WHENEVER I FELT lost or frustrated with the Spoon, there
was always good old Beej to wield his special brand of BS to make me feel
better. I remember one time when BJ lived on Larrabee with Mike Sheehy and his
girl Schotzie, a little ball of fire waitress from the Rainbow. He lived in
the converted attic upstairs and you had to climb up a ladder through a
small hole in the ceiling, which was also his floor, as Paul Simon said, “one
man's ceiling is another man's floor”. It was around five or six in the morning,
and I was pretty loaded. I didn't want to go back home so I went over to BJ’s.
The front door was unlocked, and I gingerly snuck past the sleeping roommates
climbed the ladder and woke up the Beej. He didn't mind even though he was
sleeping with some gorgeous blonde and her knockout mother. It was a tag team.
I sat down next to him and proceeded to call information which was the numbers
411. When the operator came on the line I asked her for the number of God. I
guess I was putting on a pretty good show, I always loved a good prank, and I
was pleading with her to connect me to God. I guess she must have thought that
I was suicidal or something because I had her on the phone for more than an
hour, I could see the sun's golden rays shining through the eastern window in
the loft. BJ was laughing his ass off and so were the mother/daughter act. Unfortunately,
I never did get that number—I guess it was unlisted.
I guess I was
always a little jealous of him for the way he could pick up women. Blair was
the same way, but I later realized that I didn't want to be that guy. There was
this model, Jean Manson that BJ was going out with, and I guess I fancied her,
who wouldn't, she was beautiful and funny. There was this charity softball game
in Griffith Park to benefit Viet Nam vets or something like that and we were
invited to play in the game. Well as I said, I wanted to be a ball player, so
this was a win-win situation for me. The game proceeded along nicely until the
players started to drink a little too much beer and soon it turned into a
football game. I knew I was in trouble at that point since some of the guys on
the other team were huge, freaking monsters, but I stayed in the game trying to
impress Jean. The ball was hiked, and I was on defense and this bearded goliath
of a man with a football in his hand came running toward me. I stuck my right
arm out like one would stick a toe in a cold pool of water and it bent the
elbow backwards, not it's natural way of moving, and I knew I was hurt badly.
It wasn't broken I found out later, but the ligaments were badly stretched and
torn. I did get some attention from Jean later that day, but BJ went home with
her. Moral? Never reach out for something that is not meant to be yours, like
Jean Manson or the behemoth of a running back. It took me a few months to heal
myself from that faux pas.
To BJ, I was
like his little brother, and he was the big brother I never had. Forgiveness is
the name of that tune, but after a while I saw too many promises broken, too
many lies told to women, to bill collectors, to everyone in general and it was
taking its toll. He knew it was time, so he left LA and headed back home to
Philadelphia with his tail between his legs. He was out of money and had
exhausted all his connections. I guess BS can only go so far if there isn’t any
substance behind it. It’s not that he wasn’t talented, he is a great singer and
interpreter of a song but the promises he made to the plethora of people in Los
Angeles never came to fruition. We did write a few great songs together
especially one called Sequins and Rhinestones about how the glitter
movement taking over the biz from the singer/songwriter. Even though I love
artists like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Ian Hunter, I didn’t like the direction
that music had taken, and these artists were somewhat responsible for that—although
I did wear those blue platform shoes with the stars on them but there was no
way I was going to wear make-up, unless I was in a stage play or film.
Anyway, BJ did
have a place to go back to on Oakmont Drive in Philly where his elderly parents
lived, and he felt it was time to pay them back for all the years they had
taken care of him. He did wait on them hand and foot and it was a mitzvah, a
good deed done. He changed his name to Brian Taylor and got signed to RCA
Records and released a self-titled album in 1977 with a bunch of songs written
by other competent writers. One song, Lovestruck was a catchy little
ditty that did well in the local charts. In the back of his mind, BJ was
charting his triumphant return to sunny California which would come to fruition
a year later with his partner in crime, Walter Hallanan.
No comments:
Post a Comment