|
Personal Indulgences of the 70s |
|
I had a man that took care of my swimming pool when I lived in Santa Monica Canyon. I would be up days at a time in my recording studio. Sometimes as many as 5 days in a row. Sun would come up and I would be afraid that I was going to have to function and talk to the pool man. Do you get it? Hiding in my own house. Oh that's smart, eh? None of this was smart. It was totally foolish and ignorant. More than that: Stupid and dangerous. A definite addiction, although, I was in total denial of it. The bad news was: I still thought I had a lot of money at the time and could afford this expensive "social" drug of choice. That made it even more of a danger to me. This continued on over the next few years. From 1971 to 1980 I was married and divorced twice during this period, due in part to the hazards of cocaine. I thought I had "smartened up" by about 1979 and had pretty much stopped the cocaine abuse. I went to a "doc feel good" in Santa Monica and got a prescription for biphetamine 20's, called BLACK BEAUTIES on the street. This was the most powerful amphetamine available to my knowledge. Elvis died while having a script for them. I'd get my prescription and have to quarrel with my wife if I didn't give her enough for her and her friend. In fact, she'd be waiting for an even split of the prescription. She, too, was fighting the lure of cocaine, but, she hadn't abused it as much as I had nor with the same regularity. Often, together with a friend of mine, we would stay up all night and about 4:30 in the morning we would decide we wanted to go golfing the next morning so we would take a "black beauty" each and before the sun had cleared the morning horizon we would be the first ones waiting at the starters shack raring to go. It became a joke with the course officials to have to come get us off the course at sundown. Honest. They'd send the course Marshall out and tell us that everyone was going home so we had to come back in and turn in our cart. Our record was 63 holes in one day. That's 3 full rounds of 18 holes ... plus another 9. You try it. It was more like "Polo Golf" than anything else. We hardly stopped the cart to make a shot. Oh, it was funny and fun. What we didn't understand was that "for every action there's an opposite and equal reaction". That stuff will rot your teeth, make you mean, wear out your heart, make you paranoid, and make you old .... if you don't die first. Still, I was feeling young and wouldn't let it go. Ultimately it took the love for my new born son, and an impending divorce to shake me into submission. Submission to get healthy and responsible. I had to get out of Los Angeles ... away from the circle of friends that I hung out with and all the "drug triggers" that were there for me. It wasn't very admirable, but, I did what I had to do to survive. That is: Get the hell out of there. I had depleted most of my money that I had earned from the 3 dog years and now would only have the money left from the sale of my home in Santa Monica. I did pretty good on that, though. I enjoyed a good profit on my investment over a 9 year period between 1971 and 1980 so, fortunately, I had another chance to get it right. A good portion of that money went into the child custody battle that was to follow. A period that I won't go into for many reasons. Better to leave it in the past. There must be a time for forgiving and for healing. There are two sides to every story and it is not my intent to trash the mother of my son. That's all I will say on that. |