33 Days
Touring In A Van. Sleeping On Floors. Chasing A Dream.
Bill See
Smashwords Edition
Acknowledgements
My profound thanks to these good folks: Ian Bader, Russ Bates, Marie Bechtel, Julie Mercer Carroll, George Edmondson, Jon Edmondson, Marjorie Edmondson, Patty Everhardt Gillette, Tom Hasse, Conrad Heiney, Mary Susan Herczog, Brad Holtzman, Ron & Tania Jolly, Joy Knapp, Holly Knapp, Maureen McElroy, Vitus Mataré, Cindy Maya, Kelly Mayfield, Anthony Mora, Rajesh K. Makwana, Melody Muraca, Lisa Muraca, Doug Nyland, Christine Rothman, Mark Sanderson, Dave Silva, Dave Smerdzinski, Shannon Smerdzinski, Laura Smith, Kimberlie Traceski, Kenneth Wagner, Clifford Yates, Margaret Yates, Nancy Yates Mekelburg, Susan Harper Yates,
My special thanks to the following. The journey would have been a lot shorter without you: Gina Arnold, Jim Carroll, Rosemary Carroll, Felicia Dominguez, Dennis Duck, Steve Hochman, Craig Lee, Corey Lesh, Gerrie Lim, Robert Lloyd, Falling James Moreland, Scott Morrow, John Payne, Doug Schoemer, Russ Tolman, Mike Watt, Neal Weiss, Steve Wynn
Finally, an extra dose of gratitude to these kind souls for their invaluable counsel and assistance as this book evolved over the course of 12 years: Mary Susan Herczog, Cindy Maya, Rajesh K. Makwana, Melody Muraca, Laura Smith, Kenneth Wagner, Susan Harper Yates.
Copyright ©2011 by Bill See
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
Published by Smashwords
Printed in the U.S.A.
Ebook ISBN: 9781935841494
Paperback ISBN: 9780557758814
Front and Back Cover Design by Rajesh K. Makwana
Praise for 33 Days
“Bill gives you a good picture of what it was like to be in a band, on tour, loving music and hanging out in LA in the ’80s. I was there as well, and I can tell you that it’s all true — this was our life, our reality. It certainly takes me back and reminds me of why it all mattered so much at the time.” – Steve Wynn, The Dream Syndicate
“What Bill See articulates so perfectly in 33 Days is the realization that life moves at light speed, and there’s never a better time than the present to turn dreams into reality. The circumstances may be tough and the window of opportunity small, but See appreciates that if rock ’n roll is the gateway to happiness, then let the music play.” – Stuart Levine, Variety
“Bill See thoughtfully and effectively captures the pathos and promise that fuels a young musician’s dreams and punctuates the grit and grandeur of life on the road with his poignant and nuanced memoir.” – Spencer Proffer, Music Producer and Media Architect.
“At once universal and deeply personal, this is a coming-of-age story for the D.I.Y. generation. Read this and know what “indie” was when it still meant "independent." – Conrad Heiney, Substitute Live Journal
33 days and the adventure of a lifetime. Truly one of those periods of time where dreams became reality, if only for the blink of an eye. In 1987, Divine Weeks (Bill, Raj, George, Dave, and their road manager Ian) stuffed themselves into a back of a beat up old van and went on their first tour (Don’t Hassle It Tour ’87). No roadies, no soundman, playing dives, sleeping on someone’s floor, eating PB&J sandwiches. Music at its purest. The tour itself is one of those now or never experiences. Either the guys really take a shot at making the band work or they leave it all behind and go their separate ways. Family demons, responsibilities, college, career, and relationships yelling are louder and louder demanding an answer, a direction, a commitment. Still, somewhere deep inside, each of the guys knows they had to do this or they’d regret not taking the chance. In the process, each guy has some unforgettable experiences while gaining some clarity about who they want to be and what’s really important. I think every one of us has that moment where we decide to either live our dreams or just give up. 33 Days touches that part of us. I read this story in one go-stayed up until 3:30 am to do so. I simply couldn’t put it down. It was like I was a tagalong for the ride. My dreams may have been different at 22 years old but for a fleeting moment I remembered. – Tami Brady, T.C.M. Reviews
This book is dedicated to
Maeve Yates Mayfield.
Listen to your muse,
chase the joy…shine on.
* * *
This book would not have
been possible without
Rajesh K. Makwana.
Brothers, always.
About 12 years ago, I was rummaging through a bunch of old boxes and came across the journal I kept during, really, the most remarkable time of my life. The 33 days me, Raj, George, Dave and our road manager Ian spent in an old beat-up maroon Ford Econoline van on Divine Weeks’ first tour in the summer of 1987.
This is a true story, but it’s not a perfect historical account. This is the way it looked, sounded and felt like to me. These are the stories I chose to tell, and I weaved them together like I did to bring to light all the baggage we brought with us as we set out to chase a dream together. If I missed anything or got it wrong, I’m sorry. It wasn’t intentional. If anything I quoted or shared in this book was a breach of confidence, I really did try to make sure it was O.K. with you, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t able. All I can say is I tried to share these stories with love and respect and great reverence.
This book is for everyone who’s stood at their crossroads with a dream screaming inside wondering whether to choose the road that goes off the map or fold up their tent and head back home.
Bill See
Los Angeles, CA
January 19, 2011
From left: Raj, George, Bill, Dave, Divine Weeks publicity
shot, April ’87.
Divine Weeks – Don’t Hassle It Tour ’87
7/25/87 Los Angeles, Lhasa Club
7/30/87 Portland, Satyricon
7/31/87 Seattle, Scoundrel’s Lair
8/4/87 Vancouver, The Gaslight
8/6/87 Calgary, National Hotel
8/7/87 Calgary, National Hotel
8/8/87 Calgary, National Hotel
8/9/87 Calgary, The Ga-Ga Club
8/10/87 Edmonton, The Piazza
8/11/87 Edmonton, The Piazza
8/12/87 Regina, The Club
8/13/87 Winnipeg, Curtis Hotel
8/14/87 Winnipeg, Curtis Hotel
8/15/87 Winnipeg, Curtis Hotel
8/16/87 Minneapolis, Uptown Bar
8/17/87 Chicago, Gaspar’s
8/19/87 Iowa City, Gabe’s Oasis
8/20/87 Columbia, Blue Note
8/21/87 St. Louis, Cicero’s
8/22/87 Kansas City, Elijio’s Cantina
8/24/87 St. Louis, Euclid Records
8/26/87 Tulsa, The Palace
8/27/87 Dallas, Deep Ellum
9/4/87 Los Angeles, Club Lingerie
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
— T.E. Lawrence.
Day One
7/28/87
7:05 a.m.
The time has come to be brave.
For the first time in my life — all 22 years of it — I wake up today with this crazy-ass belief. If I can just get myself in that van, I might have a chance…to make it possible.
Today the door opens. The culmination of three years of maniacal drive toward a singular goal. To get out of this haunted house and get my band, Divine Weeks, on tour. It’s all I’ve thought about the last three years, daydreaming in class and writing out imaginary tour dates. Toiling at my windowless shit day job, shuffling papers everyday, helping rich men get richer while my dream just sits out there waiting for me to seize it.
Nothing holds me in this house anymore. It’s been like this ever since my grandfather died last year. My mom’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard, acting more and more erratically. My grandmother’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse. Then late last year, my girlfriend Mary confessed she’d had an affair. Something snapped right then. I’ve been spinning ever since.
I used to think all heaven was an ear, but it’s like I’ve been screaming into the void — eulogizing stalled dreams — but I never stopped that one continuous plea. So it went: someone’s got to save me. Straightaway, I bought into that whole idea that the gods send down lightning bolts to split us all in half and set us out on a perilous journey to find our other halves and become whole again. I thought Mary was that other half, but maybe I’ve had that all wrong.
“Inner City Blues” by Marvin Gaye just ended, and I’m putting on “Bad” by U2. I must have listened to “Bad” a hundred times right after my grandfather died. “Let it go…and so to fade away…” That and “Hardly Getting Over It” by Hüsker Dü. I played those two fucking songs to death last summer.
I’m pulling out Let It Be by the Replacements to play next. “Unsatisfied” is my favorite song right now. “Look me in the eye, then, tell me that I’m satisfied…”
We’ve spent the last few days scrambling around. Gathering contact information of bands, promoters and press to call and radio stations to drop in on. To the Price Club to buy peanut butter and jelly, bread and Cheerios in bulk. Down to Venice Beach to buy a bunch of stolen calling cards. Then to Guitar Center with a tall tale about how we’re going on a very high-profile tour promising to play exclusively on whatever gear we can scam off them. Worked too. Gave us some drum skins, some cymbals, a mountain of guitar strings, patch cords. The smarmy store manager then groups us all together and takes our picture with one of their moronic sales reps who has on about the goofiest grin you can imagine. Man, Guitar Center. Where else can you find a grown man wearing pink spandex pants, a pompadour and a cheese-eating mustache?
Tom Hasse is going to be here in just a few to pick me up so we can go rent the van. No one will rent to us because none of us have a credit card, and we’re all under 25. Then my friend Dave Silva told me his friend Tom would lay down his credit card for us to rent the van. Now, I don’t know if ol’ Tom’s just too stoned to know better than to rent a van for a rock band going on tour for over a month. A band that’s not even traveling with the guy who rented the van. A band that’s not only taking the van outside of California but clear out of the freaking country.
Our friend Ron Jolly, a courier, turned us on to his mechanic who showed us how to disconnect the van’s odometer so we can save on mileage charges. You get something like 500 free miles, so the plan is we’ll go to about the 600-mile mark and then disconnect the thing. After the mechanic tells us how to do it, we were all quite pleased with ourselves until he turns to us and says, “But you guys do know it’s a Federal crime, right?”
* * *
7:30 a.m.
I’m trying to figure out if I’ve forgotten something, but really, all that’s left is the letting go. The time has come to be brave. I keep saying that over and over as I pace around my bedroom listening to as many of my favorite songs as I can before I leave. Just trying to get my fill of this music that’s been my one salvation here. Music that staved off the madness surrounding me and kept my heart from closing shut.
I just put on side two of the Meat Puppets’ Up on the Sun. I wonder what George is listening to right now. Probably the Clash. I’ve got to remember to ask him later. Fuck, what time is it anyway? 7:30? George probably isn’t even up yet.
George is my best friend and Divine Weeks’ bassist. The ubiquitous Phast Phreddie, the ultimate scenester himself, says George is the best bass player in L.A. Pretty good considering L.A. is home to Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Eric Avery of Jane’s Addiction.
I started the band with two friends from high school — George and my other best friend Raj, our guitar player. In high school, the three of us were basically losers — either laughed at, dismissed, or never even thought of. Earlier this year, it started getting back to a lot of folks we went to high school with that Divine Weeks was starting to make a dent in the L.A. club scene. We’d see familiar faces come to a show, snicker and leave. Some of it was jealousy, or maybe it was a sense of order being disrupted. Like seeing Radar from M*A*S*H* play a saloon singer in a movie or something. You just can’t accept it. High school’s like TV a little. You get typecast. Those first few years after high school are threatening. People keep tabs on you and not so they can cheer you on from the sidelines.
Now let me make something clear. Divine Weeks is not some big arena band on a major label with oodles of cash behind us. You probably never heard of us unless you’re one of the few thousand people who pick up the L.A. Weekly, L.A. Reader or BAM every Thursday to check what’s happening around town. We’re not part of L.A.’s “in” crowd, and we don’t have any hip cache. One of the earliest bits of press we ever got was: “These guys will grab you by the scruff of your collar and demand attention despite the fact that they look like four college Joes waiting for a bus.” It’s one of those backhanded compliments we’ve used as inspiration.
Just seven months ago, we were limping along playing late weeknight gigs with no record deal, a drummer that was never going to work out, and virtually no press at all. Just after the first of this year, we got signed to the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn’s Down There label, found an incredible drummer, got named one of the top local bands by the L.A. Times, and we’ve been getting great reviews for our live shows and for our just-released debut record Through and Through.
This is not just our first tour. Aside from our drummer Dave, who’s been on his own for a few years now, it’s basically our first time out on our own at all.
This is not some big tour by plane or train or bus. We’re just throwing two old love seats I found in my garage into the back of a Ford Econoline cargo van, putting them face to face to sleep on, and the rest of our stuff we’re storing in back.
Aside from maybe Springsteen, there’s no rock stars for role models. They’ve all let me down. It’s like they all lusted after stardom and once there, looked us in the eye and then fled. I’ve stood there outside after shows and watch them treat fans like an annoyance, get whisked away in their limos and isolate themselves in their extravagance and wealth only to moan about it later. I’m done with it.
That’s what drew me to the Do It Yourself (DIY), just-get-in-the-van credo pioneered by bands on SST Records. Although we don’t sound much like bands like Black Flag, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Meat Puppets and Sonic Youth, we’re inspired by their ethic and aesthetic. Success doesn’t come to you. You go to it. Eschew major labels. Put out your own records, book your own tours. You don’t stay in hotels, you beg from the stage for a floor to sleep on. Create a community. Call like-minded bands, ask to open for them and promise to help them when they come to your hometown. Drop in on college radio stations and beg people to come down to your shows. No roadies, no high powered promoters. Black Flag pretty much invented it and bands like the Minutemen taught us how to go and do it. Mike Watt (formerly of the Minutemen and now fIREHOSE) calls it “jamming econo.”
Musically, we’re closer to the Who at Woodstock by way of early R.E.M. But ideologically, more than any other band, the Minutemen are the closest to what Divine Weeks’ core is all about. Egalitarian, working-class, politically conscious, smart. Like us, their friendship and loyalty to each other shaped their very essence. The Minutemen were like indie rock teachers. They showed us and a lot of bands that being indie was a righteous cause — fighting the good fight against the bloated, arrogant and self-important hierarchy of major labels and radio programmers that keep good music off the air and relegated to garages.
Every time we climb on stage, write a song, meet a fan, deal with a booker or a radio programmer, we feel the eyes of the bands that showed us how to do it are watching. We can’t let them down.
Once I get in that van today, I plan on never going back to school. Raj, same thing, and Dave washed his hands of school a few years ago. But for George, it’s more complicated. He’s got to make a decision whether or not to commit to grad school next year. He needs us to make as big a splash as possible on this tour so he can justify not returning to school in the fall.
* * *
8:35 a.m.
It’s a typically calm morning here in my house, a place we call 940 (said: Nine, Four, Oh). 940 Bienveneda. Spanish for welcome. 940 is part sanctuary, part roadhouse in that old gospel tradition of sinnin’ on Saturdays and prayin’ on Sundays. Peaceful mornings follow shoot ’em up, throw ’em down nights. Always been a lot of drinking and mental instability around here. I come out of my bedroom peering around corners for wreckage. See if the coast is clear like a long, slow scan of a battlefield in some Civil War movie or something.
This house holds three fiercely proud generations — maddeningly brilliant, Irish Catholic and dysfunctional. When I was 12, my mom and I moved back here for good after her last nervous breakdown. Most of my childhood, it’s been me, my mom, her sister — my Aunt Nancy — and their parents under one roof.
I’m not saying there haven’t been good times here, because there have, and I do remember a lot of laughter — especially in daylight. But when the days turn dark and cocktail hour begins, it’s like a walk through a minefield.
I never felt like a child here. Never knew limits or boundaries. Don’t ever remember being sent to my room or being spared from whatever crisis that came down the pike. In some fucked-up way, it’s always been me who mediates the chaos. Mary says it’s made me addicted to drama and conflict. I don’t know. She says it feeds something I’m terrified of losing because I’ve never known anything else. Whatever.
Around here, everything always seems so fragile and on the verge of blowing up. Someone’s always sick or leaving or divorcing. Don’t upset what little balance there is or take anything from somebody else. Better to go without. I’m used to it. Mary says all my self-loathing and co-dependency is a by-product of growing up here. Says it’s not normal to choke off my own happiness. I don’t know. I guess it made sense to because everyone around here always seemed so fucking miserable so I just pushed everything down.
No one here ever belittled the hours I spent pretending I was an astronaut, a fireman, a TV anchorman or baseball player because it posed no threat. Music’s something totally different. It hits too close to the nerve endings in a household of folks from the liberal arts. My aunt and grandmother are teachers. My grandfather, an architect. My mother, a writer. They hate that my dreams — or anyone else’s — are still alive. It triggers that sadness they’ve buried over letting their dreams die.
My haven and my refuge is music. When the shouting starts, I close my bedroom door, put on my headphones, and I’m transported. “Listen to the Lion” by Van Morrison, “The Song Is Over” by the Who, “Something in the Night” by Bruce Springsteen, “Levi Stubbs’ Tears” by Billy Bragg, “Moonlight Mile” by the Rolling Stones. Townshend, Strummer and Westerberg provided more spiritual solace than any hollow sermon or church hymn.
When it gets really bad, I make up some lie so I can borrow my Aunt Nancy’s car and go out driving. I put in some music, roll up the windows and sing at the top of my lungs until tears are streaming down my face. It’s like my own private exorcism.
Ever since I’ve known music, I’ve felt that my life could be lifted up by it. Music gave me a specific motivation driven by an indispensable oxygen-like need, not just some wayward desire. Singing gave me a tool to summon a part of me I couldn’t otherwise reach. Gave me a little light out in the distance. I’d discovered my lifeblood, and the drive was so strong that denying it became unbearable. It wasn’t a matter of choice anymore. That’s what my mom always told me: “We had no choice, we’re artists.” That always sounded cool, but until music permeated my bloodstream, I was just walking around dodging bullets.
* * *
9:15 a.m.
I’ve always felt a kinship with Raj down to an almost molecular level. Like me, he’s still only in college out of fear of disappointing his family. Like me, he hauls around a lot of shame and struggles with self-worth and feeling deserving. We share the same coping skill when things get ugly: shut down, withdraw, turn to escape. Like me, he’s a loner and spends big chunks of time living in the fantasy. Like me, music is his one escape. We’d both be curtains without it.
Rajesh K. Makwana. A kind, elegant, gentle being. Slight in stature, a strong wind could literally blow him off course. He’s of Indian descent with dark, striking features. He’s got these hungry artist’s eyes and a gorgeous, jubilant smile. I love his unaffected open-mouth laugh. A truly beautiful dark creature.
Raj was born in England in a tough London neighborhood called Shepherd’s Bush. Same as Roger Daltrey of the Who, he’ll remind you. He’s the youngest of three siblings, an older brother and sister. Back in England, his dad was a postal worker who delivered mail to the Beatles at Savile Row, and even witnessed the rooftop concert. It’s funny. His dad was terrified he’d be fired for not getting his mail truck through all the gawkers and traffic piled up. His mom worked long and inequitable hours in a factory.
His family moved to the U.S. in the late ’70s and opened a health food store in Santa Monica which they sold a couple years ago. His parents are the most humble, gracious, trusting and giving people. Sometimes to a fault. Raj won’t talk about it, but I think they’re in some financial trouble now after being swindled by some dubious family members back in India.
Raj doesn’t share much about it, but he’s intimated that, culturally, Indian households aren’t very emotional or physically demonstrative. Love and support is more implied than expressly stated. On the surface, his family tolerates the band, but it’s clear he doesn’t hear a lot of encouragement. I’ve asked him if that bothers him, but all he says is “It’s O.K., my family’s going through a lot right now” and changes the subject.
For Raj, it’s a race against time. At some point, his parents will arrange his wedding pursuant to the traditions of his culture. I’ve asked him what he’s gonna do, but he just changes the subject.
Like a lot of kids who move to the U.S., Raj is being pulled in two directions: by the rigid constraints of his culture and by the more relaxed standards of the West. This gets even more complicated in the murky waters of rock and roll. Ought to be interesting to see how that plays out the next 33 days.
Raj was treated like a lot of Indian kids who grew up in England: like third-class citizens. Kids chased him, threw bottles at him and harassed him all the time. He was regularly beat up, hounded and threatened just for being Indian. Actually the dumb fuckers called him a Paki. His clothes would routinely be stolen while he showered after gym class, all the towels were removed, and so he’d have to try and retrieve his clothes completely naked in front of the whole school. He doesn’t talk a lot about it, but clearly it’s left him pretty gutted.
The racial taunting and belligerence didn’t end in England. I remember when the U.S. hostages were being held in Iran, kids in our class would assume he was Iranian because of his dark skin and fuck with him.
Raj and I take these long drives into the hills talking through the night or just listening to music. It feels safe on those drives, safe to share what’s really eating us up inside. I try to get Raj to open up about how the racism has affected him. Sometimes he does, but mostly he just pushes it down. It’s when we play music together that I really understand.
From the very beginning, racism has been a galvanizing subject for the band. We’re not saints or think we have the answers, but it must be said. Raj’s history and seeing what he carries around has had a profound effect on our band. We’re a very protective and righteous group. When something insults our core beliefs, we’re an unruly lot, and we’ll stand up and confront it.
I’ve always been protective of Raj and feel this strong sense of duty to make the world see the parts of him only I know about. Kind of like how it is with me and my mom. It’s probably why I have a strong affinity for the underdog and downtrodden. Forms the basis for my steadfast belief that nobody’s free until everybody’s free.
Raj and I really started connecting early in our sophomore year of high school. When I first met him, rock music to him was The Beatles. Period. I decided something had to be done about this. The Who documentary The Kids Are Alright was playing in an afternoon matinee down in the Marina. Of course I had to bribe him into going by telling him Wings Over America, the goddamn Paul McCartney movie was playing with it. So after school, we take the #8 Blue Bus and ride down Lincoln Boulevard, assuring him if he just sits there for two hours he’ll never be the same again. So the movie starts, and I’m peeking over to see his reaction. And sure enough, with every Pete Townshend windmill and leap, I can actually see the whites of Raj’s knuckles as he tightly grips the arm rests.
There’s this scene of Townshend at Woodstock repeatedly pounding his guitar into the stage, and then he nonchalantly walks to the edge of the stage and tosses it into the crowd. I think at that moment Raj started to feel differently about the guitar. Instead of revering it as a delicate object that played you, he set aim to conquer it, will it into submission, and use it as a weapon against every motherfucker who ever doubted him.
In the guitar, Raj found a transportational device. A means to escape with a weapon at his side. There’s a reason they call the guitar an axe.
Musically, Raj possesses a wonderful independent vision, hell-bent on originality. He relies entirely on instinct and mistrusts any sort of regimented practice schedule. This produces some sublime twists and turns creatively but also causes some fundamental breakdowns. As a result, we can be equally transcendent or abysmal on any given night.
During our last year of high school, I told my then girlfriend Patty that the sounds and visions in my head were getting stronger all the time and that I felt I was meant to make music. She just looked at me like I was a freak. When September 1983 rolled around, I didn’t know how to move my feet, so I sighed in resignation and began college like George and Raj and everyone else. It didn’t take long before little scribbled lyrics began to appear on the margins of my lecture notes, but the thought of pursuing music seriously and facing my grandfather’s disapproval was just too imposing.
* * *
9:45 a.m.
My grandfather was a grand presence. Humble, highly principled. A classic gentleman. He was the only male authority figure I’ve ever known — the only one I ever called dad.
He loved to putter around town at his own painstaking pace, take a few extra minutes to talk to Mr. Harrington, who ran the camera shop, or shoot the shit with Dennis at Colvey’s Men’s Clothing shop. Then over to the local café where Miguel would cook him up the same breakfast every Saturday. Sausage and eggs over easy, rye toast heavily buttered. Black coffee.
To him, one’s integrity was the sole determining factor of how you were judged. “Stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything,” he’d say. He was a “you’re only as good as your word” kind of guy. I definitely got that old-school value system from him.
My grandfather was a brilliant architect with a very successful practice of his own. “Architecture begins where engineering ends,” he’d say. Many of the homes, buildings and churches he designed still stand here in L.A. He suffered a nervous breakdown after his partner screwed him over. He then came back to become a very sought-after art director for several of the big movie studios. Every morning he’d get up at dawn and have breakfast at the Ships restaurant across the street from MGM and read the paper from cover to cover.
My grandfather remained a voracious, lifelong student up until the day he died. Always had six or seven books going at once, all opened and piled in a semi-circle around his red leather chair — one on the Peloponnesian War, another one on the history of the Catholic Church, another about Buckminster Fuller. He said there’s nothing sadder than someone who willingly chose not to learn. He’d mock them: “I don’t want a book. I’ve got one.”
I was just starting to play music for real when he finally retired because of degenerative hip disease and heart problems. Retirement was rough on him. And me. I was spending longer periods of time out of the house, going to gigs and staying out later, coming home tired and waking up hungover. I got a lot of his grief. I’d get home from school and he’d drill me for six things I’d learned that day. I’d get off the bus and walk up the street sweating, knowing he wanted those six things I learned. I think he just missed school, missed feeling involved and connected.
My grandfather was a Depression-era survivor working two jobs to put himself through college, one at the morgue on the graveyard shift, and another after school. You just can’t reason with a Depression survivor. Your pain, your frustration, your troubles are never as bad as what they faced. It’s like a Monty Python skit. One guy says, “When I was growing up we lived in a little house and the roof leaked, we had no heater and we about froze to death.” And the second guy says incredulously, “You had a house?!” That sort of thing.
He came from a time when you locked people up who had mental problems or were addicted to drugs or alcohol — it was all about a will to overcome. He was raised under this John Wayne cloud. Said his father told him men don’t take aspirin for headaches. Headaches are something women get. I guess when John Wayne got a headache he just took out his gun and shot it.
After one of my mom’s nervous breakdowns, her psychiatrist suggested my grandfather sit in on a session. He sat there and patiently listened to the therapist hypothesize about the root of his daughter’s demons. Finally, he gets up and says, “Sir, I see a great many diplomas on your walls, but with all due respect, this is all a load of horseshit,” and he walks out.
To my grandfather, music was a hobby, a luxury, something with which you killed some free time. My obsession with music just mystified him. I’d come out of the shower, put on Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and just lay there on my floor and let the music pummel me. He’d barge in and start howling in mock agony. It’s funny once, maybe twice, but this went on and on until soon I felt ashamed at how good music made me feel. It got to the point where every time I heard him approach, I’d quickly turn off the stereo or stop playing my guitar. May as well have drawn a chalk outline of my body.
* * *
10:10 a.m.
When George, Raj and I started college, we kind of went our separate ways. That fall I went to a lot of club shows around town, mostly by myself. I got angrier and angrier. I’d drive home and find myself pounding the steering wheel and screaming, “Man, I could do better than those fuckers! What the fuck am I waiting for?”
By that Thanksgiving, it’d become impossible to hold back any longer. I’ll always remember the date. November 24, 1983. It’s a typically crazed, uncomfortable holiday dinner at 940. Ten minutes of eating and four hours of waiting around. Lots of false starts and stops and frozen smiles while my Aunt Nancy sets up a photograph. “Now everyone just smile and be happy!” she’d say. Right.
My mom can’t sit still and pops up in five-minute intervals to disappear into the kitchen to swig some booze and then return momentarily calmer. My grandmother, the same thing, slipping into the kitchen quickly downing some Cutty Sark and staggering back into the living room chirping, “Everyone happy?!”
As Thanksgiving dinner finally winds down, I just want to get the hell out of there. I call Raj and ask him if he can come pick me up and take a drive. When I see him pull up in his family’s old Honda, I grab my pea coat and pull my newsboy hat down low on my head. I mumble a goodbye hoping to get away before somebody makes it out to the driveway and starts screaming something.
I get in and say to Raj, “Hey come on, let’s go,” looking back to see if I’d been followed.
“Where to?” Raj asks.
“To the top of the world,” a spot up on Mulholland Drive where you can see all of L.A., I say.
The alignment on Raj’s old Honda is for shit, and we roll along Sunset Boulevard almost like a crab walks — kinda sideways. Traffic is light, and we make our way through Hollywood, past the Strip — first Gazzarri’s, then the Rainbow and the Roxy. Then there’s Duke’s and the Whisky on the left. The next block, you have Tower Records on the left and Book Soup on the right. A little further east, all on the left, is Ben Frank’s, then Carney’s, Guitar Center, Rock ‘n’ Roll Ralph’s and a little further, Club Lingerie and across the street Cat & Fiddle. But just before then, we hang a left on Highland, go past the Hollywood Bowl and then take a left up Mulholland Drive.
When we get to the top of Mulholland, we pull along the dirt embankment and stop. It’s cold and dry and windy so I pull the collar up on my pea coat. We walk to the very edge of the cliff. The sight of a million shimmering lights and all of L.A. is there for the taking.
“So, how’s the college life, my friend?” I ask.
“All right, I guess,” Raj says looking down and kicking at the dirt.
“So, what do you think we’re gonna have to show for it in 20 years?” I say picking up a rock and chucking it as far as I can.
“Don’t know,” he says shrugging. “Just living our lives, I guess.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think that’s gonna be good enough,” I say, picking up another rock but not throwing it. I go on. “I keep hearing people say when you get to college you’re just getting started on the rest of your life, but that’s a bunch of bullshit. It’s not the beginning. It’s the fucking end if you’re living someone else’s dream. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re living someone else’s dream, Raj.”
“OK, but what are we supposed to do?” he asks watching me chuck the rock out into the darkness.
“Don’t you see, Raj?” I say moving closer. “Something happens when you keep denying what’s at your core. Something happens when you deny the thing that’s your very essence.”
I watch him stare out into L.A.’s vast expanse.
“Raj,” I say quietly to him. “Soon it’ll be too late. You’ll be married to someone you’ve never met before, and I’ll be as bitter as everyone in my house. If we don’t do this now, we’ll hate ourselves for the rest of our lives.”
He looks back at me and asks, “Do what?”
“For fuck’s sake, Raj. Music. We’re supposed to make music — you and me,” I say feeling a rush scaling my windpipe. “I’m telling you, it’s meant to be. Raj, look down there,” I say taking off my hat and using it to point at all the shimmering lights. “Let’s make every one of those motherfuckers down there know our name.”
He doesn’t say anything for a full minute. He just keeps staring out at all those lights before the words just tumble out: “Bill, I’ve wanted to call you and say the same thing for the past three months.”
“And you know what?” I say, my eyes widening. “We’re gonna be the ones who do it right. No groupies, no rock star poses, no ego trips.”
I look at him until a smile creeps up that Raj can’t hide.
“I’ll call George,” I say smiling.
The next morning, I phone George who’s living in the dorms at UCLA. I hadn’t talked to him since the summer.
Ring. “Hello?”
“George...Bill here.”
“Que pasa, my friend,” he says in his croaking morning voice. “How’ve you been?”
“Look, if I beat around the bush I might think twice.”
“Well, you don’t want that,” he cracks.
“Listen, I hooked up with Raj last night. We were talking up there on top of the world, you know, up on Mulholland looking down at the whole city and everything. And man, I’ve been up there a million times, looked down and never saw any space for me. But last night it didn’t look so scary and off limits.”
“Oh-kay,” he says trailing off.
I exhale deeply and fire my shot. “Look, school’s become a joke. I’m only going for my grandfather. And, well, Raj and I were talking, and…we want to start a real band. The goddamn greatest band that’s ever been.”
George laughs nervously for a moment and then says soberly, “I can’t believe you’re saying this. I was lying on my bed just last night wanting to call you and say the same fucking thing.”
The next week, the three of us gather in George’s basement and write one song, “Like the City, a droning but jangly little lark. We record it onto a shitty little ghetto blaster. I still have the tape. I ask George’s mom to take a picture of us together so the moment can be captured, certain this will be an important piece of rock history.
After that first rehearsal, we all walk up the steps of George’s basement, and it’s like we knew we’d just crossed over. We’d played a few parties together in high school but no one dared say it was for real back then. This was different and we could all feel it. Everything up to this day was someone else’s, and now everything was in our own hands. When I get home, I write out ten targets I’ve set for the band with a little tagline under it: “Thanks be to music — the deepest mother, a lover, a soul mate, like no other...a gift from God, a spirit to haunt, an expressway to the soul — toll-free…for wounded hearts tired of lamenting.”
* * *
10:25 a.m.
Tom Hasse is still not here. I’m staring at my records trying to decide between Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and the Velvet Underground’s first record. I hate when there’s no music on. There should be a gizmo that kicks in and plays something while you’re trying to decide on the next tune. Maybe “Baby Elephant Walk” from the old Wonderama show. I finally settle on R.E.M.’s Murmur, basically the band’s blueprint our first year.
The last gig we did in town was a few days ago at the Lhasa Club opening for fIREHOSE who recently started up out of the ashes of the Minutemen after D. Boon tragically died a little over a year ago.
Just a few months ago before a show I’d pace back and forth in front of Club Lingerie or the Anti-Club or Raji’s, thinking if I fretted long enough out in the cold more people would magically appear. Of course they don’t, and I head back inside, and we play our hearts out in front of eight or ten people at most.
Because the Lhasa is so intimate and we’re so loud, we always bring great heartache to the soundman there, an uppity little Frenchman like the Lhasa’s owner, Jean Pierre. During soundcheck, the soundman tells George he’s too loud so George says, “O.K., but if I turn down any more I won’t be audible.” Guy marches toward George and spits out in his heavy French accent while striking a bass player’s pose, “We’re not going to lose our license because some silly little bass player wants to go boom, boom, boom.” George just stands there dumbfounded while the little fellow pivots on his boot heel and storms back to the soundboard. So, we do what we always do. Turn down at soundcheck and crank it when the show starts.
Before we go on, these two girls, Kimberlie and Jennifer, who’ve been coming to our shows the last six months, give me a Divine Weeks shirt they had made. It’s crazy. They tell me we’re their favorite band and want to know if they can get backstage passes when we play the Forum one day. I try to tell them we’re no rock stars, but Kimberlie says we’re already rock stars to them. It’s like an out-of-body experience hearing stuff like that. I put the shirt on for our encore, and I hear them both squeal.
I think Kimberlie, the shy one, likes Raj. She seems sweet. Raj blushes when she comes around. Over the last few months as we’ve started to gain some notoriety, it’s been amazing watching Raj onstage gaining more confidence. Instead of hiding behind his guitar, he now holds it like a weapon, like he’s fighting all those fuckers from his past that treated him like shit. Offstage, he’s still shy and very much the self-effacing guy I met in 9th grade with the Beatles T-shirt on every day.
The first ten minutes of our shows are like this massive release. We come out and do three songs balls-out. A full-frontal offensive and assault to the senses. Reaching, craning, insinuating ourselves. Then for that fourth song, we jam on the coaster breaks and draw people in. Usually we do “Bitterness,” a song about generational bigotry sung by a child who stops the cycle and triumphs. That’s where we show the whole arsenal. George, moving the song perpetually forward with that soulful swinging dance-hall groove. Dave, letting the song swing dangerously loose like a rope whipping in the breeze before seizing back control of it and driving it majestically to the finish. Raj, ringing chimes as he climbs the neck of his Les Paul and imbuing crucial moments with colors not yet named. And me, the orator and conductor, the filter through which all this comes through, measuring the mood of the crowd, gauging its elasticity to see how far I can push the envelope. By the time we finish “Bitterness,” people love us or hate us. Nothing in between.
Ever since Dave joined the band in March, something’s different, and you can feel the crowds moving closer and wanting more. It’s not like it was early on where you could feel the sense of obligation from people we’d drag to the shows. You knew they were doing you a favor coming down. Something’s definitely changed — especially the last month or so.
For our encore I ask what everyone wants to hear. It’s a rock star thing to say but who can resist the opportunity to hear “Free Bird!” shouted back at you? Never fucking fails. Finally, someone yells what I’m waiting for. I want to do “Dry September.” It’s my favorite song to perform. The one that lends itself most to improvisation. Musically, it’s kind of a hybrid of Neil Young’s “Needle and the Damage Done,” R.E.M’s “Pilgrimage,” and “Mother” by John Lennon. Lyrically, it’s a William Faulkner-inspired tale about a black man coveting a white woman in the Deep South and the ensuing lynching. After Dave joined the band, the song got real theatrical. He added these dynamic accents like he’s playing tympanis.
Raj has adopted “Dry September” as his own personal catharsis of the racial taunts he absorbed growing up Indian in England. Every time we play it, it’s like we’re all fighting the power of his past together. The middle section of the song is like an exorcism. As the band pounds out a strident staccato marching beat, I wail my guts out. Every night we play a different version. It just keeps evolving. Live, this is the true essence of Divine Weeks. The one song I’d offer up if we had only one left to play.
Before fIREHOSE takes the stage, Raj offers to move Mike Watt’s skyscraper-like SVT amp onstage and poor waif-like Raj can’t handle it and about gets crushed to death. Right before the amp topples on him, Watt’s massive hand reaches down and pulls it up just in time. Watt just smiles and says “I got this one, Raj.” Like he’s done with countless up-and-coming bands, Watt’s sort of taken Raj under his wing, and it’s really had a profound effect on Raj who’s now totally bought into the whole DIY approach. During their set, Watt, in his inimitable style, pays us the ultimate tribute when he says “This is dedicated to Divine Weeks,” and he hits a big booming D note, lets it sustain and points at Raj. Few get it, but it was fucking high praise.
After the gig, I grab a bite to eat with my friends Corey, Ellen, Joy and Melody. We all squeeze into a booth at the Denny’s on Sunset where it crosses the 101. I tell Corey that even though we’ll be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the next month and don’t know how we’ll pay for gas to get us to the next town, as far as I’m concerned, my life is finally just starting. At the end of the night we’re saying goodbye, and Corey pulls me aside and says, “You guys are the first from our little community that’s becoming something.” Then he hands me $50 and says, “Bill, take this. We’ve all seen Divine Weeks become something from nothing. You guys are making a lot of us believe we can go chase our dreams too. Good luck to you guys.”
* * *
10:45 a.m.
I didn’t get the mom from the Norman Rockwell painting, the one with the perpetual smile and calm reply to my latest trouble. More like equal parts Sylvia Plath and Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. A brilliant mind and truly original writer and observer, she’s a bona fide eccentric artist — just born in the wrong the time. Not a shred of discipline for her craft, and so she remains tragically unknown. Anyone who knows me understands no one’s broken my heart more or influenced me more. She’s the sole reason I write, sing and climb on a stage. Our relationship is complicated. Codependent. Toxic. Sublime.
I spent a lot of mornings trying to wake her up so I could get to school on time. Strewn beside her bed I’d find tiny little brown glass bottles with white chalky residue inside. I’d chuck them one by one like grenades over the third-story balcony of our old apartment and watch them explode on the ground.
One time I had to bail her out of jail. She stole a stupid carton of cigarettes and got nabbed. I went down to Sybil Brand women’s detention center with $1,000 stuffed in my sock to post bail. After getting jacked around for hours I finally get her out, and as I drive her home, I realize I’ve become the mother and she’s become the child.
She’s always been called the black sheep of the family, a favorite target of my grandmother who never lets my mom forget she was never good enough or the equal to her younger sister Nancy, the good daughter. My mom’s damaged goods. Studies her shoes, keeps her best parts bottled inside. I’ve always felt a duty to protect her and bring out the side only I know about. Like I said, kind of like me and Raj.
When I was 13, my mom split. Couldn’t take the abuse anymore. It was an unusually warm April night. The night I found out I had a sister named Lyric and a brother named Danny. I’m in my room and hear yelling and door-slamming. Nothing terribly unusual, but the screaming sounds more insidious than usual so I get curious and venture out. My Aunt Nancy and my grandmother are giving it to my mom who’s just learned an old friend died and is distraught. My mom shouts out how could they be so callous on her firstborn’s birthday just as I appear.
My mom runs out the front door and everyone retreats to their own quarters leaving me there to try and process it all. A minute or so later, I walk slowly down the front driveway toward my mom who’s sitting on the curb in front of the house smoking a cigarette. She glances up at me then quickly looks down again. I sit down beside her on the curb.
“No matter how old I get, when someone yells at me I’m four again,” she says.
She drags hard on her cigarette and stares out. “Are you ashamed of me?” she asks.
“No,” I say quietly.
She looks up at me and then quickly back down at the asphalt again.
“Mom, why do you always feel so alone?”
“How do you know I do?”
“Don’t you know?” I ask. “I’m you and you’re me. And no matter what anyone in that house says, it’s always been just the two of us, and that’s never gonna change.”
She bursts into tears. Just heaving uncontrollable tears. It scares me. Like it always does with her when I feel her start to spin. I hold her until she pulls away, and she starts talking in that strangely calm voice she gets when she’s actually really losing it.
“I
have to go away, B,” she says. “I can’t stay here anymore.
Those people in there are going to destroy me.”
“Where are
you going?” I ask strangely calm.
“Just away — with some people I know,” she says taking another drag. “Come with me, B.”
I think about all the people she calls friends, the fuck-up boyfriends and people she’s let in our lives who’ve ripped us off. Finally I say: “I’m gonna stay here, Mom. I’m…sorry.” I know that hurt, but as fucked-up as it is here, if there’s one thing I know it’s survival, and I know how to make it here.
She tells me that somewhere out there is my older sister Lyric, and my younger brother Danny.
Lyric was born the year before me. My brother Danny, the year after me. We all have different fathers. Lyric’s father is supposedly a longtime family friend who never knew about her. My grandparents feigned Catholic shame over their pregnant teenage daughter and sent her away while she was pregnant with Lyric. My mom says she never considered having an abortion. Said she felt beautiful carrying a baby. When Lyric was born my mom refused to give her up, and the two shared a little apartment in Hollywood but couldn’t make ends meet. My grandmother then sent my grandfather to her apartment with orders that she either give up Lyric or she wouldn’t be welcomed home again. I’m pretty sure being forced to give Lyric up is the single most painful demon that haunts her.
I never knew my father, John Van Cott. My grandparents let my mom keep me because John married my mom for about five minutes. He split right after I was born.
My father was apparently a real winner. A druggie and a philanderer. Right after I was born, money was pretty tight so my mom tells him he should try to get a job. After all, peace signs and good vibes can only go so far. He says, “Listen, jobs aren’t what’s happening now” and within a week he split.
My mom once told me I met him at a party when I was about two years old long after he’d split. I’m in my mom’s arms resting on her hip. He comes up to say hello, and she deadpans, “Hello John…you remember Billy, don’t you?”
His grandfather used to call me apologizing for what my dad did until I finally told the poor old bastard to stop calling and work out his guilt elsewhere.
Danny was born about a year or so after me. It was apparently some scandalous affair, and he was given up for adoption. Our family is close to the local Catholic parish and one of the young brothers apparently was in doubt about carrying on in the seminary. This was the ’60s and one member of the Catholic hierarchy had the brilliant idea that counsel with a young member of the parish, someone “hip,” might help this poor brother through his period of doubt.
All my mom ever told me about it was that while she was counseling him, the Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together” came on the stereo, and the rest as they say is Danny, er, history.
As for my father, it’s just too much of a cliché. Cowboy walks into the sunset. Roll the closing credits. I’ve never heard from him. Whatever.
Mary says I’m walking around with mom-and dad-shaped holes inside; that I make whoever I think can fill those holes into gods, only to hold them up to such high standards God himself couldn’t live up to them. Whatever.
While my mom was away that summer, everyone else here felt entitled to parenting me. That summer, my mom and I write each other these long letters. I tell her it’s madness here and to do what she needs to do. My grandmother rages on through the summer about how my mom is a disgrace. My mom calls collect from the road begging for money to be wired to her. My Aunt Nancy gets on the line and implores her to return and raise me. I feel like bait. Then they put me on the phone, and I can tell she’s just spinning wildly out of control. I hang up the phone and think to myself, why would anyone want to come back here?
* * *
10:55 a.m.
I just called Tom, but he’s not there. Must be on his way.
I put on “History Lesson Part 2” by the Minutemen — “Mr. Narrator, this is Bob Dylan to me, my story could be his songs, I’m his soldier child.”
It’s my grandmother’s birthday today. She hasn’t been doing too great in the year since my grandfather died. I never knew a time when my grandmother wasn’t ailing in some capacity. Angina, emphysema, high blood pressure, strokes, or from her latest drunken fall. Still, she’s always seemed indestructible to me. Lately though, she’s so fragile — like a gentle summer wind could snap a limb of hers right off.
My grandmother’s the family matriarch. Irish Catholic. Fiercely proud, keeper of the faith, a mercurial, brave, feisty lady. The shepherd with a heart of gold. A kook. Mag the bowlegged hag, she calls herself.
I owe my fierce loyalty to her. If there’s a family trademark — its strength and its weakness — it’s our undying loyalty. After everyone’s let go, we’re the ones who keep holding on.
I learned to be a martyr from my grandmother. We all have. And see, martyrs get more bitter and vengeful when someone dares to soar. This plays out most when you’re trying to leave the house. Like when my mom or Aunt Nancy leaves on a date or when I’m trying to get to a gig. It’s such an absurdist drama. You stand there paralyzed at the foot of her bed waiting for her to say anything positive so you can leave and not feel like shit. She puffs away on her cigarette, the TV flickering images against the walls. Of course she knows she has you. Finally, she takes another puff, exhales and says, “You go out and have your fun, and I’ll stay here feeling as sick and forgotten as I do.”
My grandmother’s the type of person who needs lots of people around her, people who make her feel necessary. But the truth is I don’t think anyone can give her the amount of love she needs because she places her expectation level just high enough so that disappointment is always ensured. I’ve probably got that too.
When I got my first guitar, a shitty old nylon-string acoustic, I’d bang away at it and make the most horrible sounds. I was barely functional on the damn thing, but that moment when I struck the sweet spot of a D chord off a G chord, I’d be transported to the safest place I’d ever known — a place that felt so good it hardly seemed possible it existed in the same world.