[Mb-civic] Sniffing The Devil

[Cheeseburger]

Re:  Sniffing The Devil


Richard,

p.s:

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=138

I just thought it a bit fitting since McCartney just sang at the Super Bowl.

George went from cancer, and they shot John in the head, so they couldn't
join him.

As far as sending you know what through the mail in these homeland security
days, only a fool would chance such a thing.

As far as who I am, what I do, did, am going to do, I wrote some about that,
rather intensely, in some old posts here, have no idea where they are, maybe
among the deleted, surely you read those, how could one pass by such
brilliant treatises of relatively unimportant self-exposure.

Even though I understand the reasoning etc behind someone like Cassius
Clay's statements of "I am somebody!!", after sitting and watching the 6
hour anthology about The Beatles put together by the (then) surviving 3
members, I view my existence, accomplishments, talents, etc (now and then)
as relatively insignificant by comparison.

But, just for the record (since my current profiling niches me as someone
who might climb to a tower and observe the world, lol), let's run down a
brief synopsis of Cheeseburger once more for those not giving or getting
head at the moment or busy being slaughtered.

I was born.  Although having known only one father my entire life, the
question of "Do you know who your real father was?" was recently introduced
into my vocabulary about 18 months ago by a woman who called up after mother
died and asked that and told me that I was named after her son whom my
mother adored but was killed by the Nazis as a medic during WWII trying to
save a GI on the battlefield.

I was severely beaten as a child.  My mother was in and out of mental
institutions until I finally threatened my family unless the got a second
opinion.  Most of my entire childhood was wiped entirely from my mind,
fortunately and unfortunately, revisited only by elderly women, some
relatives, who sat me down and said "I want to tell you something" and
related a few stories and then went to heaven themselves a few weeks later.
I lived in this little town in south texas for (I counted it up the other
day) about 45 years, in the same house I am typing from now, with my mother
and father in it as well who are now gone.  I am single.  I have never been
married.  I have no children.

I have been trying to change that small Fact for quite some time now since
about 25 years ago when I was sitting near Waverly Place and 7th Avenue in
Manhattan drinking some budweisers on a Saturday night watching the throngs
of people go by on 7th Avenue and a little strange man sat down next to me
on the steps of a 4 story brownstone.  He talked about god, the devil,
existence, etc etc, then asked to read my palms (this is why if someone asks
to view the palms of my hand, I simply do not reply but walk away, even if
they are Marilyn Monroe naked laying on a beach with strawberry cheesecake
on her stomach), I showed him my palms, he told me many things, long ago,
I've been trying to "make them not happen" for forever now it seems, he
asked if I liked women and children and I told him "Of course I do, some day
I will settle down, find a wife, and have beautiful kids), he winced,
slowly, and replied "Sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but it will
never happen in your life", he asked me if I loved my father, I replied yes,
he looked me in the eye as my palm burned and said "Go home, your father
needs you", walked around the corner onto 7th Avenue, I followed him 2
seconds later, he had disappeared, I walked back to the hotel I was staying
at near Washington Square Park, took everything out of my room without
calling anyone, walked down to 6th avenue, and sold everything but one
guitar and a few clothes, took the subway up to Port Authority, and got a
bus which arrived about 3 days later at the little bus stop 1.5 blocks from
my house, walked into my parent's house and there sat my brothers who were
basically never there, they asked what are you doing here, I replied oh I
dunno I just felt I should come home, I asked where is daddy, they replied
he's in the hospital he might not live.

If someone tries to tell me there are not psychics, people with paranormal
powers, skills, etc, that there are not "strange things" going on seen and
unseen on this planet, I not only no longer laugh at them, but I simply just
walk away and leave them in their ignorance or stubborness or castigating
plans.

Who am I..?  What did/do I do..?  I am the guy who sits around and tries to
change his entire future endlessly which was told to me completely about 25
years ago by some little man who just decided he needed to talk to me one
Saturday night in Manhattan.

Research "ordinary South Texas towns" if you want to know a lot more about
where my basic "roots" are, and how both ordinary and bizarrely cruel "south
texas towns" wound up being for a taste of "where I came from".

2 weeks into my senior year in high school, I ran away from home, heading
for NYC to see where my father was born, as a fluke.  When I returned,
instead of getting the valedictorianship and a scholarship to a college, I
was punished for running away from home by the principal of the school.
Instead of 50 licks on the butt with a board with holes bored into it for
speed and impact, all the teachers were instructed to make me take all the
tests, do all the homework, but not pick up my work, but rather just mark a
bige red Zero on everything for my first semester.  That blew out college
for me, but I found a loan, out of basic dire poverty, and went anyway.
That was the fall of 1968, Austin Texas.

I spent some of my money, foolishly (not to me), on 60's rock records and a
record player.  The first 3 albums I bought in my life were Spirit, Traffic,
and The Beatles.  I came back from class one day and the bikers (I didn't
know what bikers were) who had befriended me (a pure one) and used to sit in
my room of the boarding house I lived in and shoot up tootheache medicine
with a home-rigged unit, had ripped off my door which was laying on the
floor and the only thing left was a paperclip laying on the floor.

Subsequently, financially bereft, I dropped out of college.  Walking down
the street one night, I heard rock music.  My shoeless beaded bearded friend
I was with said oh those are my friends do you want to go see them.  We
crawled over a fence to some building on the UT main drag, climbed up a fire
escape, and through a window into a room with a 3 piece rock band named
PEACE playing under black lights while 20 naked people swirled and danced
across the floor from wall to wall.

They were in a play called Now The Revolution, later changed to "Stomp" (not
the new rythmic one), the director, a gay guy named Doug Dyer who did a lot
of acid had me do an audition and the next day I find out I am suddenly an
"Actor" in a University based theatrical group that was thrown out of the
student union building based facility for having a black man and a white
woman strip down to their underwear bra and panties during a song one night
in a performance on campus.

Three days later I am told we are going to Houston to perform don't worry
leave everything here we'll send a truck back for your belongings.  We
performed in Houston, a truck went back for our belongings, I never went
back.  From Houston, we (rock protest musical etc) went to Atlanta, while in
Atlanta Joe Papp and Bernie Gerstein heard about us (don't ask me how, lol,
I was still fresh out of the purity of a south texas town), flew down from
NY, asked us if we wanted to play some little establishment in NYC called
The Public Theater, next thing I knew, since there were about 30 of us at
that time and no major funding for housing in Manhattan, we were all living
and performing in Martinson Hall at The New York Shakespeare Festival
(Public Theater) for about one year.  I roamed the halls and the streets in
great capes I would borrow from their costume department, stoned, I mean
stoned, Richard, not buzzing, stoned, like Hendrix.  I used to sit and laugh
and talk with some guy named Shakespeare in the halls there late at night
after everyone went to bed.

People like Clive Barnes would beg to take us out to dinner, I was in Life
magazine, we were a "hit", lol, the only non-union production ever to play
off-broadway in theatrical history, as someone put it, people like Grotowsky
(The Living Theater?) would sit in a circle with us after our shows and ask
us "how do you do it, I don't understand", I would look at him and smile and
say "I don't know, we just have a good time, here have some more wine and
smoke some of this", I met people like Michael Butler, it was a strange
show, sometimes the scenes would be switched from their placement in the
play on a moments notice right before the curtain would go up, sometimes
lots of an old forgotten thing called "Improvisation" would occur, all I
knew was at the end of the play, along with all the rock music, people would
be laughing or crying or begging to take us home and f*ck us, we wrote that
into the show actually since we all lived in Martinson Hall, we would just
stop the show and state "If anyone wants to take any of us home with you
after the show tonight, just let us know later" and go on with the show.

I'm not sure what happened with the MB deal, we were going to sign with him
or something and be superstars on Broadway, lol, but that panned out somehow
from completely budding, and the next thing I knew we were on tour in Europe
etc during festival time 1970-1971.  In Yugoslavia I bought my first guitar
which would not tune, so the 12 guitarists that were with the show (one of
them was some guy named Joe Ely) tuned it to an open tuning and I walked
around Europe with it on my back hanging from a little rope.

In Yugoslavia, I also remember we were playing a castle, people stormed the
castle across the moat, broke through the door, and 100 people interupted
the show in protest because there were not enough tickets, although we had
been playing their an entire week.  One guy began ranting on in English,
calling us Communists and stuff, I began to argue back with him, they calmed
me down, allowed the people to stay, we went on with the show, in the middle
of the next song, the lead guitarist collapsed in a heap on the stage, I at
the other end of the venue cried "Rob", his name, and raced toward him, as I
entered the epicenter of the theater, I collapsed on the floor just like
him, paralyzed, unable to move except my mouth and eyes.  They rushed us to
a hospital in Zagreb or somewhere.  A short while later I heard him
screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming in the next room.  A few
minutes later a nurse came into my room where I was still paralyzed with a
tray with about 8 different little cups on it all filled with different
colored pills and stated that "You must take all of these to get better", I
summoned all my will and found I was only once able to move my arm and hand
enough to knock the tray out of her hand up against the wall and scream at
her to get out or I would kill her.  The next morning (we slept there, who
knows what they did to me in my sleep), it was as if it had never happened
(I put it down to either some kind of weaponry or simple Black Magic from
The Eastern Bloc, which nobody believes in but me of course).  Later that
day I found that the reason Rob was screaming so much was that they decided
that they needed to do a spinal tap on him with no anasthetic.  From what I
gather that must be rather painful.

I came back from tour and busting my *ss to make something out of myself,
called up my girlfriend (my first true love, beautiful, amazing) in
Manhattan as soon as I got in, her sister answered and said "Oh, look, she
doesn't want to see you anymore (we were going to be married as soon as I
got back off tour), while you were gone I took her on a road trip by car
from New York to California, and at every restaurant, gas station and truck
stop that we stopped at, I had her spread her legs for the first man we
noticed, she's over you now, go f*ck youself.".

I moved on.  The show broke up.  I came back to Texas for a year.  I
received a letter in the mail that said "Stomp reunion, come one come all,
food, places to live, etc, we're getting the show back together".  I sold
everything, got there, walked into where they were staying and they said
"What are you doing here?", I told them, they said oh that was just a joke,
the director made us send that, he flipped out, it's not getting back
together things are different.  I hung around a little as I had nowhere else
to go at that moment, lol.  They wound up in a cult in Queens NYC with some
ticket agent from Pan Am channeling beings from another world where
everything he said in trance was tape recorded and then later transcribed
and put in fire proof metal containers.  I eventually proved him to be just
another *sshole along with his Israeli wife who sat around eating chocolates
and chain smoking all day and night while everyone else had to go
vegetarian, not be gay, not eat sugar, not smoke, and watched him fondle
everyone's genitals, f*ck them, and then beat their kids which they later
sued him over long after I left.  During that period, I worked as an
unofficial accountant for C. Itoh and Co. (America), the largest Japanese
import export business.  They worked me into the ground but it was a real
treat to learn such things as GO, where to get great oriental food, and the
little rooms in giant buildings where they would go to buy anything at a
discount, and watch them bow each morning on their knees to the head man.

I stayed in Manhattan.  Inbetween all that, I came home one Christmas and
asked my mother where were all the writings I had done since I was a child
up into my 20's, and she said, oh if they were in that old desk, I threw
that away long ago.  As far as writing, when I first entered high school,
there were only 2 relatively progressive teachers in this town at that time,
the theater teacher (I was amazed to find "Theater" as an actual class in
this place, it no longer exists on the curriculum) and the english teacher,
married, him thin, her enormous, they danced up a storm at every chance they
got, complete experts, he put up an op art colored oil painting one day and
instructed the class to "write what you see", I wrote something I entitled
"Raperta".  He collected the papers, came to mine, said "Oh, my God", left
the class alone, went to the principal's office and became delirous trying
to tell him he had discovered a literary genius, the principal didn't care,
nobody cared about those things down here, they still don't basically, came
back to class, and proceeded to explain to all the kids what I was and then
read my piece (which really helped my status in an exclusively peer pressure
world from hell).

In 1976, 5 years after I bought my first guitar in Yugoslavia, I found
myself as the guitarist in a rock band on a jet headed for London to be
signed to a record deal by Decca records (I was first chair trumpet and
piccolo in high school and was giving classical piano concerts at the age of
5, and quit studying piano after the choice of becoming a classical master
or having friends who wouldn't call me "sissy" for playing the piano
arrived, today, what friends, where?).

When we arrived in the office of the president of Decca records, the demo
tape didn't work, it was reel to reel, we later learned that the drummer was
doing his girl to the tape the night before we got on the jet and when he
rewound it he rewound it upside down or backwards or something so it didn't
play, I was furious, I strode around the office flinging chairs and breaking
gold and platinum records on the wall and swearing, the president calmed me
down and said "Cheeseburger, don't worry, forget about the tape, I'll book
the biggest best venue in London, invite all the press, all the stars, etc,
just do one gig, and the deal is yours".  (I wasn't the leader of the band,
just the guitarist).  I said "Well, that's great, but we have no equipment
just our drumsticks and guitars", he said "Don't worry, you can use The
Who's equipment".  That was fine with me.  The leader of the band blew off
the gig and went for all the, well, you know what is sometimes involved in
the music industry besides just music, I found myself having to hitchhike
back across the Atlantic to Manhattan.

While we were there, however, he, who was friends with the Stones, picked up
a little tape from someone that had just some background music tunes they
had worked on and discarded.  One day, after he came back from his stupor
and happiness in England, he called me up and said come over, we'll do a
doob, I'll put this tape on, you sing, we'll make a single out of it and
make a fortune, Mick won't mind.  I went over.  We did a doob.  He played
guitar.  I sang.  The first words out of my mouth that I can remember is
"I'm just waiting for a friend......".  The guy sold it to the Stones, left
the country, and now lives in Sweden or somewhere.  Both him and the Stones
owe me money.

I drove a cab in Manhattan, and all other boroughs etc.  I washed dishes.  I
worked for Joe Papp again, sat in Washington Square Park smoking doobs with
his son Anthony (Tony), I miss both of them, I worked as a dictaphone typist
for B'nai B'rith, me and 5 other ladies sitting there listening to Rabbis
all day and transcribing their tapes, I did a zillion jobs about a zillion
subject matters, I put together several bands, recorded an album in Sweden
for that guy one time, was somehow able to book bands into the best clubs in
Manhattan suddenly, on a Saturday night.  Went to work for a music manager
of a pop star as his right hand man, secretary assistant, loved putting the
head of NBC on hold and telling him he was 4th in line after the head of
SONY, CBS. and whomever, learned a lot, left NYC and moved to California.
Before I left, an iranian jewish millionaire antiques guy in Manhattan hired
me to do an album for him called Landlord Killers, he hated his landlord who
was charging him out the butt, he insisted on singing, he couldn't really,
and insisted all the tunes backing up his vocals and lyrics be only the
music of Led Zeppelin, I quickly learned all the bass and guitar licks for
every Led Zeppelin tune ever done, he paid me out the *ss for it, it was
very hard work, during that he decided he was going to invest 6 million
dollars in a movie about a robot and some kids, he built the robot himself,
a suit, I was to play it but it didn't fit, but they put me in a scene
anyway later which wound up on the cutting room floor, but that's how I got
my Screen Actor's Guild card.  I wrote plays which very few people ever saw
in venues most people never visited in Manhattan, the main one was called
The Sudden Memoirs Of Blanche McDodepuller, which was an imaginary piece I
did about being in a prisoner war camp in Viet Nam and the various
techniques of torture and what they did to the human mind, body, spirit,
heart and soul.

I went to Los Angeles.  I worked as a messenger for a while, delivering
scripts and film and who knows what to studios, everywhere, all studios,
production companies, etc etc etc, homes, met lots of people, inadvertently,
like bumping into Sly Stallone with an arm full of papers, Jack Palance
scaring the crap out of me, Jodi Foster alone in an underground parking lot
(lol, I tried not to look at her, she's beautiful, but you don't say hello
to stars in underground parking lots when they don't know you, lol, at least
I don't), Mel Brooks, etc etc yada yada yada, that and a nickel whatever,
loved pulling into mansion grounds though, knocking on the door, and hearing
"come on in, the door's open" with 2 film canisters in my hands, walking in
and seeing some guy in a huge swimming pool in his living room and hearing
him ask "Hey, great, the film, do you want some champagne...?"

Before I could do what I needed to finish in LA, I had for various reasons
to come back to where I am now typing from to watch my mother die from the
worst cancer known to mankind and have the VA basically murder my father
from a simle bedsore from refusing to turn him on his side like they would
any other paralytic patient.  I have been back here since about 1991 or
1992, my memory escapes me now and then, the tawdry details of this latest
excursion I have already stated some of them in previous posts here and they
need no retelling, suffice it to say that if this is not one step short of
hell what I am currently experiencing, then it is still safe to microwave
snowmen.

I have 300 copywritten songs sitting in the library of congress which very
few people have heard, have been writing a novel for 30 years which I am
halfway through with but keep get interupted from writing by life stepping
in or having my parents murdered or something, have always been a poet since
a wee one, and have consistently had just about everything I have ever
written thrown into the trash with no copies by people I entrusted their
care to, which is one reason I don't write that much anymore, as I can
basically predict what will happen to it.

I am a world class guitarist, among other instruments, and singer as well,
in my own "rock and roll etc" genre, am a basic master of both electric and
acoustic (who isn't these days, lol), and still have plans to put a band
back together some day.  If you ever see me perform, you will say "crap,
sign that guy now or remain an *sshole".  Of course, I'm getting almost too
old to "sign" anymore, but, hey, who the f*ck cares, not me, so I will play
and put bands together nevertheless and probably just start my own internet
record company eventually, or who knows, maybe not, talent, what a waste
when its so very very very wasted.

I am still trying to get back to LA, and have half a life at least, maybe,
since now all my people here are basically gone to heaven, all that remains,
that I claim, are the animals that they swore me to take care of on their
death beds.

I am on food stamps now, something I never would have imagined just a scant
few years ago as having to do, have lost some weight, not feeling that good,
but still relatively sane and emotionally and spiritually calm, hoping I
just have the physical strength to make the trudging move it will take to
get me and the animals back to California.

I live day to day now trying desperately to find any ways to come up with
just enough money to keep the utilities on and feed the animals inbetween
trying to figure out how to sell the falling down 103 year old house my best
friend, 94, who died and went to heaven and left me, with some crazy dream
in the back of my mind that some day I will get out of here and back to LA,
the only thought that keeps me alive, and not really have to die here with
all the gossip, rumors, slander and innuendos that currently circulate about
me and "my life" and "who I am" and "what I do".

I have billion dollar fingers.  And maybe a 50 cent mind, but the fingers, I
have found, work rather well still regardless of my mental condition.

Nobody cares about billion dollar fingers here.  They are too backbiting to
see such potential.  Misery loves company.  And, fantastically enough, as
the owner of a restaurant here that I went to ask for a job as a dishwasher
when I first got back here told me "Not only am I not going to give you the
job, but you are White...!!!!"

So go figure, from Manhattan mixing with the peoples of the world with no
problems whatsoever, able to get backstage passes to any shows in the world
including the Garden at anytime, able to make handshake deals with
millionaires where nobody else could and start the largest entertainment
clubs in Manhattan where the "stars" eventually took it all over in the
middle of Time Square, back to "Home", where most people do not wish to help
others and make the world a better place to live, but rather "get even with
Whitey" for all the misery he caused to so many for so long.

Things not found in Marvel Comics too much.

I tried to explain to a few people that it was not ALL white people who have
caused the miseries of their races and the world, but they're too busy
getting even to listen to inconsequential matters like The Absolute Truth.
Completely irrelevant and useless information.

Kind of like my bio.

However, Richard, you asked, I've left a *lot* out, yet this should hold you
for a little while, lol, until you forget again what I have already told
you.

:)

p.s.:  You're looking for millions to do shows with.  I can understand that.
I used to be there shaking those people's hands and having them hand me bags
of money when they wouldn't give other people the time of day.  Don't ask me
how.  I don't know.  Perhaps it is like one of my millionaire ex-bosses once
asked me "Why should I hire you, Cheeseburger", I replied "Because I'm
nobody from nowhereville in Texas, honest, and probably the only guy in all
of Manhattan who won't stab you in the back".  They hired me each time the
very next day or on the spot over coffee.  But now I am here, trying and
about ready to give up on disproving everything some little man with strange
eyes once came up to me and told me my entire future as I was drinking a
beer on the steps of some walkup in Manhattan, trying to get back to
"there", LA, anywhere but here, send me some money, Richard, some chump
change, just so I can feel like "I am somebody" instead of just..........




Cheeseburger


- Read my palms....?   Sorry, I gave at the office...............


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