Chapter 57 – Michael Kennedy Remembered

                                    Michael in the early seventies with his Gold-top Les Paul

                                        Mitch Mitchell, Michael Kennedy and Chas Chandler

In Chapter 26 of Silverspoon, the World’s Greatest Band Nobody Ever Heard, the one called Michael’s Abrupt Departure, I touched on the last few years I communicated with Michael Kennedy, but I didn’t really do it justice. There was so much more to the story. I don’t remember exactly how he found my address, maybe it was from Larry Harrison, but I don’t know how he would have found him since he moved around as much as I did. It could have been Stephen, but I doubt it. I know for a fact it wasn’t BJ— he hated BJ’s guts (the guy could hold a grudge). Anyway, one day, out of the blue, I get a letter in blue aviator stationary with a Philadelphia postmark. I think it was early 2002 because the aftermath of nine-eleven was still fresh in the air, still a major topic of conversation, news articles and CNN.

I, at the time, was not a letter writing kind of guy, but I did keep phone numbers (I still have a dot-matrix printout address book that I still refer to in my office). I noticed that the address on the letter was the same one he had back in the seventies, in Jenkintown, so I figured he had the same phone number—I was right. I called him and when I heard that same East-Coast, Philadelphian whine answer on the other end of the line, I knew I had gotten the right number. We talked for over an hour about all the things that had happened to both of us since 1976: When he left L.A. after marrying Larry’s girlfriend, Cynthia, he told me the marriage, officially annulled after three weeks, which I already knew from Larry, but it was nice to finally have his side of the story. He said he had been checking the charts for my name over the years thinking that I should have been a star. He was disappointed when I said that I hadn’t achieved the success we felt I should have reached, but I did have two solo records under my belt at the time and had gotten some good reviews. He asked me why I moved to Tennessee; was I into country music now? I told him I liked where country music was going in 1994, but now it was so banal and stupid, I couldn’t stand it (it’s gotten worse, if that’s possible). I also said I had picked up the pedal steel guitar, which was not the easiest instrument in the world, and he was impressed.

After that conversation, Michael continued to send me letters and gift boxes. He included Beatles memorabilia, tapes of his stuff that he was working on or had completed over the years, guitar parts I told him I was looking for (one was a pickup ring for a 1964 Gretsch Anniversary I had been searching out for years). He became my mentor in the guitar and amplifier world and helped me find rare and exotic deals on Ebay and other musical sources. In fact, he helped me find the Hofner Beatle Bass on Ebay that I still have sitting under my piano (when I’m not playing it). It was the Fourth of July and he made me aware of a listing for a 1970 Hofner on Ebay that was closing in a few hours in my neighboring town of Franklin. It had no bids and I was a bit skeptical of the legitimacy of the ad. So, I emailed the address on the listing and the guy and he said the bass was real and used to belong to Les Paul’s son. He had cut a small hole in the back for a battery pack, therefore it reduced the overall value, but hey, it was still an early Beatle bass. I bid $500. I guess since it was a holiday, everyone was out barbequing or setting off fireworks. I won the auction at five bills. When I went to pick the bass up at his house, I thought the guy looked familiar. He was in L.A. at the same time I was and was at the most outrageous party at Mickey Dolenz’s house in the mid-seventies where Phil Spector, Doug Dillard, most of the Monkees and to top it off, Brian Wilson in his bathrobe at the organ doing his best Carl Wilson impersonation for hours upon hours (it was kind of sad, actually). The guy also played the pedal steel and recorded the steel part on Stephen Bishop’s On and On (he and his brother were in Bishop’s band). The guy’s name? Billy London. He and I are still good friends to this day, but I’m not going to sell the bass back to him.

When George W. Bush declared victory aboard that aircraft carrier in 2003, Michael was as appalled as I was about it. We had already collaborated on two songs by mail and over the phone (he would send cassettes and later CDs, I would upload them on Protools and add my touches, then send it back to him and so forth, it was a tedious process but it was great to be able to create with Michael, a really brilliant guitarist). When he sent a track with a screaming guitar and interesting chord changes, I wrote lyrics about a town in eastern Afghanistan, where a lot of fighting was going on by the name of Jalalabad. It was an imaginary first person account of Osama Bin-Laden hiding out there (or in Yemen).

Got to make a break tonight, Mo.

They’re closing in so I really gotta go.

There’s a heavy with a hot-wired van.

He’s gonna meet us tonight at midnight sharp

Outside the gates of Jalalabad.

After completing the recording, I became a little paranoid, thinking that government agents would be knocking on my door thinking I was a terrorist or something. I know it was stupid, but that’s the kind of fear the government was instilling in the American public at the time (still are). Michael told me there was a guy, another Larry, that had a small record company in Philly that wanted to buy the song outright. Since I didn’t want to have my name associated with the song, I agreed. Got a thousand bucks and that was that. Now I think it might have been a hasty decision, since it was the last thing I ever did musically with Michael, and it was pretty good considering what I had to work with when I got the initial recording. The guitars (although rocking) had an annoying high-pitched feedback which I had to squash with compression and equalization to keep under control. I will send a link to the song on my reverbnation account if I can find it.

As the years progressed, Michael became (what I thought) clinically depressed. He told me he wanted to shoot himself. I was livid. First of all suicide is a major no-no in my book and I hate fucking guns. I tried to talk him down from the metaphoric building, and when that didn’t seem to work. I said that I would never have any respect for a person that took the easy way out. I said his legacy, in my book, would be thoroughly tainted. We had harsh words and didn’t speak after that until I got the email. The heading was MK END. He wrote on September 12, 2006:

      I couldn’t swallow. blocked.
            had a scope put in to look.
            they called a helicopter to rush me to a big hospital that did cancer surgery.
            in hospital for 1 month. took 2 months to get up after that stay. another month to drive a    bit.
            feel weak and bad now.
            don’t call on phone ‘til im up to it. Not this week for sure.  I’m on meds.
            We will def speak next week. I’ll let you know when im up to it.
            thanks, m

I wrote back:

            Michael - just wanted to say I think you are one of the best rock n'
            roll guitarists I've had the privilege to know. GOD bless you and I
            hope you have PEACE my brother. I love you.

            James

On 10/26/2006 he wrote another email: in hospice now
            end soon - have Lennon and red ric 12 w/ me
            see ya around
            mk

That was the last time I ever heard from him. He died on November 18, 2006. It was the seventeenth anniversary of the day my father died. Bad day!

I still have some of the letters and recordings from Michael. I have the gift boxes, (at least some of the contents) including the wooden Martin coasters made from the part of the guitar they cut out to make the sound holes. I have the VHS tape of Titanic, the Beatles posters and records, the Vox adverts (pictured) from the sixties, but most of all I have the memories. It’s too bad there was such a long gap in our friendship (more than twenty-five years), but at least we got to record together again (even if it was courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service). Michael did make it into the Rock Encyclopedia with his old band, Horsepower and sang on the Beatles song, Piggies, from the movie, Helter Skelter in 1976 with our band, Silverspoon. See You Around, Michael; someday maybe, I’ll see you around.

Chapter 56 – Boomtown

Oh my God what is happening?

Everyone I know is struggling to believe.

And why is there so much pain in the world?

God only knows, but He’s not telling me.

-  God Only Knows - JWH

I was at a soccer coaches meeting (since I had volunteered to coach my son’s team) in the Williamson County facility on August 28^th, 2005. There were reports of a devastating hurricane approaching the New Orleans area and it looked like it was going to be a direct hit. I was speaking with another coach, Ann Rice, whose daughter Katrina’s birthday was the next day. I thought it was ironic—something the little girl would never forget if the predictions were accurate of the damage this hurricane would wreak.

The next morning I was watching CNN, as most people I imagined were doing, and the scenes that they captured were beyond belief. Hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. People stranded at the Superdome, daring rescues in the deluge, you name it, and it was all there. I happened to watch a report of a guy, Dwayne Jones, who told a reporter that there were thousands of people at the Convention Center also stranded and that he should gather his team of cameras and go there. They were in dire need of help. This person, Mr. Dwayne Jones, was not only a hero but after that report of all these people discovered at the Convention Center, nobody, as far as I know, heard a thing about him again. He, like so many others, was the unsung hero of Hurricane Katrina.

I was inspired and wrote a song aptly entitled Dwayne Jones. With a new collection of songs in my arsenal, and a regular gig at Kimbro’s and The Family Wash in East Nashville, I thought a new record was brewing. I had my anthem, God Only Knows (But He’s Not Telling Me), Somebody’s Father, Somebody’s Son and You Don’t Know Jack in the can and now I was inspired to write Evacuation Plan, which was a what-to-do-in-an-emergency pamphlet put to music. I had actually taken most of the lyrics from the Red Cross website and rearranged them into lyric form. Once again, I then wrote the title track, Boomtown, about unwanted progress coming to the neighboring small Southern town and projecting after the boon, the place would be on the decline (like most of America these days, I’m afraid). Once again, I played all the instruments on the record and by the beginning of 2006, the record mastered.

I was working for selling advertising for a music magazine in Nashville and my only sale was to a CD duplicating company. Instead of a commission, I traded it for them to reproduce 300 copies of my record. Not a bad deal! One day, Larry, the owner of the said music magazine company had found a small black and white Lhasa Apso dog and was trying to find a home for her. He said he was going to take her to the pound when I said I would take her instead. I named her Bagger after the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance, because she like to shag golf balls. I knew Donna wouldn’t be too happy about having another dog, since we already had Bailey and Bruno and a few cats.

One day I was speaking with my neighbor and casually mentioned that I might be looking for a home for wee Bagger. Sometimes I should learn to keep my mouth shut because I was beginning to grow attached to the dog. She said she would take her and I thought she was serious but I hadn’t really committed to giving her up yet; at least that’s what I thought. The next day I had let Bagger out for a pee and I couldn’t find her anywhere. I thought maybe she’d run away or had gotten hit by a car. I checked the yard and the streets—nothing.

That night I thought I saw her in my neighbor’s yard, but she looked different. She had her hair cut and styled. I moseyed over to ask Debbie (my obnoxious neighbor) if that was Bagger and she said, yes. “You told me I could have her and I jumped on it.”

“Well, I guess maybe I did mention something of that sort, but I had no idea that you would take her without asking me. To tell you the truth, I wanted to keep her.”

“Sorry, but I took her to the vet and spent over a hundred dollars having her “fixed”, not to mention the haircut. She’s mine now!”

What could I do? Sure, I could have insisted on taking the dog back, but I figured she was right next door and I could see her anytime I wanted. Besides, Donna wouldn’t have to worry about another poor animal to take care of, even though I think she had grown rather fond of the dog, too. Neighbors! Jeez. I guess that’s why the Robert Frost wrote in The Mending Wall, Good fences make good neighbors. I would love to prescribe to the adage of love thy neighbor and mostly I do, but these people are too much. I don’t know what it is about that property. The people that lived there before were weird and had a kid named Drew (one of Jonathan’s friends at the time), who I’m sure has aspirations to be the next Unabomber. Makes you wonder. Is the the house that attracts the people or vice versa?  One day I will build that fence, or maybe they’ll move, but I know some family as bad, if not worse will move in. Maybe we’ll move.

We’ve been in Middle Tennessee for over ten years and I still hadn’t gotten used to it. Nashville was a growing city, though it had never prepared itself for the extreme amount of development it had experienced in such a short time. Streets are too narrow and can’t accommodate the overabundance of commuters. Traffic is almost as bad as in Los Angeles—worse sometimes, when you considered the lack of alternate routes. There’s no real transportation system in place: no passenger trains or subways, just a limited number of bus routes. Most folks still took their cars and trucks.

Did I say Trucks? I’d never seen so many Ford F-150s, Chevy Silverados, Dodge Rams and GMC Sierras in my life. It was only the damn Yankees, like me, who drove foreign sports cars. You know what they say down here: A Yankee was a northerner who came south; a damn Yankee was one who stayed. And churches? Fahgettaboutit! The first thing they asked you when you came down here was, “What church do you go to?” When I told them I was Jewish, Nashvillians want to either convert me on the spot, or simply say, “My, isn’t that interesting! You ought to come down on Sunday and talk to our pastor.” For others, it was a little less confrontational: “I had a good friend once who was Jewish.”

The once quiet and unassuming Southern town of Spring Hill (the neighboring town to the south) had grown up in a big way. Unfortunately it grew in places like Burger King’s MacDonald’s, Wendy’s and Pizza Hut.  At least they built a Home Depot and a Lowe’s but no Bank of America or Wells Fargo so I still have to trek to Franklin (ten miles to the north) to do my banking. That’s why I wrote the title track to my new CD.

Another one goes up

Another one comes down

And I don’t recognize this sleepy Southern Town

They got those big ideas and dreams of steel and gold

Now I realize all the pretty things pockets just can’t hold

And it’s sundown on this boom town

And it’s sunrise in my little darling’s eyes. - 

Boomtown - JWH

Where would we go anyway? Back to LA? Not with the traffic, crime and general malaise mixed with aggression in the attitude of most people there. Oshkosh Wisconsin? Probably a very nice northern town but the winter? I don’t think I could handle that. What about Seattle? Too rainy. Phoenix? Too hot (even though it’s a dry heat.) Scotland? A strong possibility, but we would have to quarantine all of our animals. Looks like I’m kind of stuck here. Oh well, I guess it could be worse.

Chapter 55 – Man o’ Americana

In late December 2004, the Tennessee Haymers made their way back to Scotland. It would be the first time my children and me would ever experience the old country in the winter. I knew Christmas would be a blast . . . and the New Year . . . who knew what that would be like, except there would be a lot of drinking, hugging, kissing, and general tomfoolery. I even was crazy enough to bring my golf clubs—I wasn’t about to go to the home of golf without them. On one of the warmer days (about 40 degrees) I went down to Thornton Golf Course while Donna and the boys were at an aquarium called Deep Sea world in Queensferry near Edinburgh. I was at my own amusement park. The weather was cold but I dressed in layers (it was hard to swing the club around all that clothing but I managed). The course was beautiful and challenging but the management wouldn’t allow anyone to hit off the fairways without placing the ball on these little plastic mats, 8”-by- 3”. It thought it was ridiculous but I guess they did it to preserve their grass since a divot wouldn’t grow back until spring. I could see their point. I made sure to hit the ball in the first cut of roughs so I could avoid the stupid mats. It worked out well.

My instincts about New Years Eve was right on the money. They have a tradition called first footin’ where at the stroke of midnight everyone goes outside and knocks on all the neighbors doors with a bottle of whiskey, lager or whatever and the true craziness really begins. I was a bit more than six years sober, so I didn’t partake in that part of the festivities, but I got to see the locals make fun-loving fools of themselves. Because they were all drunk, everyone assumed I was as drunk as they were. It was hilarious to be the only sober person among fifty or more staggering Scots. It was a great trip but Donna and I knew with three children now, it was going to be awhile since we could afford to head back over there. I haven’t been back since and, I must say, I really miss it—especially the golf and the wild assortment of characters— but the local food . . . well (except for the Indian restaurants which are some of the best in the world) I can leave that alone.

We were back in America in the beginning of January and with six months left go until Jonathan’s Bar Mitzvah at the end of June we were all beginning to sweat from nerves, apprehension and plain old exhaustion. The only one that was keeping it together was Jonathan. He’d only been studying Hebrew for a little over a year and was doing amazingly. I don’t know how he could learn such a difficult language so easily, but I guess that’s where his aptitude lies. When I first asked Jonathan why he wanted to be Bar Mitzvah, a year back he said, “Dad, I want to do something meaningful with my life and learn about my Jewish heritage.” How could I argue with that? I remember my main motivation when I was thirteen was the money, and the party. What a great kid!

On the morning of June 25, 2005 all the relatives were wandering in to the temple. Donna’s Mom and Dad, and her baby sister, Heather, had come from Scotland. My Uncle Ellis and Aunt Enid, my sister, Susan, brother, Robbie and his two almost grown kids, Max and Emily, my Cousin Richard and his wife, Sue and their daughter, Amanda who is three whole days younger than Jonathan all made it in from California. The Amazon woman, Vange, her husband Howard and I think eight of their soon to be ten children had arrived, the only one who was late was the photographer, Holly, but she made it ten minutes before the shebang clicked into gear. I got to say Jonathan was a star that day and I was so proud of him I could have plotzed right then and there.

On the musical front, I was sending out my record, Field Recordings to radio stations all over the world getting contacts from the Indie Bible, resource and reference book that lived up to its name. Radio stations were actually playing my songs in places like Germany, Britain, Australia, France, Holland, Denmark, Japan and the good old USA. I had the playlists to prove it. I felt like I was back on the map again, and hadn’t felt that way since Silverspoon was recording at The Record Plant with Mal Evans and Bob Merritt, not to mention the Keith Moon record soon after that. The reviews I got were very promising. Lord Litter, one of Germany’s top deejays wrote to me saying, “Very cool “reduced” music—I will definitely play.” Gerd Strassen, also from Germany’s “Ems-Vechte Welle radio FM 95.6 said, “Thank you so much for sending me “Field Recordings” I really enjoyed it. My faves are Making Ground, Eternity’s Waltz, This Song, followed by Experimenting Peace and Monday Morning Memory.” Not bad, I thought, that’s more than half the record.

I thought the overall best review was from Eddie Russell, a deejay in Texas. He said, “Greetings James . . . my goodness . . . . I sure enjoyed my initial review of your pure rootsy CD Field Recordings yesterday . . . where all holds together on the whole with staggering magnitude. Thanks again for the great inspiration due to your job well done . . . . Eddie.”

Eddie was instrumental in referring me to a plethora of the afore mentioned radio stations and I only hope that he is still around somewhere spinning those CD’s or MP3s.

With momentum moving in a positive direction, I knew I needed a band. I began auditioning bass players, drummers and second guitarist from ads I found on Craigslist. My ad was fairly specific and the responses well received. My routine was this: I would meet the prospective band members at the closest Starbucks and give them a CD and I would accept any CD’s, tapes or links to music they played on. We would feel each other out and if we were still interested in taking it the next step, we would get together and play. The whole process took a little more than a month and by the end of the summer I had a four piece band. It was Josh Fuson on drums, Greg (It’s a Wonderful Life) Bailey on bass, and Grant (Big Smoky) Johnson on second guitar and pedal steel.

There was a new venue called Americana Tonight hosted by Mark Wehrner to be held at Douglas Corner in Nashville on November 11^th (see picture. Notice how my middle name is spelled W$esley). It was a major showcase in Nashville for up-and-coming acts in the genre. We rehearsed in my living room for a couple of weeks and ended up doing five songs. It was pretty darn tight and we got a great reaction. Soon after that I booked a gig at a local club in Franklin called Kimbro’s where we played once a month on Friday nights for about six months. In the meantime, I was inspired to write and I had nearly twenty-five new songs to record. With the radio stations playing my songs and a new band I had ideas of booking gigs oversees and I was making inquiries to get going in that arena. I thought it was time to make a new record now with three CDs under my belt, there would be an arsenal that nobody in his or her right mind could turn down; at least that’s what I thought. Time would tell.

The biggest stumbling block was money. Nashville, (like Los Angeles and New York) is an impossible place to make a living playing music unless you’re playing the big venues. Everyone wants you to play for free and if you complain about it, the club owners tell you to get lost since plenty of kids are lining up around the block to have their music heard. I still had to pay my band members and the only way to do that was to sell CDs or with tips. But how many CDs can you sell if only ten or twenty patrons show up at the gig? Frustrating business! I needed something magical to happen, but it seemed like I had used all the alchemy I was able to conjure when I was in Silverspoon. I mean things were going okay, but I felt like I was all alone in a strange town that really didn’t get me, not like they did when I was In LA, or maybe it was because I was younger then and everything seemed fresh and there always somebody around willing to promote, wine and dine and dole out the powdered refreshments. I just wasn’t there anymore and I was relatively sober (except for a few joints once in a while). It was all about the money now and if you had a young band and could write songs about sexy, redneck girls drinking beer on the tailgate of their pick-up trucks you stood a chance. What’s an old man o’ Americana gonna do?

Chapter 54 – Field Recordings

It ain’t classical, it ain’t blues

But baby needs a new pair of shoes

Ain’t too short or too long – this song.

It ain’t positive, it ain’t dark

It might ignite a spark

It may not hit the charts – I still like it – This Song by JWH from the album - “Field Recordings”.

At the end of my first record, See You Around, I had taken the leap into the state of the art realm of music production—Protools. Of course, all I could afford was the minimal version called the M Box. My good friend, Chas Sandford, had been goading me to get into the twenty-first century with my recording equipment, after all, he had the best and most expensive version of Protools, all the plug-ins under God’s little sun patched into every conceivable module of vintage and current gear. That’s why I called him Mr. Accessory. I purchased a Studiomaster console from him that once belonged to his late brother, Richard, bought a Blue microphone and now I was all set to begin my second project, Field Recordings, which would be my first completely digital record.

From 1937 to 1942, Alan Lomax was Assistant in Charge of the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress to which he and his father and numerous collaborators contributed more than ten thousand field recordings. He would go down to places like Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee and capture recordings in a “field” of some of the most renown blues and folk artist of the era. People such as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry, Pete Seeger and many other too numerous to mention. I thought by naming my record Field Recordings, not only would it be a nod to the great Alan Lomax, but it would describe the simplistic approach I was trying to capture in the record. I hope I succeeded. I think I did.

It was difficult at first to point and click my way through the mixing board on the computer monitor (I had always preferred a hand’s on approach) but the trade-off of having a plethora of tracks at my disposal was well worth the learning curve I had to navigate. With more than twenty new songs to choose from I picked the best ones, in my opinion, and the ones that seemed to complement each other. I ended up with only nine, but the last song, Monday Morning Memory is eight minutes and thirty-two seconds. It is a stream of conscious rant about a typical Monday in the life of James Wesley Haymer.  Once again I played all the instruments and sang all the vocal parts on all the songs on this album. It’s not that I’m opposed to a band; it just was so hard to get people down to Thompson Station at the strange hours I’d like to record.

There was this new website on the internet called Fame Games. It was an online musical artist competition. You would upload your song and submit it in the various categories they had available. I did quite well and voted the top artist in the folk/rock category a few times. It was a great boost for my ego as well as giving some exposure to fans etc. that would have never had a chance to hear my music. It’s a shame they are no longer in business. I turned a few of my friends onto that site and one of them was the infamous Sunset Slim.

Slim is a character right out of a Damon Runyon novel—the original rambling-gambling man. I hadn’t seen him in thirty years until a friend, Bruce Bradley, a waiter at Mario’s, ran into a guy that blew his mind and he began to tell me the story. He came in to the restaurant dressed in a top hat and tails with a young beauty in a Kill Bill, Uma Thurman wig. Slim was telling Bruce how he just got back from Vegas and was in the running for the World Series of Poker. He was flashing hundreds and ordering the most expensive things on the menu. He gave Bruce and exorbitant tip, which made his whole week. The next week he told me about this eccentric guy when we were playing golf at Harpeth Hills. He described Slim to a T and I knew that I knew the guy. It could only be one person. In the seventies, I worked with a guy named Bobby Paine in a boiler room selling toner and office supplies. He was a character then and after work he said he was recording a county record. I told him I played guitar and keyboards and he told me to come down to the session. I played a cool Hammond B-3 part on a song called Honky-tonk Hell and he gave me a crisp hundred dollar bill for my efforts.

I told Bruce the next time the guy came into the restaurant to give him my number. I got a call a few days later and I knew it was him. Who else could it be? He was living in Nashville now with Jeannie, the girl from the restaurant who is at least thirty years his junior. Not too bad. I never knew that Slim and I had so much in common (my wife is 12 years younger than me.) Not only is he a talented singer/songwriter whose songs are a real throwback to the days when country music was real and the songs were about trains, card games, heavy drinking and cheating (his pictured album All Bets Are Off is really worth a listen), he is a very accomplished golfer. Now we play music and gold together (more golf than music these days). We have a bet called a Nassau where the winner of the front nine gets five bucks, the winner of the back nine also gets five and if you win the overall score it’s another fiver. We usually end up with the same score (somewhere in the mid to high seventies). Slim always wears the most expensive golf outfits and sometimes they are, well let me just say, they are a statement. I once asked Jim, the starter for Greystone Golf Club (a place we frequent) if Slim had arrived yet. Jim rolled his eyes and said. “Oh yeah, you can’t miss him.” He was right. Slim was wearing yellow and green paisley long pants (I’ve never seen the guy wear shorts even on 90-100 degree days) and a purple silk shirt with some outrageous chapeaux on his head to compliment the get-up. I think he dressed like that to distract his opponents. I can testify that it works. You could write a book about the guy and someday I might just do that. I did write a song called The Ballad of Sunset Slim, and it got some play on Fame Games.

Another track on Field Recordings called For Elise, is a bluesy/folk version of Beethoven’s Für Elise (who I give co-writing credit). It contains some Hamlet inspired lyrics. From the exposure on Fame Games, I (after sending out hundreds of CDs) got lots of airplay in Europe, Australia and even the good ole USA. I thought things were finally going in the right direction in my career again.

Here is a sample of the lyrics some in For Elise:

Someone call an ambulance, forget man you’d better call a priest.

Guess I got to get it off my mind then I’ll go in peace.

You know that there was poison in wine just look in my valise.

Everything I did, I did for love and for Elise.

Go to - http://www.reverbnation.com/q/55ubwp to hear these tunes.

Chapter 53 – Thespian Days

It was now a few months after Mom’s passing and I needed to put my energies into something constructive. Jonathan and Daniel were in elementary school and Morgan was going to Thompson Station Day Care three days a week which afforded me the luxury of having two free days to create, make money, play golf and whatnot. Then word came down that they were closing up shop and we had to find a new day care facility for Morgan. Wonderland day care in Franklin was about ten miles away and much more of a schlep than the place on the corner only two miles away. Morgan didn’t really like the atmosphere and their strict rules all that much and when they informed us they were raising their rates, I volunteered to keep my youngest son home until the time he would start nursery school in six months time.

I was earning a decent part-time wage working Ebay for all it was worth buying and selling guitars, amps and recording gear. I spent my free time writing songs for my next album at night or when Morgan was napping. Still, I felt that the boy needed some extracurricular activity to keep his creative juices flowing. I found out about an art class down in Spring Hill (the next town south of Thompson Station) that was a parent/child facility. It sounded like a lot of fun—it was! We shared our hours there making paper Mache masterpieces and balloon mobiles covered with sparkly things and such. It was a fantastic way to bond with my three-year old and I felt like I was getting to know him better. Being a house-husband was wonderful; I could understand what John Lennon was raving about in the final five years of his life.

One of the mother’s who came to the art studio, Marcia Gallardo, told me about a new group of actors forming at the Spring Hill Arts Center aka SHAC, and they were looking for people for the upcoming production of Oliver. I figured, why not. My father was an actor and I knew it was in my blood. The play’s director and head honcho of SHAC was a seasoned veteran by the name of Dionne (another Yankee) so I decided to audition for the lead as Fagan. After a week of deliberations, it came down to a decision between me and another more experienced actor, John. He ended up getting the lead part, but I received enough kudos for what they believed was talent (I wasn’t so sure) and got the part in a supporting role as Doctor Grimwig. I was okay with that and actually a bit relieved not to have to memorize so many lines. I did three more plays after that, one original called Crossings where I played the part of Isaiah dressed in a long beard and tunic, and Up the Down Staircase. In the latter, I had a scare when I had totally forgotten my line, (an actor’s worst nightmare). There was a thirty second pause where the tension in the air was as thick as Steak Tartare. I felt like I was completely naked and could do nothing else but wing it. Finally, I made up some speech and I think I got away with it since the play resumed—the show must go on! Even though there was that one hiccup, I had a great time doing these plays and had learned so much about acting from Ms. Dionne that I decided to audition for the lead as Cpt. Hook/Mr. Darling in the autumn production of Peter Pan. I was into really it. I bought a Howard Stern wig and grew a handlebar mustache (I even waxed the tips) and soul patch. I looked awesome (if I do say so myself) and got the part.

There were open auditions for children to play various roles such as Peter Pan’s crew and Hook’s navy, so I encouraged Daniel (who was six-years old at the time) to try out. He was hesitant at first but when he saw a few friends from school had also gotten parts he got with the program and got the part as Dirty Dan, one of my dastardly crew members. It took a lot of work to memorize the lines and dances for the part of Cpt. Hook but I felt up for the task, after all, I am a pirate at heart and can be downright scary if I put my mind to it. Funny enough, Marcia, the woman who suggested I check out SHAC got the part as my wife, Mrs. Darling.

There was a scene where Cpt. Hook goes off stage to fetch a lantern to investigate a disturbance in the galley of the ship which was in actuality Peter Pan making crocodile sounds and generally taking the piss out of the fearful captain. I had an idea. I wanted Daniel, who didn’t have any speaking lines, to have a few lines, well at least one. Hook said, “Dirty Dan, go out and fetch me my lantern.” He replied, “Aye aye, sir,” and would venture into the wings to get the said lantern. While he was off-stage I said, “I really like that young chap, he’s like a son to me,” which got a big laugh since most of the audience knew he was actually my son. Like my father, I loved to improvise. It reminded me of the time when my father was playing Sammy Fong in the show Flower Drum Song. There was a scene where the waiter brings an ice bucket with champagne to him but while making his entrance the waiter knocks into a hanging microphone that begins to swing violently back and forth. The waiter said, “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?” My dad said, “Yes, can you please stop the microphone from swinging.” The crowd went absolutely wild and I was beaming with pride for my father who not only eased the tension but made it seem like it was part of the show. I’ll never forget that.

During one particular performance of Peter Pan, there was a child in the audience that was crying and it began to get annoying not only to me but the rest of the cast. One of my crew had a line, “is there anything else I get do for you captain?” I answered, “Yes, can you please get that young child to stop his incessant crying.” I gave that poor child the look of death. I found out years later when he approached me that he had had nightmares for years about it. Just like my father had done fifty years earlier, I had done my job!

After the show ended, the assistant director, Myra Anderson, informed me that she had written a play called Fairytale Confidential, a story based on the Grimm fairytale’s about four characters (Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty) who had psychological problems. I got the part of Dr. Grimm, the psychologist. It was a main role and I had to learn a ton of lines, most of which were fairly interchangeable. For example, “I see,” or “I understand,” and “tell me more about your mother,” were easily confused.” Sometimes I had the habit of improvising which frustrated the other actors (all women, except for Prince Charming who might as well have been a woman.) I thought it would be a blast being in a play with good looking females but, I’m afraid, it was not the pleasurable experience I thought it would be.

We performed a preliminary week’s run at The Bongo Java, a well known coffee house in Nashville. There was of tension developing between the cast and me since I didn’t want to participate in their nightly prayers to Jesus before the curtain rose. Oh I went along with it at first, but the whole idea of praying about a performance seemed in the same league as praying for the outcome of a high school football game. I think God has more pressing things on his plate. One night Myra hired her daughter, a twenty-one year old know-it-all, to work the lighting. As she was moving the fader for a blackout, there was a glitch in the system which would cut out the lights in mid stream. I, knowing a little about such things, figured it was probably some dust in the fader and all it needed was a little movement to work out the kink. The young girl marched up to me scowling and said with an attitude, “So, I suppose you are the new lighting engineer, too? Take your hands off the damn fader.” I had had enough. There was no way an ingénue was going to talk to me with such disrespect and I was going to let her know how I felt. I said, “You know, you are just like your mother, a REAL BITCH!” I walked off without turning around but I could feel her and her mother’s stares like poisoned daggers in my back. It goes without saying that when the second run of the show scheduled for a few weeks later, I was not asked to return as the lovable Dr. Grimm. It was a shame since I really enjoyed the well written play and thought it had a lot of potential. But I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut about how I felt. I think that is a major theme in my life. Somebody has to speak up—it might as well be me. That was my last play. It was time for me to get back to the music and begin work on my new record; still, it was a lovely distraction while it lasted.

Chapter 52 – Cadillac Eyes

I’m looking forward to going back,

A sojourn to the past.

They say you can’t go home again,

 But I know that in the end,

 I’m looking forward to going back—JWH

The mind is like the internet or vice versa. Sometime you hit a link that leads to another link and you spend the whole day linking up instead of getting down to business. Well, last week I wrote about the Silver Quaich and it made me think of the original one in ’97; which linked me back to what happened just prior to leaving for Scotland in July of that year. I must have blocked it out. Either that, or the Tramadol or Ibuprofen to block the pain of a root canal and a fractured molar has clouded my mind. How could I have passed over one of the most important events in my life? Even though I’m backtracking a little –here it is.

It was July of 1997 and Bridget Bardog was 16 years old and, as most dogs at that tenuous age, her health was failing. The five Haymers had booked a flight for Scotland scheduled to leave the last week in the month and we were worried about putting Bridget in a kennel. I knew it would most likely kill her and I couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning the poor girl; she would have thought the same thing, that I was abandoning her in her time of need, her last precious weeks, days or hours on the planet. Animals (especially dogs and cats) know these things. She didn’t have any diseases, no heart trouble, (all the years we spent together, me on skates and her pulling me along the streets of Los Angeles kept her in shape) the only problem was her age. She had lost a lot of weight and was incontinent. (What do you expect?) I would bathe her every day and still, I hate to mention, how horrible it was to see her rump covered in maggots. I would spray her with vinegar mixed with water and then brush the dead maggots off of her with a toothbrush. I knew it was time but I couldn’t let go. Fortunately, we adopted a male, black cat named Mowgli in 1996 and, as it turned out, he helped us through the hard time of letting go of Bridget and would earn the distinction of being the family’s once-in-a-lifetime cat. More about him later.

Bridget’s life-long friend and companion, Ginger, had succumbed to liver cancer two years earlier at the age of ten. We had to put her to sleep. I was going to take her to Dr. Woody’s before Donna got home but, as fate would have it, my MGB-GT (one of the most reliable cars I had ever owned) decided not to start. I tried everything I knew to get it going, cleaned the spark plugs, charged the battery, checked the points in the distributor—all good. As fate would have it, as soon as Donna got home, the car fired up. It was the hand of God intervening, waiting for my wife (who had a special attachment to Ginger) to come home to say a final farewell.

 But now it was Bridget’s turn to leave. I wanted her to live forever but I knew that was a child’s dream. At least, I hoped, she could pass on naturally before we left on our trip across the sea. On Sunday, during the final round of the British Open, it was unusually hot and humid here in Tennessee. I let Bridget out, as I usually did, to the place in our front yard where she would lie down overlooking the rolling hills and tree-lined hollows of Thompson Station. I was watching Justin Leonard fighting his way to the top of the leaderboard and had forgotten about Bridget. When I realized that I had left her outside too long in the heat, I panicked and went outside to look for hoping that it was not too late. I didn’t see her in her regular spot, so I searched high and low. I couldn’t find her. I remembered that when it’s time for animals to die, the sometimes go off on their own not wanting to burden their owners with seeing them in pain or misery. That’s what my Beagle, Sammy Fong, did in the seventies and I thought that was what she had done. Then I saw her. Bridget was lying in the hot sun in the neighbor’s front yard. She wasn’t moving.

I picked her up and carried her lifeless body into the house. I was in too much shock to cry, but I knew the tears would flow sooner or later. I gently placed her on the Indian rug in the foyer and called out for Donna who was in the kitchen making dinner. When she saw the poor dog she cried out, “Oh my God, no!” I didn’t realize she loved her as much as she did. I had forgotten that she had lived with Bridget for nine of the sixteen years—more than half the sweet dog’s life. Jonathan (Morgan wouldn’t come along for another two years) was out visiting with a friend and Daniel was in his crib taking a nap. Even though Daniel would have been too young to understand, I was relieved they didn’t have to see Bridget like that. I moved her body into the shed (my makeshift garage) and put her down on the passenger seat of my Austin Healey. She used to love going for rides in that car and I felt it was only fitting (even though she was in doggie heaven) for her to spend her last moments there.

I dreaded having to dig a hole and bury her in the pet cemetery on the side of the house, besides the ground was dry and as hard as cement. I decided to have her cremated and put her ashes in a beautiful black and gold urn Donna and I had gotten as a wedding present. The next day I took her body to Cedar Hills and they did the deed. Her remains are on my bookshelf now resting beside my favorite novels (Mulligan’s Tour is one of them.)

 A week later, we were on a plane heading for Scotland. It’s like she knew the dilemma I was in and let go of her life so I didn’t have to worry about her. Bridget Bardog was the greatest animal I had ever had the pleasure of knowing. I thought about the first time I saw from my kitchen window on Radford Drive. The emaciated Shepherd/Wolfhound mix running in circles on Ventura Boulevard she began sniffing an old lady waiting for the 150 bus that goes from Canoga Park to Universal City and back again. The bus pulled up and opened its doors, and the dog followed. A few minutes later, she exited, or more likely thrown off the bus, and then bolted back to the alley. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing; like a scene from a Charlie Chaplin movie with the lead part played by a dog.

I went downstairs, and saw Jack (the retired aircraft mechanic that lived in the laundry room) and a few of his drinking buddies feeding the poor animal. “Hey Jack, whose dog is this?”

“He’s been hanging around here for a few days and we’ve been feeding him. Her name’s Bridget Bardog—at least that’s what we’ve been calling her.”

“Bridget Bardog? That’s perfect.”

I crept up to the dog, who began to sniff my crotch, and then lick my hands, which still had the pungent scent of hot dogs and mustard on them. “She seems to like you,” Jack said without any attitude at all.

“Do you think I could keep her?”

“Well that would be up to her, I think.”

I knelt down, looked at the dog, and then petted her head. “Bridget, you wanna be my dog? I’ll feed you the good stuff, walk you and take you for rides in my cool sports car, and even take you to the doggie doctor. I know you won’t like that part, but I’ll bet anything you have worms. I’ll be upstairs waiting. What do you say?”

The dog tilted his head, as if she completely understood. I went up the fifteen stairs that led to my apartment and waited. Twenty minutes went by and nothing. I looked out the window and didn’t see her; wondered whether I should go back down. That’s when I heard the clip-clop of claws scraping against the pebbled stairs. It was Bridget.

That was September of 1981. I had recently broken off my relationship with Marly, and now I had the much needed companionship, even though she was a dog, she instantly became my best friend. Problem was, being broke and gigs were scarce, I needed to get a job. It wasn’t only me now; I had another mouth to feed. I went back to Central Supply (the phone sales job I had in Hollywood, but they had recently moved to Van Nuys.) I soon was making enough money to pay the rent, feed us both and buy a Porsche 912, a poor man’s Volkswagen.

I’ll never forget the time I bought an ounce of weed and kept it in a baggie under my bed. I went out for a few hours and when I returned I saw Bridget passed out on the kitchen floor. There were remnants of green twigs and things in her mouth and I knew what she had done. I checked under the bed and it was gone. She had eaten the whole ounce, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. I freaked out and called my vet hoping I wouldn’t have the cops knocking on my door—but it was more important to find out what to do. Dr. Kim told me to douse her with Pepto Bismol and try to induce vomiting if I could. I then discovered part of the baggie in the kitchen by the fridge and was relieved to see at least half of the marijuana in the shredded bag. I poured half a bottle of the pink stuff down her throat. She shook her head in protest; struggled to her paws (even though she had walked into walls and her legs splayed too weak to support her weight) I knew she was going to be okay. But I had to make sure.

I drove her to Dr. Kim’s at Studio City Animal Hospital and concurred with my prognosis. He gave her a complete physical and then told me she had Cadillac eyes.

“Cadillac eyes?”

“Yes, but it is not too serious. The most important thing now is for her to rest and drink lots of water.”

“I soon realized that he (being from Korean descent) meant something entirely different.

“Oh, you mean she has cataracts.”

“That’s what I said, Cadillacs.”

I thought about the days she had pulled me (on my roller-skates) over the streets of Los Angeles, Burbank, Santa Monica and Venice. The dog had amazing endurance and it kept me in shape, too. That led to my meeting Maria, my pregnant, eighteen-year-old, punk rocker girlfriend that had run away from the domineering step mother in Germany. Maria had the baby and we gave it up for adoption (one of the hardest thing I ever had to do) and then I followed her over to the Fatherland. I had to come back to America, not because I missed my homeland or my family and friends (even though I did miss them a little)—I missed Bridget more.

I made a list of places we’d moved in and out of together over the years: Radford to Oakhurst; Highland, and back to Oakhurst; Mammoth Avenue in Van Nuys; then back to Oakhurst again; El Cerritos near Hollywood Boulevard; Washington Way in Venice:, Oakhurst yet again; Canton Drive in Studio City, where my parents had moved after getting thrown out of Oakhurst (because of Bridget and her three puppies born in May of 1982. My Mom and Dad kept two of the puppies and we gave one away to a neighbor); Camrose Drive, where they’d been living when I met Donna; 2107 Vine Street; 4711 Santa Lucia in Woodland Hills where Jonathan had been born; Chas’s guest house in Franklin, Tennessee...and finally the hundred-year-old farm house on Thompson Station Road where Daniel and Morgan were born, and who knew how many places she’d lived before I had found her. Fifteen places in her sixteen-and-a-half-years—that’s 115 in dog years. That night in July, 1997, Donna and I cried and laughed, and cried some more about sweet, loving Bridget Bardog—the once-in-a-lifetime dog who changed my life forever. The amazing dog with the Cadillac eyes.

Chapter 51 – Damned Yankees and the Millennium Quaich

While relaxing in my office with my feet up on the desk I thought about what possessed me to want to write a Faustian golf screenplay in the first place. I thought about getting back into the music now that I had put the script away in that drawer but I hadn’t written a song in months.

I thought about the trip I had taken with my father to Wallingford, Connecticut in 1963. He was playing the role of Applegate (the Devil) in the musical, Damned Yankees in the theatre-in-the-round circuit along the eastern seaboard of the United States. I was in seventh heaven, just me and my dad and a cast and crew that consisted of starlets and baseball players. What more could an eleven year old kid want? It gets better.

Not only were we staying at a Tally-Ho motel with the cast and crew, there was a baseball field in the back with a real pitcher’s mound and machine rolled foul lines in pristine white chalk. The baseball players in the show all had Spalding Whitey Ford signature model baseball gloves and in the early afternoon, after they had their noon-time cup of coffee, someone decided to play a pick-up game on the field. I was so excited they included me in their festivities I almost forgot to get my glove from my dad. He didn’t play that afternoon; instead he was the home plate umpire, a job more suited to his demonstrative personality. He let me borrow his glove and I took my position as the starting second baseman for the Yankees against the Senators. I got three hits (I’m not sure the pitcher was throwing goose-eggs but I still managed to smack them into center field). I also threw a few of the opponents out at first and made a diving catch over the bag in the middle of the diamond. The shortstop came over and tousled my hair saying. “Way to go, kid.” I was one of the proudest moments in my life.

That night was the opening of the show and I got to hang out backstage watching my amazingly talented father in his red shirt underneath a black suit play the part of the nefarious Mr. Applegate. Not only was a treated like an equal, I was coming on like gangbusters to the statuesque showgirls who thought I was so damned cute. I didn’t care if they thought of me as harmless, in my mind I was planning to have an illicit time with them (even though I wasn’t quite sure what illicit meant or how I was to go about consummating any kind of serious romance). It didn’t matter—they were gorgeous and were paying attention to me.

After the show, my father and some of the cast went to a diner where they served them gin in coffee cups so if raided, it would look like they were all having a harmless cup of java. I was a little confused by it all but didn’t question anything. I was on a natural high—baseball, broads and showbiz. It goes without saying that day influenced me greatly. No wonder I ended up writing a story that was golf’s version of Damned Yankees.

Of course that show was a major influence and thirty-six years later working at Nashville Golf and Athletic for Mr. Whittemore proved to be a culmination of that story. I knew I had something special. My father was an actor who played a little golf and in Mulligan’s Tour his character, Johnny Mulligan, was the opposite—a golfer who did a little acting. But there was some other incident that rekindled my love of golf—The Millennium Quaich.

In 2000, five Haymer’s went on our fourth or fifth trip over to Scotland. In the old days, my drinking days, single-malt scotch was my favorite drink bar none. My brother-in-law, Roy, had organized a golf tournament called the Silver Quaich; a tribute to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s throwing the silver goblet into the Firth of Forth in defiance of English rule. It was the second time I was to participate in the tournament. Three years earlier, in 1997, (leaderboard pictured) I had come in 6^th place. I was the lone American out of twenty-five Scottish golfers.

 Now the Quaich was taking place in Pitlochry, the same place where I proposed to Donna twelve years earlier. I was excited and in dread about playing with these same twenty-five Scottish blokes since the winner was supposed to drink a dram of whiskey from the traditional representation of the famed silver chalice. What if I won? Would I be tempted to drink? I didn’t want to purposely lose but I also didn’t want to get into a situation where I would feel obligated to perform the ancient rite.

Again, twenty-five Scottish golfers and I boarded the hired bus from Glenrothes to Pitlochry because after the two rounds of golf a lot of celebrating was going to take place and the golfers would be too drunk to drive home. A good, sensible idea. I remembered in ’97 I was bleeding drunk and could hardly make it in my in-laws front door without falling down. But now I was sober and I was sure I was going to be the only one who was after the tournament concluded.

Paired with big John Holmes and Ian McShane for the first round, I knew I was in pleasant company. John was a hulking Scotsman with fiery red hair and a large thirst for Murphy’s stout which he proceeded to devour after each hole. He was pissed as a skunk and his score reflected his inebriation. But, at least, he was a charming and hilarious drunk. Ian, a man in his late fifties, was playing it straight. In fact when he saw that I was contending in the tournament, he was more like a cheerleader giving me the confidence and inside information on how to approach the course. He was a godsend. I entered the clubhouse after the first round with a 79 and was in third place.

In the afternoon round I was fortunate enough to be playing alongside Ian and John again. By this time John had sobered up a bit and managed to keep the ball on the proper fairway. Ian was out of the running with his first round 96 so he concentrated on my game more than his own. When I was in the rough on the first hole he said, “C’mon Jamie, tak yer seven iron and knock it doon.” When I did as he said, I managed to cozy the ball up between the pot bunkers and the ball came to rest ten below the pin. Scottish courses are much different that American ones where instead of everything rolling toward the center the fairways and greens, they seem to slant to the roughs. I mean you could hit what you thought was the best shot in the world and still end up out of bounds. And the roughs? They’re nearly impossible to escape from. You have to muscle your way out.

While Big John and Ian bogied and double bogied their way through the next five holes, I had parred them all. I was one under par. Now at the highest elevation on the course, the view of the ancient castle in town was breathtaking. It was also the most difficult part of the course. I bogied seven and eight but birdied nine and had racked up a decent 39 after the outward nine.

The back nine was a series of dog-legs that I somehow managed to survey without too much difficulty. I guess between Ian’s coaching and my prior knowledge from the first round I came into the clubhouse with a 77— 39 on the front and 38 on the back. With only three golfers left out on the course I was in first place. My brother-in-law, Roy and the other mates were slapping me on the back congratulating me for having the tournament sewn up. Their only regret was having to hand the Quaich over to a Yank. I told them it wasn’t over yet since Stevie Robertson, and Alan Tait, two of the top golfers were still out on the course. My insides were churning like butter. I was hoping that Stevie or Alan would have a great showing. Second place would be fine and the prize was a Lyle and Scott sweater. I could handle that.

Alan had a tough second round and came into the clubhouse worn and weary. But not Stevie Robertson. He shot a 76 and had beaten me by one stroke. I came in second and, much to my relief got the gray sweater. At least I didn’t have to break my sobriety and the Scotsmen didn’t have to relinquish the Quaich to a Yank. “All’s well that ends well.” Shakespeare said that. “I’d rather have a Lyle and Scott sweater than a Quaich full of Glenfiddich single-malt scotch.” I said that.