I'm With the Singer

This was 1977. We met for the first time in a bar called "Tramps".   She was the singer. I had known her manager since high school. His name was Karl. Her name was Anne.  She was a mini-star on the cabaret circuit and she was drop dead gorgeous.  She sang popular songs.  Her best were the torch songs.  What made her unusual were the things she said between the songs and the way she said them.  There was a reason or explanation for every song.  Something that had gone on in her life or therapy or imagination.

The talk between the songs was often more interesting than the songs themselves.  "Song for My Father" was George Shearing's song for his father.  But when Anne sang it, it was for her father, Joe, a jazz piano player in DC, whom she was learning, in therapy, to separate from.  It was, at first, more than you wanted to know.  But as the sets developed you found yourself waiting for the songs to end to find out why.

Between sets that night, Anne came over to the table and we had a brief conversation I can't remember.  When it was over, I coasted home on a wave of happy feeling and Anne had a new fan.

The following week, an amazing thing happened.  In the mail came a postcard from Anne.  She said she had loved seeing me - LOVED SEEING ME - at Tramps and could I come see her at The Tin Palace next weekend.  I had a visceral reaction and marveled about what a strong impression I'd made.  After all, we'd only talked for a minute.  But of course I'd go and see her again.  Romance was in the air.

I arrived at The Tin Palace just a few minutes before Anne would start the first set.  I had decided I would stay for all three sets.  I went backstage to find Anne.  I found her right away, locking lips with the saxophone player,  a kiss that seemed to last for twenty minutes.  I stood there watching for some reason and when it was over, she saw me and waved cheerfully. What a floozie, I thought.

What I didn't know, but found out later, was that Anne had sent out almost three hundred hand written postcards, all of which said exactly the same thing - how much she'd loved seeing the people and would they please come to the next gig.

The Smuggling Story

I waited about a month, until I thought it was safe for me to travel again and then returned to Europe. I made a brief stop in Rome to pick up the little bit of stuff I'd left there on the earlier trip and took the late afternoon, overnight train to Barcelona.   There I saw the unfinished Gaudy church,  his wavy, organic looking apartment buildings and park.  Then, satisfied with my brief tour of the city, I left for Ibiza.   Ibiza was not the never ending party it is today.  Still, it was a place to lose your inhibitions and have lots of good times.  An English ex-pat bartender named Martin Knebel, from a bar whose name I can't remember,  put me up the first three nights until I found an apartment near the beach in Ibiza town.

I began to settle in and, at some point soon after my friend Carlos sold me a chunk of black Afghani hashish only slightly smaller in size and shape than a major league baseball.  Black Afgani Hashish was highly prized and considered the best hashish in the world and yet it wasn't very expensive.  Because I shared it with everybody I knew for several months the baseball sized chunk soon became the size and shape of a ping pong ball.   But now, with my money running low I decided I needed to return to the states to get some work, make some more money and then return to Europe.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any idea what to do with the hashish.  Although it had shrunk, a ping pong ball sized piece of hash is still a lot.  It was way too big to give away and, frankly, I wanted to keep using it and really impress my friends back in New York.  But there didn't seem to be a way to get the hash into the US and stay out of prison.

Then, almost on cue, I met a  guy whose name was also Rob and claimed to be an expert at getting contraband across boarders,   He told me it was easy to smuggle hash and that he'd done it many times without incident.   This Rob claimed a lot of things, said he done a lot of things and I was naive.

One afternoon, about two weeks before I was scheduled to leave for New York,  I met with Rob in his apartment and he showed my how to smuggle hashish.   He had some tin foil, an iron, some glue and a stack of hard cover books.   Rob showed me that if you placed the tin foil over the hashish you could iron pieces of it as flat as a sheet of paper.  The idea is to then steam off the paper that is always pasted on the inside and back covers of hardback books,  then place a sheet of flattened hashish against the book cover and re-glue the sheet of paper over the hashish.  We used at least ten books, hiding the hashish in the the covers.   I thought the result looked damned good.

The next idea was to hide the books, as many of the ten as possible, in plain sight.  We strapped them into several open shoulder bags, the kind that have long straps and large woven baskets.

For the next two weeks, we let the books dry and forgot about them.    When, finally, the day of the flight arrived I felt relaxed and confident.   I had hidden the hash well and I knew it.

As I boarded the flight,  some of the book bags came aboard with me and some were stowed with the rest of the luggage down below.    I sat back in my seat, closed my eyes and soon heard the sounds of the doors closing and the gateway moving away from the plane.   It was at that point that I picked up Clipper Magazine,  the official in-flight PanAm reading material.

When I opened the magazine I noticed an article listed in the index:   "School For Customs Agents. Where alert students learn smuggler's secrets".

In a panic, I flipped to the page.   In addition to the text there were the pictures.  The first picture was of a false suitcase bottom, the second of a false heal on a boot.  The third photograph showed the old paste-it-in-a-book routine, for smuggling hashish.

The plane was just pulling away from the gate.  I had eight hours ahead of me to consider my situation.
By the time we landed I was in New York, I was drenched in sweat and out of ideas about how to handle the now desperate situation.  After all, they would see my books which even smelled of hashish.

I looked down the line of customs inspectors, to pick a person who looked like they might be sympathetic.   At the very end of the line was a woman about 35 years old with kind eyes.  I got on her line and when she got to me, I had three large baskets with books right out in open.  I also had a red Valentine Olivetti typewriter which she noticed first.

"Where'd you get this?" she asked.
"It's mine," I said.
"I didn't ask you whose it was," she said,  "I asked you where you got it."
"Here,"
"Here New York?"
"Yes"
"I notice it's got an enyay as well as an "n".  Only a Spanish typewriter has that"
"I'm sorry.  I meant to say  I bought it here, in Madrid."
"You're in New York."
"I know.  Im a little confused."
"I see that," she said

Now she came to the books.   She picked up the book that was right on top of one of the baskets and  never looked down at it as she flipped through the pages.  She kept a steady, level gaze on me.

"Where'd you get these books.  They're all in Spanish.  You speak Spanish?"
"I'm learning," I said, "The books are for that."

She never looked down at a book and there was a long pause before she spoke again.

"Let me tell you what I'm going to do about this," she finally said.

My heart was pounding right out of my chest.

"We both know what you've got here, young man.  So I'll tell you what I'm going to do with you.  I'm going to let you go this time.  But you never, ever try this again."

She never said why she let me go.  I guessed that she must not have believed in jail time for kids.  At least that's what I've thought all the years since it happened.

 

Rome and Beyond

I arrived by train in Rome and took a cab to Via en Caterina, just off  Piazza Farnese, where friends of my parents had a villa.   A real villa.   A villa with lots of ancient rooms, some even overlooking the Vatican.   For me, my parent's friends had only open arms.  "Please stay with us.  Stay as long as you'd like"  That's the way I remember it.  But it's possible my memory here may be just shy of accurate. You see, I stayed for eight months.  In about the fifth month of my stay, the friends actually took a vacation from Rome. If they were dropping a hint,  I didn't pick up on it.   I had the place all to myself, that's all I knew.

The friends of my parents also had a son. We became friends. I'd like to call him Frank. Frank went to the American School in Rome and had lots of friends, who soon became my friends.  Especially a friend named "Mary".   Mary had a great laugh, liquid blue eyes and a wild streak that would very soon come in handy.   Mary was, it turned out, only 16 years old.   I was 21.  But the age difference meant nothing to us.  We got to talking, Mary and I, and it turned out that while Mary had seen much of the world, she had barely seen anything of her own country..  I told  her about some of the places I'd been and she was particularly taken with The Great Salt Lake.  Could you really float on it?   Was it true about all that salt making you buoyant?   I had never been to Great Salt Lake, but I assured her that it was all true.

Mary snuck into her house and picked up her passport.  I already had mine.  We headed for the airport.  There was a plane to Salt Lake City with lots of stops of course, leaving in about seven hours.   We hung around Leonardo Da Vinci Airport, which had all the security in the world, having recently been the target of terrorists.   Finally they checked our tickets.  They checked our passports.   I don't recall having the sensation of getting away with anything.  Certainly nothing illegal.  Soon we were in the air.  An adventure lay before us and we didn't have a care in the world.   That's what we thought.  

We landed first at JFK in New York.   Mary had not seen New York either so we decided to get off the plane and explore the city, which I knew quite well.   Soon I was in touch with my friend Richard (real name).   He was out of breath, even over the phone. "Where have you guys been?" he said,  "Do you realize everybody's looking for you.  Her parents.  Interpol.  Everybody."

Interpol?  I said.   Why?   Because, Richard said, she's underage and left Rome without permission.  Not only that, her parents don't know you and they're scared.  Richard put us up for one night.  A good night, it was too.  But when the next day arrived, it was obvious that Mary had to go home.  We were in lots of trouble.   Incredibly, on this end, Mary couldn't get a plane ticket back to Rome.   She was, Pan Am said, too young to get one on her own.   Mary pleaded with them and a sympathetic supervisor finally let her go.  I never saw Mary again.

Advertising was Beside the Point

So there i was at 19 and 20 with a job some people would kill for and me not really conscious of what an incredible group of people I was working with and for.   Besides,  I had other things on my mind.  Friends, women (one in particular) and increasingly, the urge to travel.   Within a year, my salary reached a very respectable level and I could pretty much do what i wanted.    I saved a lot of what I was paid and then, at 21 quit my job at DDB and set off for Europe, first stop Paris.

I had met a very nice woman at DDB -- my secretary actually.   Not a private secretary, of course, she worked for  five other people.  But she liked me best.  In fact, it turned out she was a bit obsessed.  Let's call her Ellen.   Ellen and I had talked about my plans to quit and explore Europe and she said something along the lines of, I wish I could go with you.  Not I'M GOING WITH YOU,  just a wish, she said.  But on my third night at the Esmeralda Hotel,  on the left bank,  facing directly out on Notre Dame, there came a knock at my door.  To my utter astonishment, it was Ellen who had either misunderstood what we said to each other or was completely insane.

It was Ellen's fantasy that we were going to travel around Europe together, as a couple.  I was flabbergasted.  I was frightened.  I had no idea flabbergasted had two 'b's'.   At any event, I told Ellen she had made a terrible mistake and that i wasn't going to travel anywhere with anyone.  That was kind of the point of traveling, wasn't it?  Ellen had a different view.  In her view I had promised to travel with her and a promise is a promise.

Late one evening, while Ellen slept, I slipped out of the room at the hotel, with my knapsack and took the next available train to Rome.  Rome, where i knew people with a villa, friends of my parents.  I realize now that I did not choose the manly, up-front way to handle the Ellen situation.  But put yourself in my shoes.   I was totally freaked out.  After all,  Ellen was clinging to me like grim death.  I was suffocating.  So i made a run for it.  And, thank god, I got away clean.

First Adventures in Advertising

In 1969 at Doyle, Dane, Bernbach,  I was the youngest copywriter by 15 years.  The rest of the people I might have competed with for a job were still in school.  I was 19 years old and having a very good time.  For quite a while, the people I worked for liked everything I did.  Even if they didn't understand all of the work I was doing, they figured it was coming from the mind of a new generation and approved it anyway.  I thought I was working over my head.   Never having taken any formal courses in advertising, I was making it up as I went along.  I thought I was sort of a fraud and figured they'd realize it at any moment and the jig would be up.  But it never happened.

I just kept climbing the creative ladder and nobody but me thought there was anything strange about it.  They had a video studio at DDB, one of the first agency video studios in the city.   We could go down there and try stuff out to see if it worked.   I remember one commercial we (me and my art director, Alan Small,  tested that featured two people, a married couple, staring at the camera for 45 seconds, wondering what was going on.  The idea was to make the viewer squirm.  We'd turned the tv screen a two way mirror.   They ate some Sara Lee cake, but it was very subliminal.   They never said anything like, "Wow, is this cake great or what?"  They just said what normal people say about cake when they eat cake.  Nothing.  They wondered what was wrong with the tv and talked about the money they didn't have to pay the bills.   At the end of the spot the super came up - backwards, so that it appeared they were reading across the viewer.   It said, as it always did, "Nobody Doesn't Like Sara Lee"

We finished the video (I still have it), and took it up to our supervisors for a vote.  Helmut Krone was my supervisor, a very famous fellow in the advertising world.   He had done both the ground breaking Avis We try harder campaign and the equally famous Volkswagen campaign, "How much longer can we hand you this line?".   He was the closest thing there was to a honest to god genius in advertising.  He was, to nearly all advertising people, a deity.   But not to me.  I didn't know enough to realize how good his ideas were.  So I treated him like any guy you'd meet.   He seemed to like that and would actually come into my office from time to time and ask my opinion of his work.  Me.

We racked up our test commercial and waited for the applause to roll in.  Helmut watched the spot and then gazed out the window.   A full minute must have elapsed.  Finally Helmut said, "Rob, we're in advertising.  We're not making pretty little art films."  Wow, I thought. I've made an art film!

The Mailroom Episode

When my parking lot job ended, it was mid winter.  I went to the classifieds and looked for an indoor job. There i saw a small ad for a mailroom position at a company I'd never heard of.   It turned out to be a company called Warren, Muller, Dolobowsky and I interviewed for the job two days later.  I had no education to speak of, no relevant work experience, nothing to suggest  I was capable of walking the halls with a shopping car,  delivering mail to executives of this company.  But my interview went well and on the strength of that and -- what else could it have been -- i got the job.  And I was thrilled.  I would at least be warm and have the companionship of other humans.  The following port of this story is not only a well known cliche,  even now and even though it happened to me, it's very hard to believe.  Yet it really did happen.   After a few, very few, months on the job at this ad agency, i began to think that what these copywriters and art directors were turning out was something I might be good at.

 I knew the work that was being done because it was also my job to file proofs of all the ads.   In fact, on my second day at the job I decided, to simplify my proof filing, that I would tape up a tiny alphabet above the proof file to quickly remind myself which letters followed what letters in the alphabet, so I wouldn't have to sing that dumb song every time I had to file a proof.  And I would have followed through on the idea took if my boss (Tino Polino) hadn't come in at lunch the day before and said, best I can recall, "You know, Bob," Everyone takes the liberty of calling persons named Robert, Bob.  I hate it. "You know, Bob," he said, "The last guy I had in here was so f'ing dumb he actually had an alphabet taped up on the wall so he could remember which letters came first."

I shelved the plan and muddled through.  But each day from a few months on I would pester the big enchiladas to give me a shot at an ad and after what seemed an eternity, they finally made my dreams come true.  They gave me a promotional sponge to write for.  These would be the words printed on a sponge handed out at shopping malls. I wrote something like "Don't get soaked by that other dry cleaner.  Moultry Saves you Money,"  These may not be the exact words, but they're close enough to convey the ease of the assignment.

After that, a radio commercial for Hohner Harmonicas.   I decided to tell a little story about a character named, Robby Austin who was a loner till he got his Hohner.  Pandemonium broke loose in my home town.   All that summer the ad played on top 40 radio stations and, to my friends, I became a sort of a hero.  By August, when I told people my name, they thought I was kidding.  That's how much the ad played.

Within four or five months I had done enough advertising that I was able to send samples to the best agency in the world at the time,  Doyle, Dane, Bernbach.  They had run an ad that said simply 'Doyle, Dane needs 3 Copywriters."  Everyone in the business answered the ad but I was one of the guys they hired and in the process tripled by salary from $80 a week to more than $300.  I thought I had slipped one past them, but in fact they were ready to pay much more.  The job was for an intermediate copywriter.

Adventures in Parking

I didn't graduate from High School.  Not really.  I had a diploma from a tutoring school my father had found.   The sole purpose of the school was to dramatically raise the grades of poor students so they'd have a shot at getting into a decent school.  These students had to have the money to afford this "special" treatment. The classes were taught one on one and all of them covered material I already knew.  If my work began to slip, the tutoring school simply ended the course then and there with my last quiz serving as my final exam.

This plan was, in my case, somewhat successful.   My D's and C's became B's and, in the case of geometry an A.   But my grades were still not nearly good enough to get into a school anyone would make his first or even second choice.  I wound up at a place called Parson's College, in Fairfield Iowa.  Parson's was the only college in the country to actually turn a profit.  They had investors.  And with all the money they had, they hired first class teaching talent to assist with public relations.  

Parsons College hired professors away from Ivy League schools by paying them salaries they simply couldn't refuse.   And yet, the lecture halls were almost empty when these talented men and women spun their magic.   There was, it seemed, a reason why Parson's students had never had good grades in the first place.  They were not used to actually attending classes or even school itself - especially in their junior and senior years of high school.  I am not proud of how all this went down.  But it's the truth and it matters because of what happened later.

I got into a bit of trouble in Iowa.  Without realizing it, we transported women (they were nurses actually) across state lines for purposes that were deemed immoral and, in fact, against the law.   This incident and another I'm too embarrassed to relate led to an appearance before student court at Parsons.  These people were junior Nazi's, specializing in absurdly harsh punishments for what were, even in my circumstances, pretty minor offenses.   I mean, I didn't threaten or kill anybody.   Yet I received, for my crimes, 80 work hours on the commons.   The weather on the commons reached a daytime high of 35 below zero.   And the "work" involved walking around with a stick that had a nail sticking out of one end.  The idea was to pick up trash.  Were they kidding?   I went back to my room, packed my trunk and took the next train to Chicago, where I transferred to another train to New York.

My folks, especially my dad, were neither enthralled by my adventures nor my very early return from school after only half a semester.   "You have to get a job immediately," my dad told me in no-uncertain-terms.  Somehow we knew somebody in management at the Kinney Brothers Parking System.  I was asked to report to a lot which then existed at the corner of 35th and Park in New York.  My salary, when I received it, was higher than they were paying the manager of the lot.   It payed to have friends in high places.   But I was not popular with the other attendants.   For one thing, I had only been driving a very short time and parking was not something they really stressed in driver's education.   So not only was I slow, I was a very poor parker all the way around.   Then there was my attitude.  The other attendants were not charmed by my obvious belief that the world owed me a living.  John, the manager of the lot, would certainly have fired me if it were in his power to do so.  Sadly for him, it was not.  So they did the next best thing to feel better and get even with me.   They transferred me to a gigantic lot on the corner of 42nd and 10th -- and gave me the night shift, midnight to eight in what was then one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world.  There were killings every night of the year.  They found bodies in alleyways every morning.  i decided not to be one of them and resigned.

James Taylor Stole My Girlfriend

I met James Taylor in London, just after he had recorded (but not released) his Apple LP.  His girlfriend at the time was the sister of a very close friend of mine and we hung out quite a bit in England and later in New York.  Everybody knew that James was going to be very famous.   His talent was immense and even his stage presence was wonderful -- although I would soon discover that James actually memorized every single  word he spoke between songs.  The truth was, if you saw any two JT shows, you heard exactly the same rap, verbatim,  over and over.  

Now James and I had, not  a friendship but a connection through my friend and his sister.  Within about six months, James had left Apple and recorded Sweet Baby James for Columbia,  a classic with the incredible "Fire and Rain" done properly this time (and there's a whole other story about that song and how it really came to be).   I saw quite a bit of James over the next two years, during which time, he parted with my friend's sister and became an enormous star.  As for me,  I was, at the time, deeply in love with a woman let's call Gwen.  One weekend James flew down to "Cleveland" where Gwen's family lived to play at a well known club there.

At the time, James was traveling with just his guitars and a roadie whose real name I think I remember was Jock (a genuine nice guy). Gwen and her family lived quite well in a large house in a fancy suburb of "Cleveland", Gwen's family,  being deeply involved in Republican politics and journalism  had made a significant fortune by their efforts.

But when Gwen and I found out that James was performing locally we decided to invite him and Jock to the big house,  It was summer and the house had a large swimming pool that was a relief in the big heat.  We thought James might be lonely and would  appreciate the company of people he knew.   What actually happened was that James was clearly disappointed by my presence.  He had taken a strong interest in Gwen, who was one of the most beautiful people, inside and out, I'd ever met.  In fact, I had fallen in love with Gwen the moment I first saw her, two years earlier.  But it was obvious that afternoon that James would have made a move on Gwen if not for my presence.   Still, James behaved like a gentlemen, at least while I was around.  Soon however, I was not around, needing to return to New York with plans to meet up with Gwen in about a week.

Gwen answered the phone when it rang a few days later.    It was James Taylor, wondering if Gwen would like to join him at a gig he was playing in California.   It is an apparent if bitter truth that when one of the world's most famous, talented, handsome and wealthy rock stars calls a woman and invites her to join him at a gig, the effect is overwhelming and, statistics prove, nearly impossible to resist.  Sadly for me, Gwen said yes.  James then sent a limo to her home in Cleveland and flew her first class to LA

What happened next surprised the already surprised Gwen.  It seemed that James' interest in Gwen would involve her helping him kick his well known and prodigious heroin habit.   The next few days were a nightmare according to Gwen.   She was kept away from James during the day by security people hired by the record company.   At night, they would lock themselves in the hotel room and not do  heroin, a difficult feat for an addict as deeply into the drug as James was at the time.  Gwen functioned as a guard/nurse.

In the end, the experience was deeply upsetting, not only for me, but for Gwen.  James had turned her world upside down for what turned out to be not love but the predatory services that would have better been provided by an interventionist..  It took Gwen many months to recover.  As for me, even if I could have confronted James, he would not have cared.   He had turned into a guy who could have pretty much anything he wanted and, without much thought or regret, simply took it. It reminded me of Tom in The Great Gatsby.  But the reality was that it hurt two innocent people quite a bit.  I have never told the story before but thought, after so many years, I could finally release my feelings about it. And so I have.

Marcia Resnick's Wonderful Photographs

If you haven't seen her work, check out marciaresnick.com.  She's taken a lot of funny, poignant and just plain interesting photographs, often of the rock and art stars who helped define the past thirty years.  She took a very funny shot of Larry Rivers, naked in a bathtub, a great one of Abby Hoffman, several character shots of Mick Jagger, William Burroughs, Sting when he was young and beautiful and even Alan Ginsberg to name  a few.  Her work really captures the heroes of our generation when they were in full flight.  And I would say her work is even more immediate than what Annie Leiobvitz (sp?) covers.

Open E

I just tuned my wonderful 1936 Gibson L00 to Open E.   This lets me play an approximation of "Crossroads" much more easily than Open G.   I still kind of suck at it though.  Next week I start blues guitar lessons with Noah, who can really play.   He played Muddy Water's "Can't Be Satisfied" almost perfectly when I last saw him.   This ain't no easy song to play.  But if you want to hear it played as well as it ever was played, get "Hard Again", where Muddy plays with Johnny Winter on lead.  It's f'ing amazing.  The other music I've been listening to includes a lot of Son House, who taught Robert Johnson until Johnson passed him as a player.   Son House and Charlie Patton are the real fathers of delta blues.  Robert J. was a bit too slick for his time.   Read "Escaping The Delta" if you want to get the whole story.

45 Minutes

I did go to traffic court.   I was on the line for more than 45 minutes, only to find out I didn't need to show up at all.   They would have given me the information over the phone.  My hearing for the speeding ticket is postponed until April 11th.  On the way back to the parking lot,  I forgot where I put the car.  It's a Honda.   Every third car in the lot was a Honda.

Did I mention I started seeing a shrink?   We've had four sessions and he's still doing my intake.  Lots of forms to fill out and questions about my past to answer.   I've answered these questions so many times.  I have now been in almost 20 circumstances which required my memories of the past.   And most of the shrinks I've seen over the years were a waste of time.   Nothing funny happened today.   I wrote lots of bad dialogue.

Eighty Five in a Thirty

I have to go to traffic court today.   I got caught in that speed trap coming off Sunrise Highway onto Montauk Highway.  Bastards.   Last time, in the Mini Cooper, I had to do community service in the old age home in Southampton.   When I spoke to the lady at the home I was excited.  I said, "Great.  I've got a guitar. I know lots of songs. I think I'll be a real asset."  She asked if my guitar was waterproof.   That's because my actual job was in the kitchen, washing dishes.

Blues News

I've learned to play Charlie Patton's "High Water Everywhere Part 1" on the guitar.   It's one of my favorite blues songs.  It's the true story of the great flood of 1927 which decimated the Mississippi Delta and caused thousands of deaths.  It's a very moving song written by a genius.