TEN

    I had moved to the west coast for my health among other things, but good health was elusive. My heart was still doing OK as verified by my new heart doctor, but I did not find relief from asthma. Rather the acacia tree, ubiquitous in my neighborhood was causing much concern. I had a skin test done on my back consisting of 30 or so cuts, each fitted with an allergen. The spots for dust and mold swelled slightly, but the acacia one grew to a huge welt that lasted and itched for weeks. My diet was certainly healthy; Franklin had also moved west, and by his influence I’d become a strict vegetarian. But my fondness for alcohol and especially drugs was no help. At a party for a young lady who’d turned 21 and inherited a large sum of money, I was introduced to angeldust. I also tried cocaine for the first time in Oakland. It had no effect on me at all. Years later it would be a different story.

New Times

    With a friend, we opened a record store together. I was keen on naming it after my favorite one in New York, and so New Times Square Records came into existence. It was severely underfunded  however, due to a bad dope deal on my friend’s part, whose name I honestly no longer remember. Business was expectedly slow as a result, so we rented a room to a used musical instrument dealer, who was also starting a band. He auditioned two lead vocalists for the band, Eddie Money and myself. Guess who got the job. I suppose if I’d become a rock star in addition to the sinful lifestyle I was already living, I’d have died long ago. To be fair, Eddie was the better singer and entertainer, and although I was in second place I wasn’t even close.

    After that store failed, I borrowed $3000.00 from my Grandma Rose and opened Jive Records about a block away, but a worse location. This one managed to stay afloat for a couple of years, but towards the end, it became so depressing that most days I wouldn’t even show up at work, even at Christmas time. But there were ups as well as downs. For one thing, the bay area’s monthly record collector swap meet began in our parking lot. On the other hand, it was the scene of adulteries. I couldn’t imagine living my life only sleeping with one woman. Free love was more my style, especially if I was the one doing the cheating. Jive Records was about a block away from an art school, just jam packed with young women.

                          Jive Records

    And so, Ellen & I were no more, ending with her tossing my belongings out of her window. We didn't own very much, so there was no issue with dividing things up. She was a terrific wife, great cook, and good friend. I was too crazy to appreciate any of this, and completely undeserving of her. Still, in the five years between marriage and divorce, there were many fun times: going to Woodstock (& Sam's Bungalows)with my sister (10 years old at the time), seeing some amazing shows at the Fillmore East, the Apollo Theatre and elsewhere, and visiting the Man and His World expo in Montreal. 

    When we first got married, we immediately went food shopping to try all the unkosher things we'd been denied growing up Jewish. We ate everything except the pig's feet, which just looked too unappetizing. We bought a huge whole cow's tongue and an electric knife to cut it with; Ellen nearly lost a finger to that contraption. And come December that year, we obtained the true forbidden item, a small plastic Christmas tree. On the bus trip to Montreal, we stopped at a beautiful historic church somewhere in upstate New York, with gorgeous stained glass windows. But neither of us would go inside, too Jewish to even step foot inside a church.

Ellen on right, note her day-glo reproductions of modern art in the background

    It's hard to recall all the great bands we saw performing live, but they included Led Zeppelin, The Band, The Mothers of Invention, CCR, Otis Redding, Jefferson Airplane, Richie Havens and so many more. We actually paid for Woodstock tickets, and threw them away when we got home. I had raging hay-fever there, so we missed half of it. Between sitting in mud and not being able to breathe, it was great to retreat back to the calm of Sam's. We saw Richie Havens three times actually, one of which was at Kutsher's Country Club in the Catskills, where we were wined and dined for a week. We both had full-time jobs making decent money in those pre-hippie days. 

    I was shy about visiting 125th Street in Harlem, until a show that I could not refuse, in which one of the acts was Caucasian. Finally I had my excuse, and we took the subway beyond 59th Street where most white folks got off. Before the musical acts, there was a fashion show, featuring bathing suits. One of the models said "yes I know there are some folks that don't think that we can tan", and I swear she was glaring at us up in the second balcony. We were the only white people in attendance that evening, a weekday. (After performing at a venue in Eugene, I discovered that it's impossible to see people beyond the first row, though.) It was a great show; Tommy Hunt headlined, with The Five Stairsteps, The Manhattans and The Magnificent Men. On the way back to the subway station a man chided Ellen for dressing provocatively. She was wearing a blouse with many buttons but only one was actually fastened. In the station itself, a subway cop warned her that she could get raped dressing that way. We told him to mind his own business.

    Our relationship began to unravel in earnest after reaching the west coast and there is much that is too personal for either of us to reveal here. After coming to Messiah in 1989, I resolved to apologize, and ask forgiveness of the people I had hurt most in life. Naturally Ellen was near the top of that list and she consented to accept my apology and to forgive. She remains to this day one of the sweetest people you'd want to know. I hope and pray that she will find Jesus and eternal life.

    I met my second wife at Jive Records. She had special ordered a record on the phone and when she picked it up, I fell in love at first sight. So I left Ellen and moved into her flat, hosted a moving in party and was untrue to her that very night, sleeping with my best friend’s sister. I’d made it plain that we had to have an open relationship, but she felt so hurt that I realized she really liked me. She’d thrown her last boyfriend out of there; a guy she admitted had done no wrong, to make room for me. So I apologized and determined to cheat only behind her back, not openly. In accordance with Jewish Law, I had to obtain a get, a certificate of divorce, from Ellen before I’d be officially divorced in G-d’s eyes. Debbie became pregnant immediately and I told my father that she was willing to convert to Judaism. As far as G-d is concerned, he said, you’ve had your marriage, and nothing I did mattered now. Debbie quit her conversion lessons, and terminated her pregnancy. She told me that her ex-husband showed up and beat her causing her to wind up in the hospital where the doctor tied her Fallopian tubes and that she wouldn’t be able to conceive again. We wound up getting married because it was the only way I could prove to her that I was willing to marry her. Once again, a City Hall marriage but a great party afterwards.

Unbelievably, there was a rare doo-wop 45 on the Duke label just sitting on a shelf at the synagogue where the conversion lessons were held. I promptly stole it. I couldn’t imagine who it belonged to; but maybe G-d had it placed there to test me. No, Lazer isn’t ready to meet Me yet, perhaps He surmised.

We needed money, of course, so Debbie took a job as a live-in nanny. This only lasted a few months, but I wasted no time in terrorizing the art school women at the California College of Arts & Crafts down the block. One time, the security matron, herself a friend of Ellen’s and mine that I’d tried to ‘make it’ with, found me hiding under one of the student’s beds (no overnight visitors were allowed) and ejected me. But one of those Debbie-less days, while home alone sneezing and wheezing, I watched the movie “Ten Commandments” on TV, the first time I’d watched it since its first run in the theatres. I realized that it was a Hollywood interpretation and not to be taken literally, but at its core was fact. G-d brought Moses and the Israelites into the desert and gave them His Law; that much was indisputable. And if that was true, then I was really messing up my life. This would stick in the back of my mind and eventually cause me to reconsider the religion of my childhood; but not yet. When Debbie and I were actually married, however, and being truly, I believed, in love with her, I determined to reform myself. But my new found dedication, and jealousy, apparently suffocated her and the marriage was doomed at the start.

                                                            Wedding Day        

                                                         Kris (L), Debbie (R)

Teddy had been my life-long best friend, and after moving to the west coast, I convinced Ellen that we ought to have him visit us. I hadn’t seen him in many years at that point, and I thought he’d really love the Bay Area. He came out for a one-week visit, but refused to leave when the week was up. At first, it was great to see him; I produced a 'joint' and he took a long and deep inhale. We just began laughing riotously but before he could take another puff he stopped laughing and began staring into space. Nothing I said or did could rouse him from that state. OK, no more drugs for this one, I told myself.

As each day went on he evidenced psychotic behavior. Searching the apartment for drugs, he drank several bottles of cough medicine I’d accumulated from never finishing my prescription over several years of colds and coughs. Spotting my guitar, he asked me to sing some songs I’d written. When I did, he began crying because he couldn’t play an instrument. I told him I could quickly teach him to play at least as well as I; after all I only knew six or seven chords. But I could not get him to stop crying. Ellen and I did not know what to do with poor Teddy, especially when he refused to go home at the end of the week. We did everything to convince him to use his return plane ticket. Finally I told him he could no longer stay with us and since he’d have nowhere to go, he’d have to return to New York. He disappeared before his ride to the airport, and when we didn’t see him for quite a while, I hoped he’d somehow made the plane.

He’d met a woman, though, and had been living with her for a period of months when he brought her by to introduce her. She had her own mental problems, however, eventually winding up in an institution. The next time I ran into Teddy, at Fillmore West, he’d begun to hang out with gay men. He seemed happy, though, back to his old laughing self. “Teddy the fag, Teddy the fag”, he yelled in the same tone as when he used to call me “Lenny the fag”. I don’t think that he began to prefer men to women. He’d found someone to take him in when I’d kicked him out. I think I would have brought him back into my home then had I been single, but my wife had been really scared of his behavior. Whether I used her as an excuse or whether his psychoses were really dangerous I don’t know. I looked upon him as a burden that I was just unwilling to deal with. Each time I ran into him I tried to convince him to return to New York where he had family. Eventually he wound up at Napa State Mental Hospital, a shell of his former self, doped up on whatever they gave him. They finally sent him back home.

By then I was with Debbie, and one middle of the night as we were sleeping, the phone began ringing. Not willing to fully wake up, or have her wake up, I lifted and lowered the phone. Maybe I’d been drunk or stoned that night; whatever, I did not like having my sleep disturbed for probably some wrong number. The caller was persistent, though, and finally awake I picked up the phone and yelled at whoever it was to go to hell. A couple of years later after I’d moved to Eugene, Oregon, Teddy located me, phoning from a mental hospital in New York, and told me it had been him. It was the worst night of his life, he said, and really needed someone to talk to. I don’t know if you can imagine how bad it felt to be me at that moment, or to be him when his old friend told him where to go. I apologized profusely, and then we both started laughing and I was glad that at least someone was caring for Teddy, someone qualified.

Teddy visited one last time after I’d married Diana. He was still unwell, though, and that was the last time we’d see him. This time he used his return ticket. We stayed in touch via mail for awhile; I often sent him underground comic books to make him laugh, and when I got saved I wrote him a letter about it and enclosed a little New Testament & Psalms. I never heard back. He was also on my list of people to ask forgiveness of, but I couldn't find him. Eventually I learned that he had passed away.

I want to speak to my use of the derogatory term 'fag' used several times in my story. I know that is a hurtful word and I have only used it in the context of it being used against me. As a straight man who has spent time with gay friends and in gay bars, I can assure you dear reader that I have no hatred for this persecuted minority, nor any other. As a Christian, it is my hope and desire that all people will come to Messiah. All of us are sinners in need of the Savior. Jesus has an open door policy; none are turned away. After that it is between Him and you. When a person surrenders his life to Christ, that life then belongs to Him to do with as He pleases. Someday soon the things that define and divide us will be meaningless. 

When her mother died, Debbie received some money that she wanted to invest in real estate, so we moved upstate and purchased a three-bedroom redwood house on stilts in the Guerneville area, for $12,500. I opened a tiny record store, really about the size of a walk-in closet, and she opened a 'body shoppe' with women’s cosmetics and lotions. The record store was called “Sleeze and Mad Dawg’s”, the latter an old nickname of Debbie’s, and the former certainly an apt description of me. Behind the store was a bridge and the measuring stick to mark how high the constantly overflowing Russian River had risen. In the year we lived there, the record shop was broken into twice. Should I have been surprised? Many of the LP’s were stolen from a shop in San Francisco.

Correctly assuming that ‘Mad Dawg’s affair with me was near an end, I contacted the young lady whose bed I’d hidden beneath, and to my surprise she was glad to hear from me. She said that she cared for me and that she had to leave school because her parents had 'hit the skids'. Before she left Oakland, the last thing she saw was Debbie and I walking down the street arm in arm and it broke her heart. We wrote back and forth a few times, but once I knew that Debbie was pregnant and that her new boyfriend did not feel husbandly towards her, I thought my greater responsibility was to stay with her. And so I hurt my art school sweetheart a second time, and we never corresponded again. I console myself by imagining that however her life turned out, she was better off never getting further involved with me.

Having little interest in religion beyond my fascination with all things occult, and always sequestered within the walls of 'hippie-dom', few Christians ever attempted to evangelize me. The 1970’s were a great time of revival among the shaggy-haired set, however, and it was inevitable that a few young missionaries crowded into my closet store one day to reason with me. “Who created you?” they asked. My parents of course, I replied, I thought wittily, after first offering to smoke a joint with them. Going back to Adam & Eve, they asked where I thought they came from. They landed in a flying saucer; I quipped; didn’t you know that? But they were persistent, so I began to abuse them quite violently with my tongue. I had to threaten physical violence before they’d finally leave. I couldn’t believe how brain-washed they were; by all appearances they were just garden variety hippies. I can imagine them scratching their heads after leaving, saying, ‘gee wasn’t that the address G-d gave us?’

There was one neat thing that happened in that year on the Russian River, the greatest records find of my life. For one hundred bucks I was able to buy out an old jukebox operator. If you’re not a collector of 45’s you won’t appreciate it, so I won’t go into much detail. But there were three mint Elvis Sun records, and dozens of other rare rockabilly discs. I immediately called a dealer friend of mine from San Francisco who drove up and bought a few records. I got my hundred bucks back and still owned most of the find. Eventually I’d see about a total of $2000. from that so not a bad deal for me unless you consider that the whole schmeer would easily be worth over $100,000 today. Of course I offered to smoke a “j” with my straight-arrow collector friend who’d never tried marijuana before. I think he liked it. Later on he became a cocaine addict. My fault? Am I my brother’s keeper?

Within a year, Debbie’s affair coupled with a car accident we were in, caused us to move again, this time to Eugene, Oregon. There, I attempted to once again increase an investment 20-fold by buying out a jukebox operator, this time with $8000. of my wife’s money. 100,000 45’s arrived from Wyoming by truck and took up almost an entire room of our small apartment. But a major dealer had found his way to that cache before it was shipped and skimmed all the good records out of it, including 35 Elvis Sun’s. Elvis Sun 45’s were worth about $200. apiece in those days, and up to fifteen grand apiece today. This mountain of plastic became an albatross and contributed heavily to our breakup.

Debbie's daughter was obviously not mine (although she insisted it was); but I was more than willing to raise as my own either way. We put a down payment on a house in the country that needed a lot of work. We had little income other than welfare and occasionally selling at the flea-market. The house was a ‘hippie’s dream’ and came with a large piece of land. I set out immediately to plant a garden, while Zeus chased the chickens next door and they him.

Debbie went back east to visit her family and show off the baby but when she returned told me we were over and she was moving back to Ohio permanently. It wasn’t for another six months that she admitted in a letter that the baby was not mine. I wrote back that I didn’t care and just wanted her to come back. But it was not to be; it’s not like I was a good catch or anything. A spoiled, narcissistic, arrogant, immature, self-centered and amoral jerk would be a more accurate description. When she left, she offered to drop me off in any nearby town I wanted. Looking at the map, I chose Lane County’s one town on the coast, Florence, where I hoped I’d best escape from the awful air of Eugene, that had made my asthma so bad I was coughing up blood.

I tried my best to talk Debbie into staying with me in Florence, and so she made a show of considering it, by having a realtor drive us around showing us some inexpensive houses. He was fascinated by us, the Jewish guy, the blonde wasp woman, and the Native-American baby. How do you know that, I asked him, watching Debbie squirm in the pickup seat between us. He said that his wife and he’d adopted two 'Indian' babies and they both looked exactly like this one. I flashed an ‘evil eye’ to my left waiting for a response, but none came. As for me, he said I was ‘doubly blessed’. I was not feeling blessed at all those days. He explained that Jesus was a Jew, and that when I’ve come to believe in Him, I’d be 'completed', both a Jew and a Christian. I told him I would never believe in Jesus, but he said ‘you never know’. After that day, Debbie dropped the charade of thinking about staying with me and hit the road. Years later during an epidemic of this particular crime, I was saddened to read that some moron had tossed a brick off an overpass, hitting that realtor’s windshield and severely injuring his wife. I wondered why his G-d didn’t stop the brick.

I found an old storefront in Florence where I could open a little record shop in and live there as well, at $80. a month. Up to this point I’d always had either my mom or a wife to take care of me. I was truly alone, and the next year-and-a-half would be the most depressing time of my entire life. What, you don’t feel sorry for me? Well I felt sorry enough for the both of us. Poor, poor me.