The View From The Stage

As the tour progressed and we got more gigs under our belts, I felt the band and I hit our stride musically. The boys were into it, I could tell by the way they played and their expressions. They were having a lot of fun. I became more confident in my delivery of the shows. I was hitting all my cues to come into the songs and I had some fun with the audience. I became more spontaneous, leaving behind the stiff choreographies I had worked up in rehearsals, I discovered freedom, I could do anything, say anything I wanted up there, there were no limits, no laws, it was my canvas, it was my blank page. I learned how to control the elements of the environment, like colors of a palette, the stage became MY stage. If somebody heckled me, I stuck the microphone under his nose and invited him, and it was almost always a guy, to, "say your thing man." Whatever came out was usually enough to embarrass him. The couple of hours on stage a night made up for all the travel and screwed up hours of going to sleep when it's light, waking up when it's evening, and fast food instead of real food. I was able to relax and take a look at things from my perspective. I became proficient at reading all the different "types" in the clubs. For instance, the clubs themselves all started to blur in my mind, they all started to look alike. Only the shapes became discernible, round, square, cavernous, cramped, oblong, elongated. The names of the clubs broke down into two categories, those named after someone, Otto's, Charlie's, Rick's, etcetera. God knows if these people really existed or the owners just thought it was a good name for a bar. And the cleverly named bars like The Dew Drop Inn, or Who's In There, Stop Rite Inn.

Next were the customers. There was the high school quarterback who couldn't get into college, his high school girlfriend, still at his side, who hadn't lost faith in him, yet. The barroom savant who no matter how long he'd been drinking could answer questions on Jeopardy faster than the contestants, and the bartenders demonstrating examples of barroom physics. I noticed there was usually a visible gap in the ages of the waitresses, they ran from the young and hopeful for whom the job was only temporary until they got through school. They did their jobs bouncing from table to table. And the older waitresses, those that hadn't gone to school or had just plain missed their chance and knew they were there to stay. They conserved their energy, taking a puff or two off a cigarette at the bar before going to check their next table, each day sliding blissfully into memory.

Then there were the growing signs of our success. We had gathered a following. I started seeing some of the same faces at gigs that were close to one another. Another was the gigs themselves started to blur in my memory. One night's Backdoor Man seemed the same as the previous nights Riders On The Storm, or Hello, I Love You. It was also around this time people started giving me things, phone numbers, rings, necklaces, keys, poetry and artwork. I don't know if they thought I could get them published or "discovered," or they just wanted an audience, someone who might understand, some of it was pretty good. As word about us got out, Swifty was able to fill in more and more of the empty dates in the tour.

If we weren't traveling, or at a gig, there was a lot of down time. It was downright boring. The days we played were filled with drama and excitement of the gig, the bustle of loading and unloading equipment was completely counter balanced by ripping boredom. No wonder Morrison found ways to amuse himself by hanging out windows, ledge walking, and later drinking. Because Tom was closer in age to me than the band, on off nights or when I was bored I'd visit his room and we'd smoke a joint, or drink some beer. He'd tell me his road stories, having lived pretty much of his life on the road, never settling anywhere, no family of his own. In between bands he lived as well as he could, depending on how much money he had saved from the road. He'd partied with rock stars and drank with winos, but he never showed me what he'd drawn.

One night when I got on stage, in the front row was a table of four truly beautiful girls. All decked out in their finest wares, dripping with sequins and pearl necklaces. They looked uncomfortable and awkward in the clothes, like kids playing grown up, still tripping on their mother's high heels. I knew the boys had girlfriends, which is how I came to think of their little troupe, as 'the girlfriends'. Thinking back, it was a gradual process. It started with one girl at a table close to the stage, then two, until the night I walked on-stage and was confronted with their glittering entourage. These weren't your average Rock ‘n’ Roll chicks, these were your exotic type. They were amateur groupies trying to move up the food chain. Not the type of girl the boys were used to, nor would have been able to attract had they not been in a band. Which just goes to show you, no matter how unattractive you are, if you're in a band you can always get a beautiful girlfriend. They were the boys’ own group of sirens, each with charms and songs of their own.

Kaja, was tall and dark, and had a mysterious look to her. She was of Eastern European descent of some sort and had lean supermodel angles to her body. I've never been able to figure out how so many Eastern European women are beautiful when young, but when you see pictures of them as old women they're all fat, sprouting mustaches and wearing babushkas.

Sofia, wisdom, the irony was she was the one truly troubled soul of the group. She wore lace and her mother's pearls. The band called her the suicide queen. If you tried to break up with her she threatened to kill herself. If that didn't work, she would call the guy leaving her to inform him a much more major departure was imminent.

Michelle, she was always dressed in black. From the concert T-shirts she wore to the stylish combat boots, and in between diaphanous skirts. She was one of those people who tried never to say an uninteresting thing, or do anything remotely mundane in their lives, never. She always had a story to top yours, no matter how bizarre. I tested her by telling her the most fantastic stories I could think of. She was never at a loss for a story to trump mine. She had either done a lot of living, or was a gifted liar.

And finally, Alex, she was the one truly dangerous one, capable of breaking up the band if her influence became too much, she was smart and the problem was her whisperings in Johnny‘s ear. I would guess her name was probably Alexandra or Alexia, no one ever told me, and I never asked. She was my type. Or would have been in the past, but I was beyond them now. She wore leather pants, assemblages of torn T-shirts, handcuffs and chains, and every time I saw her she had different colored hair. And she was smart. One night between sets I talked her up a little.
"Why are you so into Morrison?" She asked.
"I bought the book An Hour of Magic when it came out, and when I opened it, it just had this incredible picture of Morrison, a shiver just shot through me."
"A little latent homoerotic reaction?" She asked.
"I'm not gay."
"Are you sure?" So much for showing my vulnerabilities.

We also started getting invitations from our 'fans' for after show parties, which sometimes added an element of danger and adventure. One night, there was a table almost directly in front of the stage with two couples on a date. One of the girls was truly beautiful. Each show I tried to find someone in the audience to sing to, the seduction was easy, just sing a song and look into their eyes as if you were looking into their soul. Playing Morrison made me feel like I could move the world, picking up whatever girl at a gig was easy, sex became a liquid to me and unlike the boys I didn‘t have a girlfriend, there were plenty of women who wanted to be with “Jim Morrison.” The next song was, Hello, I Love You. In between sets one of the guys from the table came up to me.
"Hey, man, you trying to move in on my girlfriend?"
"No, I'm not trying to steal your girlfriend." I said, smiling broadly, drawing him into my confidence, "I just wanna fuck her and then I'm leaving town." He laughed.
"Man, you're all right!" He said, slapping me on my back, "I'll buy you a beer."
"Cool, man."
"We're havin' a little party after the show, do you and your band want to come over?" You can get away with murder when you're in tune with the universe.

We went to their crash pad of an apartment, probably the first apartment of whomever's it was. There all ready seemed to be a party in progress when we got there. There were a few people sitting around a big round table in the middle of the room with a bong on it, surrounded by an old chair and sofa. Within leaning distance of the chair a top of the line stereo, with an equalizer, a professional turntable, while the rest of the furniture looked second hand. It was clear this was the center of the apartment.

After a couple of bong hits I noticed a girl standing against the wall watching every move I made. She looked more interesting than the others, she was wearing black-rimmed librarian glasses and had long dishwater blond hair that hung over her face like she was trying to hide, at least that's the impression she wanted you to have. At first glance you would think she's plain looking, but the more I watched her, the more I could see the beauty behind the glasses. She was pretty, but it was a forced perspective, the angular features of her face met to form a jigsaw of beauty, she could've been a librarian or a model depending on how she cleaned up. I watched her watching me, I could see stories in her face, like she was trying to explain everything that's happened to her, the histories and mysteries of her life. Then she would drop her head a little and seek temporary refuge, I knew once you befriended her she would show you the wilder fires that burned within.
"I'm gonna' get a beer." I went to the kitchen, she followed me, pinned me up against a wall, and started kissing me, my hand shot up her shirt like a snake after its prey. I stepped back and looked into her deep blue eyes. All I could do was stare into them and think of how I wanted to get lost in her eyes and other poetic clichés.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"This feels too familiar. I could let myself be drawn into you so easily." I said, "but I can't!" I pushed her away. It would've been like getting back together with Deidre, "but you don't know me, and what I'm really like. I can’t help you, I’m Sorry," I said. No more compromises.

I went back into the living room where everyone was sitting in a circle on the floor very zoned out listening to Led Zeppelin, a whole When The Levee Broke feeling. The bong still sitting in the middle of the table surrounded by some very stoned knights of a round table. The night diffused into a hazy golden color. That's how I remember it, all of us sitting in a circle in that living room. Each of the boys smiling like he was in a golden halo, or maybe a spotlight in the surrounding darkness.

(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)

Chapter 30: The Saga of Jimmy Stark Pt 1