A Moment Of Despair

   My name is Gomez. Writing songs, playing music, singing; these are the things that lift my spirit.

   No money, broken cars, riding the bus; these are the things that wear me down.

   Somehow I push on imploring the skies, all the while punishing myself with a self-imposed penance in regards to my sense of having regretful actions, in my mind, of a fast past wild life and condemn myself to the fate of the likes of Sisyphus forever to lean into the rock, sweat pouring from my brow. I ask you there must be a reason, right?

   Will the pain never end?

   Many of my comrades have now passed before me, good men gone astray, yet I carry on as my black beard grows gray.

    Should I die today there are those who would mourn me. Those whom I prop up and encourage to fight on, not to give up the ship, for the battle can be won, at least I keep telling them and myself this.

   Still, when alone, I sit in thought wondering why. Who would pep talk me in my hour of need? I grow weary and doze off into erratic day dreams. I dream of my passing into nothingness and leaving nothingness. What of this life then? Some say there is no meaning to life, but I think there must be and so I look to the heavens and the future. And what of the future, one must live for today, but if today brings only sadness, then what?

   Have you ever felt like throwing up? Not because you’re sick from a virus or of having too much to drink but because you’re sick with a thought.  

   Will it pass? Most likely and I will push on, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the rock, an errant tear mixed with the sweat that falls beneath my brow spurred on by defiance. I shall succeed…

   That is how I feel now… in this moment until once again I let the fire snorting steed of my ambivalence buck and drag me boot in stirrup down the road throat choked with dust trying to shout out the words, ‘Whoa, WHOA!’

Marilyn Monroe And Me

   Back in '86 maybe '87, in those days the years fogged into one another, I met a guitar player by the name of Sandy Bull who was hip in the 50's and 60's and had numerous LP's (vinyl) out. Don't remember exactly where I met him....it could've been at the Musicians AA meetings in North Hollywood.

   

   He himself was an ex addict now well off with a lovely wife and two great kids and I was a wild guy trying to clean up my act. No easy feat when you're still burning that candle at both ends.

   Any one of you out there that have had a substance abuse problem and tried to kick any bad habit from drugs to cigs know that it can be a daunting task. That's why there are support groups out there like NA CA and AA. Now I'm not a proponent of these organizations as I kicked my habit cold turkey, sheer force of will is the real mitigating factor. 

   This musicians AA meeting was pretty cool though for the longest time; David Crosby, Gary Busey, Paul Butterfield, Motley Crue, mostly Nikki and Tommy, these guys were pretty much all regulars....

   I would show up buzzed when finally Sandy said that he was going to be my sponsor and I was going to make a concerted effort to clean up my act....Hey I was sort of trying already so I said, "Okay".

   Now Sandy and his wife had a big old house that they were renting in Brentwood on 20th off San Vicente and he had told me they recently bought a nice ranch style house down the road near Bundy and would be moving soon and that he couldn't wait to show me the place.

   Anyway, he moves into his "new" house in Brentwood and invites me over. His wife and kids are out shopping and we're sitting around playing a little bit, me on guitar and Sandy on banjo and I say to him, hey this place looks vaguely familiar, like I've been here before. Yeah he goes, this was Marilyn Monroe’s house where she died. She died in our bedroom, freaks out the wife a bit. Wow, I thought, thinking about Joe Dimaggio parked up the street waiting for her to get home. I know that feeling...

   So we strolled into the master bedroom carrying our instruments and sat down on a couple chairs and played some more. A little strange but lovely in a way.

   Could I feel the spirit of Marilyn Monroe some have asked? I don't know but I definitely was off in another world. I was playing guitar in the room where she passed away. Now how many people could say that? Maybe only Sandy and I.

   So to make a short story shorter, I stayed on with my friend and his family for two weeks there in Marilyn Monroe's house in Brentwood on 5th Helena and kicked my lonely habit in the house where she tragically died.

   Goodbye Marilyn, thank you for listening and I hope you liked our jamming.

High Noon On The Moon

   I don’t think I was 10 years old when the Harbor Freeway was just a graded mound of dirt that passed by my house in Gardena. It was paved down to El Segundo a couple of miles north of me up to the beautiful Pasadena Freeway just north of downtown Los Angeles.  

   I would ride sometimes push my Huffy bike, replete with ape hangers and banana seat, up and over that mound tossing packs of firecrackers into the air heralding my arrival to the top. I was King of the Dirt Pile.

   In those days I was spellbound by my ABC’s, Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke. My imagination ran wild and I would often be lost in my hopelessly eternal reverie. Even so, I was acutely aware of my surroundings.

   Lying in the grass watching the clouds roll by I would often get distracted by the sound of a bug crawling through the blades and roll over to investigate.

   At that time I still had a father who cared about me even though my mother and he had been divorced and my mother remarried.

   He’d buy me pretty much anything I asked for, within reason, as he was fairly pragmatic as well as a hardworking man.

   I say fairly pragmatic as I owned no less than 5 different chemistry sets. They ranged from beginner to ATOMIC! (There were limited child protection laws at that time so parents could buy you dangerous chemicals then beat you up if you did anything wrong …in fact YOU as a child could buy dangerous chemicals at the local five and dime! I used to make gunpowder, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story…)

   The house we lived in had been converted into a war dorm for returning soldiers during WWI maybe WWII, I’m not sure but it was old enough to have been fitted with gas piping throughout.

   I had a little kitchenette off my bedroom upstairs with sink and counter and ice block refrigerator. This is where I set up my laboratory!

   Glass tubing, rubber corks on beakers and of course a BUNSEN BURNER!

   It was there in that kitchenette alcove that I first developed my foaming instant paint remover. My only problem was that it also dissolved Formica and linoleum. I was Colin Clive, ‘It’s alive, alive!’

   That particular day it poured swiftly out from the beaker above the blue flame of the burner, a blood colored foam expanding exponentially as it touched the air flowing over the Formica counter top and down my mother’s meticulously painted wall to the linoleum below. It was truly a day of days!

   The wind rustled the curtains as it blew through my bedroom window that balmy afternoon; I was bathed in the glow of the sun. In the distance a barely audible choir was singing.

   I was ecstatic; the purple red foam was everywhere. Suddenly a rapidly moving gnawing thought crawled up my back and into my brain. My mother would soon be home.

   I could hear the half hour toll in the town’s clock tower, ‘Bonnnggg!’ If I was Colin Clive then my mom was Gary Cooper and the inevitable analogy was drawn. It was either strap on my six-shooter or ride out of Dodge, fast. There was danger in the air. I was in danger. The town folk were locking doors and shuttering their windows, they could smell trouble brewing. They knew it and I knew it. It was going to be High Noon on the moon and Gary was going to win.

   She always does!

Wooden Decks, Creeks and Lagoons

   The sun beat down gently as we relaxed on the wooden deck of the old house that was one of many lining the water filled creek that emptied into a small lagoon that flowed into the bay before us.

   We were laughing, the three of us, in no hurry to be anywhere or be anyone. We just were, dreamers on a dreamy day.

    Behind me in the front yard off the deck Geoie busied herself puttering around in the garden or maybe she was hanging clothes on the line, I don’t know, but her voice drifted in and out, sing-songy and pleasantly calming.

    The sky was cloudless and blue as a piece of silk from some far off land. My daughter Leigh sat on the porch leaning back running her fingers through the water and upon the rocky bank of the creek that rose up to the side of the house. The water was clear and slow running, the earth that lay beneath reddish-brown but the creek waters reflected the silky blue sky then turned to green upon entering the lagoon.

    Before us the lagoon was filled with dinghies, a cotillion of lazy boaters rowing to and fro upon the glossy lake under golden sun.

    As Leigh ran her hands on either side of her face pushing back her hair, her freckled white face radiated the blue of the sky and returned to porcelain… I could see she was just like her mother and for a moment appeared as so.

    She had a book on pirates and we perused it together. I looked away towards the lagoon and back and noticed the book in the water floating.

    ‘Hey! Why did you toss the book in the creek?’

    ‘I didn't’

    On further inspection the perceived pages took on the shape of Disney’s Captain Hook and as I reached down to pick it up found it to be now glider shaped with Hooks head forward, the back topside and his arms spread out like wings. His coat was copper and I felt compelled to toss it into the zephyr that blew across the lagoon.

    It took off.

    The three of us looked upon the quickly moving pirate aircraft that zipped swiftly above the water between the crews manning their dinghies in the peaceful lagoon. We heartily laughed.

    As it touched down upon the lagoon it suddenly sped off like a motorboat buzzing across the lake. I was amazed and turning back to my daughter I remarked, ‘hey I want that back’.

    She smiled at me and as I thought about it in that moment, my daughter, Geoie’s lilting voice, the lagoon, the Captain Hook glider and the peaceful day filled with wonder, my vision suddenly fogged without into a cloudy white obscuration… I struggled to focus, to see the grandeur of that day of wonder when I found myself imminently staring, face immersed, at the outside of a pillow as I slowly awoke somewhat disconcerted from my dream yet still fondly deep in introspection.