I TRIED TO keep things as cool as I could, but I was frustrated
without a car and having to hitch-hike to school on Olympic and Doheny.
Sometimes friends would drive by in their new Mustangs and Camaros. On a few
occasions Tony Sales and his girlfriend, Nancy, who drove a brand-new black
Trans AM, would give me a ride to school. Now that I think about it, why would
they be driving west on Olympic Blvd, when the Sales home was north of Santa
Monica? Santa Monica Boulevard was the Mason-Dixon line of Beverly Hills. A
dividing line between the affluent and the sort of affluent. The north won out
on that one, too.
Tony's dad was none other than Soupy Sales who I watched
religiously on Saturday mornings in Jericho, New York. Rumor has it that he was
fired from his show after telling the kids at home to go to their mommy's
purses and take out those tens and twenties then mail in the cash to his home
address.
Nancy was a pretty, curly-headed blonde that looked a couple
of years older than Tony. I don't know if many of you know but Tony, a few
years later would play on Todd Rundgren's first album, Runt (1970). He and his
younger brother, Hunt went on to play with Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Tin
Machine. When I went over to the Sales home a few months later, he played the
record while I listened dumbstruck in the easy chair. I knew right away Todd
Rundgren was going to a household name. Wouldn't you know Nancy was Nancy Allen, who would later become a
movie star and marry Brian De Palma in 1979. She set the standard for all
future "bitch-goddess teenagers" as Chris Hargensen in Stephen King's
"Carrie". I guess it's a shame they got divorced in 1984.
It was August of 1969 I had my right arm in a sling. I can't
remember why but it was probably from punching a door or a wall. I have anger
issues that were negatively expressed to a much greater extent in those days. I
had wandered over to Roxbury Park wearing a white cowboy shirt and bleached out
jeans or cut-offs. There were a few people over by the swings and I noticed one
of them was a pretty, round faced girl with dark blonde hair. She must have
thought I was hurt and started talking to me, which was completely
unintentional, but it turned out to be a pretty good ploy - sometimes you get
lucky. She said she had just moved here from Hawaii and was going to
Beverly in the fall. That night Charles Manson and his gang set out on their
murdering rampage in the hills of Benedict Canyon. I found out when we
re-united that September, her father, John Floyd (Bud) Taylor was friends with
Jay Sebring, one of the victims of that horrible night. It's ironic that seven
years later Silverspoon would perform the Beatles songs for the movie
"Helter Skelter" directed by Tom Gries.
Bud Taylor was a total trip. He drove a black Porsche 911 and
had a membership at the Candy Store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, He was a
mover and shaker all right and liked to have a good time, all the time. Debbie
was not too keen on this kind of behavior from her father, but it didn't stop
us from partaking in the joys and benefits of her father’s indiscretions. We
went on houseboat trips on the Sacramento River where I forgot to let go of the
rope on my first and last water-skiing adventure and suffered a sinus
infection. I was usually the free entertainment, playing the baby grand piano
at Bud's parties in that rustic condo in Westwood. Bud had a friend name Fred
Beir who had written a screenplay about a western hero that saves a town with
his six-guns but goes to town on Saturday night as a transvestite. It was
called "Lark Chicane". I was given the opportunity to write the theme
song. called "The Ballad of Lark Chicane", my first actual completed
song, with words music and everything! The movie never sold, and the song never
published but it was recorded by the band at the "Sunset Sound
Sessions" which would prove to be a turning point in the lives of the band
yet to be known as Silverspoon.
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