we had no idea how panicked my mom really was. Hey, we were kids and you
always think your parents can handle any situation that comes up. After all, they’re
grown ups. We finally reached the top of the mountain and saw a turn off. It
was Mt. Tam. As we crawled down the narrow mountain road we could hear the
sound of gravel and loose dirt on the tires. Now we all started to get nervous.
Would we spin out and fly off the mountain and not even get to see our father’s
performance? We made it at last to the bottom and my mom pulled over with a
sigh of relief.
Now
almost thirty years later, Donna (who was now six months pregnant) and I were
hiking up the interior trails of the same mountain. Waddling her way up the
rocky terrain she was panting and sweating and I didn’t think she could make it
any further. I made her sit down and rest. I hoped I wouldn’t have to carry her
down the mountain, but after half an hour or so, she regained her strength and
we made it to the top. It was so beautiful and I was so proud of my steadfast
wife who was able to reach the top in her condition. What a trooper! Scottish
women are a tough breed.
Just
after New Year’s 1992, we dedicated the rest of the pregnancy to fixing up the
baby’s room. We covered the wood floor with an area rug and prepared the walls
for a new coat of paint. Since we still didn’t know for sure if it was a boy or
a girl (we didn’t care as long as it was healthy) we didn’t paint it pink or
blue—we decided on neutral colors— white with a yellow trim and a border with
little rocking horses. We had my nephew, Max’s white baby crib and matching
rocking chair, generously donated by my brother and sister-in-law. We were
going to be parents soon. OHMYGOD!
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