WHILE SRIVING UP the 101 Fly Robin Fly by Silver
Convention was blasting on the radio; it was apropos since Stephen's Robin
had flown the proverbial coupe again. He was depressed and devastated by her
habitual departures but this time he was almost comatose. I knew it was going
to take some doing to get him back on the same page as the rest of us. In fact,
I can't remember any time since the days at the Record Plant any of us were on
that same page. Maybe, I hoped, things would be different now.
We pulled into Santa Cruz
around eight am after not sleeping at all, no one did, and we all were a bit
cranky. Driving through the mountainous terrain and finally up the winding dirt
driveway we saw the Mangels' mansion looming in the distance. The house was
built in 1888 by Claus Mangles, brother-in-law to Claus Spreckels (the sugar
magnate). The house is virtually a copy of the Spreckels mansion. it is now a
bed and breakfast, but then, I found out later, it was being used as a half-way
house for recovering criminals and drug addicts. The head of the household was
a man named Carl Faust, a bearded mountaineer about the size of a barn. The
owner of the mansion was a man named Carl Marks, namesake for the Russian
revolutionary that made a pact with the devil. I felt that we had finally arrived
at the loony bin. Maybe this is where we belonged?
There were at least nine
bedrooms but only two bathrooms with showers only. In the living room was a
beautiful wood-carved fireplace where the residents would congregate since
there was no central heating. Thank God it was June, but it was still quite
nippy. Ric had failed to mention we would be sharing the house with other
people who were trying to find their way back to society at large. All
Stephen, Blair and I wanted to do was practice and play or music and
make another last-ditch attempt to get this crazy band back together in its
next incarnation, whatever that was going to be.
Blair was not happy
and complained about the living conditions, Richie slept most of the time
trying to detox from his addictions, Stephen was confused, Ric was Ric, and I,
as usual, was trying to make the best out of another strange situation. The
next morning Stephen got a ride from Ric in the Continental to go visit his
father in Carmel. Chick Adamick still had that studio apartment two blocks from
the beach behind the art gallery. He called it The Adamick Hilton. When Ric got
back he said I could use the car to go to a yoga retreat in the mountains that
one of the residents of the mansion, Arleta, had told me about. She would be
staying up there overnight, but I had no designs on her or thoughts of spending
another night out in the cold. I got to the retreat about two-thirty in the
afternoon and immediately thrust myself into the activities. The first thing I
did was a combination of Hatha Yoga and something else called Astang Yoga. The exercises
were helping my breath control, I thought, and soon I was sitting among two
hundred people or more chanting, singing and playing all sorts of strange
musical instruments. There were beautiful girls dancing in their diaphanous
clothing and I hated to leave but I knew I had to get back in case somebody
needed the car.
By the time I got back to the mansion
everyone was pissed at me for being away so long, besides, I had all their
clothes in that behemoth of a trunk. There was a big party going on to raise
money for the childcare center where Kathy, Carl Faust's fifth wife, was
working. I played a few songs on my Gibson J-200 with Ric and some bass player
who shall remain nameless simply because I can't remember his name. The party
went on past midnight and eventually Blair and Richie came back from The
Catalyst after seeing the band Pablo Cruz.
Blair started into
his old routine about me wasting his time by being away all day and because of
it he wasn't going to rehearse the next day. I think he was planning his
getaway from the Mangles House and was using his covert way of shifting the
blame to me so he could use it as an excuse to leave. It is amazing the things
we used to do to promote our own agendas. I guess in a way we still do it. I
was preparing myself for the next day's craziness, but I don't think Stephen
was prepared for what was to happen next.
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