Chapter 52 - Cat and Mouse

AS I SAID before, Robin and I had broken up and it was an amenable break-up. We wanted to stay friends and I am happy to say we are still friends. For some reason or another, I managed to stay friends with all my ex-girlfriends and my wife doesn't mind. She is not the jealous type, the complete opposite of the kind of woman I would soon get involved with after Robin.

After the predictability and domesticity of Woodbridge, living in that treehouse on Gould was emancipating and exhilarating. I suppose it was originally meant to be a guest cottage since there was the main house upstairs where Jack (the junkie) and his girlfriend Betsy, a dark-haired beauty with piercing blue eyes, lived. My Dad was helping me move in and had rented a U-Haul van. We were winding down our first load and I had propped up the mattress against the inside of the garage door where Jack parked his car. We went back to Woodbridge for the second load. On our way back, my dad I could see smoke billowing up and it looked like it was coming from the downstairs part of the house, three hundred yards up ahead—maybe somebody was burning leaves. They weren't. The garage was on fire. The fire engines with their sirens screaming slowly made their way up the narrow street and had thankfully put the fire in the garage out in a matter of minutes— but my mattress was burnt to a crisp. I found out later from Betsy that Jack had sold some bad dope to one of the members of Three Dog Night and he, in retribution, had set fire to my mattress, he didn’t know it was mine, of course, but anybody’s mattress would have done the job. Welcome back to Hollywood, Mr. Haymer.

My friend Chas, who lived up the street on Walnut off of Kirkwood, was getting his career off the ground. He was now in a band called Romanse with Tony Berg on guitar, Art Wood on drums and Jeff Eyerich on bass. They were doing that pre-eighties style of music with the bass thumping the root with eight notes and the drums sounded like canons. The Knack was in the process of recording their first album and playing places like The Starwood and The Whiskey. There were some fairly good bands around then, a group called 20/20, and Chas’s brother Richard played drums in Great Buildings, a group fronted by Danny Wilde, who would later go on to write the theme song from Friends. Me, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with bands, unless they were a back-up. After Silverspoon and then The Knack I had enough. Doug Fieger was a demagogue and ran his outfit like Napoleon ran his little French army. I had no use for that kind of thing in music—hey, it’s supposed to be fun, right?

Ed Blair, whose real name was Blaustein, was a fellow New Yorker, and member of the tribe, who as I said, I had met at Alice’s, Robin’s landlady at 2222 Laurel Canyon. Ed is a kind of a hustling-bustling, streetwise and well-fed patron of the arts. He hired musicians, actors, street artists—anybody who needed a job. He figured these “artists types” could act or were desperate enough to make thirty calls and hour, for four hours straight, or as Ed called it,” dialing for dollars”. There was a storefront shop downstairs by the name of Shakey’s Wigs which I would bypass on my way through the glass doors to the elevator which lifted me to the third floor. We were selling typewriter ribbons and lift off correction tape, mostly for the IBM Selectric II, which comprised ninety percent of the business. I did well—some weeks were better than others. It wouldn't be until Central Supply moved to Van Nuys two years later when Jim Phillips hit pay-dirt—his ship had come in and it had come in directly from the U.S. Virgin Islands. I (or Jim Phillips) had found a phone book from The Virgin Islands in the back of the directory room, sort of a storage closet for phone directories. I asked Ed if it was all right to call the islands and if we could ship the product over there. He said any book in the directory room was fair game—go for it. I did and before too long, I was driving a Porsche and getting into that ubiquitous, wretched, white powdery substance— a little too much. I could always take it or leave coke; I never bought it. I remember doing a few lines with Ronnie Huff in 1969 before a gig at The Troubadour, or with my first girlfriend and her father on the houseboat which floated peaceably down the Sacramento River. I also did some lines with Blair and Jeff and most definitely with BJ, except he often snorted that sulphury stuff called crank. It burned my nose like the dickens, and it made me all jittery and nervous. I don’t think I ever snorted coke with Stephen Gries—thank God for that. The marijuana, acid and mescaline raps were bad enough—an all-night coke rant would have been unbearable. I often wondered, if I had stayed away from the habit for so long why did I start then at the age of twenty-six? Why so late? Jimmy Haymer could never afford it before. Jim Phillips changed all that.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and go back to Hollywood’s Central Supply. As I said, Ed Blair hired artist types and sitting next to me there was this tall, skinny, dark-haired guy who was struggling at the job at hand. I tried to give him some pointers and, on a break we started talking about music. He was a singer/songwriter too and had worked with some of the same people I had worked with. He told me he was the guy who had that billboard up on Sunset and La Cienega in the late sixties, proclaiming the Stephen Skull was coming. His real name was Stephen Scakulnikov, whose father was a Taxicab mogul in Manhattan. I told him that I remembered seeing that billboard and thought it was enticing and I often wondered who this Stephen Skull was and when he was coming. Little did I know he would arrive at the desk next to mine on Hollywood Blvd selling typewriter ribbons and lift-off tape?

 Stephen Paul, as he went by now, was a mad scientist sort of guy, kind of a genius in electronics. He drove a rust-colored Opel GT and we drove out to Joshua Tree to see the Blue Rose Ministry. He, being the rational thinker, was very skeptical but fascinated, nonetheless. We would also hang out at his apartment on Havenhurst and wound-up singing Beatles or Eagles songs. He had a decent voice, but really nothing to write home about. He tried to convince me to start a duo with him doing some of the same songs we were singing plus some Paul Simon and Cat Stevens. I had nothing else going on at the time, so I reluctantly agreed. He wanted to call the duo Cat and Mouse. He, of course, with his thick black hair and Snidley Whiplash mustache, would be the cat. I, much to my disappointment, was delegated to be the mouse. It was the “I’m not playing” syndrome I had gone through when my father was building a bed and asked his three progeny what famous cowboy hero they wanted to be to pass the time. They both picked my favorites before I could choose. Susan said, ‘I’m Daniel Boone.” Robbie said, “I’m Davy Crockett.” I said, “I’m…not playing—the story of my life. I did after a while reluctantly assume the role of the mouse. He said I reminded him of Anatole the mouse from some children’s book that was read to him when he was a kid.

Cat and Mouse had some promotional photos taken and we got a few gigs. They were terrible and we kind of sucked. His main talents were behind the recording console not in front of it. He had a friend who had a twenty-four-track studio in, of all places, Studio City, and we got some free time there. Stephen decided he was going to produce a couple of tracks that I had written there. I agreed, since the studio time was free, and I needed to add to my catalog of recorded material. The first song we did was a number I had written when Mikel Japp was staying at my sister’s apartment when I was house-sitting for her in 1977 called Daybreak Heartache. The second song was called Don’t Say You’re Passing Me By; a very Cat Stevens influenced song. He was a pretty darned good engineer, I must admit, and the tapes turned out nicely. The main problem was this Cat and Mouse thing. I didn't want to do it anymore, but I couldn't blow it off without jeopardizing the recordings, so I hung in there. Another problem was the fact that Stephen was very opinionated and controlling. I hated that. There is not a Scorpio I know that likes to be told what to do, and I was no exception to that rule.

As a producer, Stephen was very influenced by friends of his, Gary Usher and Curt Boettcher. Usher was the earliest outside collaborator of The Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson, co-writing more than ten songs (among them In My Room ,409 and Lonely Sea). Wilson's domineering father, Murry Wilson clashed with Usher and discouraged Usher's close personal friendship and working relationship with his son. Usher later recalled that the nicest thing Murry Wilson ever said to him was "not bad, Usher, not bad" upon hearing Usher and Brian Wilson play In My Room after they had co-written it. Curt was the founding member of the underrated group, The Millennium that had one album entitled Begin released in 1968. They were very psychedelic, and Stephen Paul was an ardent fan and student of the recording techniques used. Later, Curt would produce Mike Love’s solo record, Looking Back With Love in 1981 and was a fan of The Two Guys From Van Nuys, (a duo consisting of myself and Blair Aaronson). He loved our song Running Around the World and promised he would record it someday. He was true to his word, and it made it to the Mike Love solo record. Curt, a gay man, was the first person I ever knew who died from AIDS in 1986. He was an extremely talented character and I miss him and his amazing vocal and production abilities so much.

After we lost touch with one another, Stephen Paul went on to re-invent the microphone and built a company around that innovation. He, I found out, had developed some rare disease where his body compressed and shrunk by about a foot. He suffered with extreme arthritis for years and lost the use of his hands and one of his eyes but— he died from his ailments in 2003. His company is still alive, and you can visit his website at spaudio.com.