TED PALMER, 1958-2017

Sean is gone 1978. 
Kevin is gone 2011.
Hugh Jay Rupp is gone 1999.
And now Ted Palmer is gone 2017.  This here is a wonderful tribute to Ted.  Laurie Jarosz was his wife, and it was his daughter, Charisse, who put together a very loving, very beautiful tribute to Ted's life.  That link is dead now.  Not sure why.  But she put the life of her father to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man."  It was perfect.  

We love you, Ted.  And you know that.   

I don't know what to make of things anymore.  It's Thursday morning, September 21, 2017, and time seems to be racing on ever faster.  I read the terrible news last night about an old neighborhood friend who had died during open-heart surgery.  Ted loved sitting, talking with folks.  I don't know what was important to him.  I just recall how important he was to Tom, and how important Tom was to Ted.  They were in the truest sense, good friends.  I guess what I hate about death is that it calls upon the living constantly to honor, to record, to love the dead, meaning pay tribute to them in the most loving ways or else how is their life in death made larger?  It has to be made larger.  

Bowie's "Major Tom" reminds me of Ted.  Tom's loyalty to Ted was something to be admired.  And Ted returned it.  I don't know why Ted reminded me of Bowie's Major Tom.  I wish I knew.  Where are the victories?  Where are the hurrahs?  Where, O, where and O, when or when do we conquer?  Death or business or restitution of family?  Have people surrendered restitution?  Do folks even know what it is?  

I wrote the following Facebook comment to my brother, Tom, on Wednesday, September 20, 2017:

Hey Tom, sorry to hear about Ted.  Terrible news.  He was good to Mom, painted several rooms in her house.  Will never forget what Ted did for her.  And how he reassured her when she worried about what came next.  He was terrific with her.  Nor will I forget the time that I fished with Ted in the High Sierras up toward Bridgeport.  He was the life of the party.  He treated you like a great brother.  And you’re right—he was always smiling when he came to see you.  And he extended his affections, out of respect to you, to me, to Joe, to Mom, and Dad.  He was the life of the party.  Will never forget his deep, fun pitch in his voice.  From the standpoint of the joyful days of our youth, his loss is too great. I'll never forget either how the loss of his mother altered Ted. Some losses are harder to bear. He is such a fixture on those Duarte days that I can't recall the joys of them without also including Ted. I haven't been in touch with Duarte folks for years. I understand that his sister, Adehlia, is a Realtor or something in Lake Havasu. Is a funeral scheduled for Ted?

Tom replied on October 18, 2017

No, didn't make it.  I was sick.  I went to set The Who, Aerosmith with Ted in concert.  His favorites were Zeppelin, ZZ Top, but Ted never liked the word "best" or "favorite."  It was too limiting for him."

Ted was a painter by craft.  He painted several rooms inside my mom's house when she was alive.  

This song reminded me of those Duarte days, hanging out waiting for Sean or Dave or Ted or Eric or Stuart Greene, someone, anyone to stop by the house and extract me from my boredom.  I recall listening to this song on the 1974 8-Track in my 1980 VW bug.  The song, "Going to California," was on Zeppelin's Zeppelin IV album, released on November 8, 1971, and am reminded of just how important the albums, their titles, the songs, and the concerts were to us back then.  Our lives were consumed by that sort of thing.  Other Zeppelin albums were released on the following dates: 

Led Zeppelin, January 12, 1969.
Led Zeppelin II, October 22, 1969.
Led Zeppelin III, October 5, 1970.
Led Zeppelin IV, November 8, 1971.

 

Going to California

written by Robert Plant & Jimmy Page

Spent my days with a woman unkind
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.
Made up my mind to make a new start
Going To California with an aching in my heart.
Someone told me there's a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.
Took my chances on a big jet plane
Never let them tell you that they're all the same.
The sea was red and the sky was grey
Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.
The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
As the children of the sun began to awake.
Seems that the wrath of the Gods
Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow;
I think I might be sinking.
Throw me a line if I reach it in time
I'll meet you up there where the path
Runs straight and high.
To find a queen without a king;
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings.
La la la la
Side a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born.
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems

I will never forget the fun that Sean Moore and I had watching Fernwood Tonight with Martin Mull and Fred Willard.  The show had a phenomenal cast.  Jim Varney, 1949-2000, the great Ernest and foil Vern, is featured in this clip from Fernwood Tonight.  I did not realize that Barth Gimble's character was an import from Miami, a slashy, sharpy on lam from Miami. 

That is kind of funny.  Before I go any further, I will have to post a video of Fernwood Tonight and this one with Tony Rolletti is as good as any other. 

Tony Rolletti, aka Bill Kirchenbauer, was a fixture on Fernwood. 

The guy was a commercial star. 

Wikipedia explains his success

Varney also starred as Ernest in a series of commercials that ran in the New Orleans area (and throughout the Gulf South) as a spokesman for natural gas utilities. In one, he is seen kneeling down in front of Vern's desk under a lamp hanging from the ceiling, stating, "Natural Gas, Vern; it's hot, fast, and cheap. Hot, fast, cheap; kinda like your first wife, Vern, you know, the pretty one!?" Vern then knocks the lamp into Ernest's head, knocking him down. Those same television advertisements also were featured on channels in the St. Louis area for Laclede Gas Company during the mid-1980s and in the Metro Detroit area for Michigan Consolidated Gas Company. Another TV ad for Laclede Gas featured Ernest saying, "Heat pump, schmeat pump."^{[citation needed]} Varney also appeared in several Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Stores commercials throughout the 1980s. These aired on Oklahoma television.

Varney also was noted for doing commercials for car dealerships across the country, most notably Cerritos Auto Square in Cerritos, California, Tysons Toyota in Tysons Corner, Virginia, and Audubon Chrysler in Henderson, Kentucky.^[7] Another favorite Ernest vehicle was promotions for various TV stations around the nation, including the news team and the weather departments.^{[citation needed]}

Varney portrayed Ernest in a series of commercials for Convenient Food Mart during the 1980s. In 1982, Varney co-hosted the syndicated Pop! Goes the Country with singer Tom T. Hall. The show had just had a major overhaul and ended shortly after Varney hosted..

Varney also portrayed another character, "Auntie Nelda", in numerous commercials long before he resurrected the character for the movies. Dressed in drag and appearing to be a senior citizen, the commercials gave off the tone of a motherly lady encouraging one to do what was right (in this case, buy whatever product was being promoted). This character, along with the "Ernest" character, ran for a couple of years in Mississippi and Louisiana in commercials for Leadco Aluminum Siding, a company that would provide estimates for placing aluminum siding on a home. Leadco often bought two-hour slots in local markets. During the slot, a movie was televised, and Varney (as one of his characters) and a Leadco representative would be the only commercial breaks during the movie, promoting only Leadco.^[8]

During the 1990s, Varney reprised his role as Ernest for Blake's Lotaburger, a fast food chain in New Mexico. In these commercials, Ernest typically would be trying to get into Vern's house to see what food Vern was eating. After a lengthy description of whatever tasty morsel Vern had, Ernest would get locked out but would continue to shout from outside.

John Potash: Drugs as Weapons Against US

Before the first 60 seconds were up, a bombshell was dropped.

Undercover U.S. Intelligence agents used drugs to target leftist leaders from SDS, the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and even the Occupy Movement.  It also tells how the particularly targeted leftist musicians, like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Kolbain, Tupac Shakur to promote drugs while murdering them as they started to sober up.  And goes into details how agents dosed, ah gave LSD to Mick Jagger and got Elvis involved. 

Wonderland

I saw the movie, Wonderland, last night, starring Val Kilmer.  

There were other stars, of course, like the gorgeous Kate Bosworth, the beautiful and talented Carrie Fischer, Dylan McDermott, Eric Bogosian as Eddie Nash, Lisa Kudrow as Sharon Holmes, the talented Josh Lucas, and the detective played by Ted Levine, Tim Blake Nelson, and others.

"If You Could Read My Mind," released in 1970, was the penultimate song on the soundtrack.  Val Kilmer was the perfect John Holmes.  He evoked the man, the star, the boy exquisitely.  I think it's his best role.  I haven't seen him in many things, but this was his best.

LAPD Detective, Thomas Lange, was one of two detectives on the crime. It is amazing how watching this movie brought back so many memories of working at Colamco.  I don't know why it has to be Colamco, perhaps that is where Cliff or Steve raised, at least for me it was the first time, the name of Eddie Nash and John Holmes. I will never forget by Shipping & Receiving buddy, Bob, who laughed at all of my jokes.  As a team, he and I would roll Freightliner panels before placing them in large boxes.  

With regard to the murders, which I do recall but was not interested in, the LA Times covers it pretty well. 

"There's somebody out there who wants to kill me," Holmes told Sharon, his wife of 16 years.

For a time, John Holmes was silent. Finally, he replied: "The murders . . . I was involved. . . . I know who did it."

In a recent interview with The Times, Sharon Holmes, who divorced the late actor in 1984, described for the first time the story her husband told her less than three weeks after the July 1 killings.

John C. Holmes, the world's premier pornographic film star, sobbed as he sat in a steaming bathtub early one morning in July, 1981.

Haltingly, Holmes confessed to his wife that he had played a central role in four brutal murders earlier that month in a drug dealers' hillside home in Laurel Canyon.

Frightened, she asked, "Why?"

Drugs can make people a little crazy, not in a clinical sense but to alter their mood so as to make them less available. 

Laurel Canyon.  Anyone who's lived in LA long enough knows where it's at with Crescent Heights and Sunset Blvd being the gateway to Wonderland.  

I wanted to watch the movie following my reading of David McGowan's terrific essay on the music and movie culture found in Laurel Canyon, the westcoast's answer to Motown, Nashville, and Beatlemania.  I found the article over at LewRockwell.com, posted by Charles Burris.  One of the gnawing questions that McGowan asks is "If the music and movies artists of the time who resided in Laurel Canyon above Hollywood were truly rebels, why is it that so few of them when possessed with huge amounts of drugs or guilty as sin for murder, theft, and other crimes received such a light or nothing sentence?  By itself it's a great question.  And in the context of his argument it is poignant because his argument was that this scene in Laurel Canyon was not a protest scene at all but a carefully constructed one, at times chaotic and murderous, that was used as a controlled opposition to the anti-war efforts.  One of the artists of the time said this, 

LOU ADLER: The hippie version of freedom in the 1960s was breaking down the Establishment. Well, we were buying houses in Bel Air; we were becoming the Establishment.

But the artists coming to the new LA music scene, the Grand Ol' Opre of the West, were already establishment players.  What, you say!  Yeah.  McGowan opens with that little diddy about Jim Morrison's daddy, you know, the Navy Admiral who served on the ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, the "incident" that launched the Vietnam War.  So there's that.  Charles Burris offers up the book blurb on the back as a fine description of the times, 

Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. Members of bands like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, the Turtles, the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Steppenwolf, Captain Beefheart, CSN, Three Dog Night, Alice Cooper, the Doors, and Love with Arthur Lee, along with such singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Judi Sill and David Blue, lived together and jammed together in the bucolic community nestled in the Hollywood Hills.

But there was a dark side to that scene as well.

Many didn’t make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Far more integrated into the scene than most would care to admit was a guy by the name of Charles Manson, along with his murderous entourage. Also floating about the periphery were various political operatives, up-and-coming politicians, and intelligence personnel – the same sort of people who just happened to give birth to many of the rock stars populating the canyon. And all of the canyon’s colorful characters – rock stars, hippies, murderers, and politicos – happily coexisted alongside a covert military installation.

Reading that list made me think of a few folks I worked with, folks who were, and I am sure still are, addicted to drugs, violent in their nature and judgments.  But I guess there are lots of different drugs. Power itself can be a drug on which the individual rides a high for many, many years.  

If you want to see some decent pictures of the crime scene, the people involved, guys like Eddie Nash, then this is not a bad start. Excellent pics at the bottom of this page.  Apparently, Eddie Nash bribed one of the jurors during his first trial, which ended in a hung jury, 11-1.  That lone-standing juror is the guy or gal who was bribed.

Eddie Nash and Gregory Diles were both arrested and charged in 1988 for the Four on the Floor Murders. They were tried twice between 1990 and 1991. The first trial was met by a hung jury 11-1, but Nash later confessed to bribing the holdout juror. The second trial in 91′ ended with an acquittal, but this was not the end of Nash’s legal woes in relation to the murders. Gregory Diles died in 1995 and unfortunately he was not around to be charged again with Nash in 2000.

So the story goes.   

Check out this stunning photo of John Holmes and his wife, Sharon.

Sharon and John Holmes' wedding picture.  They were married from August 1965 to January 17, 1983.  

If you're interested, here are some interesting photos of the folks involved in the Manson murders, 1969, the murder that ended Laurel Canyon as a Shangrila.  The photo of Manson, clean-cut and unbuttoned shirt is interesting.  I've never seen a clean-cut shot of him.  Ever.  The little that I have read on Manson suggested that he did no do any of the murders, that, in fact, Tex Watson, the tall, lanky kid from Texas who shocked his friends by dropping out of college and moved to Los Angeles.

Can't believe that John Denver's real name is John Deutschendorf. Not sure why I am posting this, other than I liked her as Samantha Stevens on Bewitched.   

Think of all the clubs that opened in West Hollywood in that era: The Roxy, The Whiskey-a-Go-Go, the Starwood (which was owned by Eddie Nash), P.J.'s, the Palladium, Cactus Pete's, The Palamino, the Troubadour, and others.  

I like this picture of Elizabeth Taylor.

A stunning list of memorable but dire moments in LA and Hollywood among the celebrities there. And you'll find some more interesting photos. 

Actor, Eric Bogosian, draws an interesting comparison to New York and LA.  He says that LA has these sordid neighborhoods that New York does not.  I doubt that.  My guess is that both areas have their sordid neighborhoods.  But he does cite the San Fernando's porn industry and the Manson murders in Laurel Canyon.  

So there's that. 

Plimsouls, The Cure, & The Smiths

Nursing a cup of coffee in a Starbucks on Sheridan in the Wal-Mart shopping center, I am also nursing my wounds after being depleted from a game of Gaslighting by Tamara, a courier at QuickSilver.  I ended communication with her on Tuesday, May 9, 2017, when on the following day, Wednesday, May 10, 2017, I purchased a new phone number.  

I've heard a few songs in the last week that have made me think of her.

Here is one by the Plimsouls, whom I'd seen at Perkins Palace in Pasadena back in the late 80s:

This song helps me on some level. Recalling the good ol' days perhaps?

Then I heard The Cure's song "Just Like Heaven."  The lyrics made me think of Tamara, particularly the opening line: 

"Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick the one that makes me scream," she said.  When I first heard this I thought that the second line read "The one that makes me scream seasick."  That seems to be a better fit.  

I loved this one.

"Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick

The one that makes me scream" she said

"The one that makes me laugh" she said

And threw her arms around my neck

Show me how you do it

And I promise you I promise that

I'll run away with you

I'll run away with you

Spinning on that dizzy edge

I kissed her face and kissed her head

And dreamed of all the different ways I had

To make her glow

Why are you so far away, she said

Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you

That I'm in love with you

You

Soft and only

You

Lost and lonely

You

Strange as angels

Dancing in the deepest oceans

Twisting in the water

You're just like a dream

You're just like a dream

Daylight licked me into shape

I must have been asleep for days

And moving lips to breathe her name

I opened up my eyes

And found myself alone, alone

Alone above a raging sea

That stole the only girl I loved

And drowned her deep inside of me

You

Soft and lonely

You

Lost and lonely

You

Just like heaven

I think I just want to be happy.  Even Tamara said that she doesn't want to keep a record of things, to review, to throw at each other, to use in hurtful ways.  I would not do that with her.  But she doesn't know.  

Then I heard this.  I do love the gentle tones.

The station at the Starbucks is playing all 80s hits, which is a lot better than their dreary, suicidal ballads.

There's nothing you and I won't do. Can't stop the world. I'll stop the world and melt with you.

Now the station is playing Queen's and Bowie's "Under Pressure," quite the socialist screed.  You can find those lyrics here.

I loved this song, Stand or Fall (1983) by the Fixx when it played back in 1983!!! Along with "Red Skies" and "One Thing Leads to Another," and others. 

Here are the lyrics:

Crying parents tell their children

If you survive, don't do as we did

A son exclaims there'll be nothing to do to

Her daughter says she'll be dead with you

While foreign affairs are screwing us rotten

Line morale has hit rock bottom

Dying embers stand forgotten

Talks of peace were being trodden

Stand or fall

State your peace tonight

Stand or fall

State your peace tonight

Is this the value of our existence

Should we proclaim with such persistence

Our destiny relies on conscience

Red or blue, what's the difference

Stand or fall

State your peace tonight

Stand or fall

State your peace tonight

It's the euro theatre

It's the euro theatre

It's the euro theatre

An empty face reflects extinction

Ugly scars divide the nation

Desecrate the population

There will be no exaltation

Stand or fall

State your peace tonight

Stand or fall

State your peace tonight

It's the euro theatre

It's the euro theatre

It's the euro theatre

Stand or fall

Stand or fall

Stand or fall

Stand or fall

Stand or fall

Stand or fall

This Starbucks radio is playing some terrific '80s tunes.  Love it!

Under the Milky Way, released in 1988, by The Church.  They are an Australian band.  Love the Australian bands.  Reminds me of Midnight Oil.  

Love it. What year, what year?

The absolute best songs are playing.  I can't believe it.  From Starbucks no less.  Where does it go from here? 

It's Haircut 100.  Love Plus One.  Find the lyrics here.

What's next? Who's Next?

I changed my phone number on Wednesday. May 10, 2017.  What is strange is that on that Thursday, May 11, I suddenly got all kinds of tickets for pick-ups.  I was never that busy.  And on that Friday, the 12th, I was even busier with my car completely full.  And what was even stranger was that Erika asked if I wanted to work Saturday.  I said sure.  Even more amazing was the fact that she asked me what shift I wanted.  These guys have been harassing me for months and now she's asking me what schedule and what day I want to work?  Motherfuckers.  And then when I clocked in, Priscilla, in her usual passive-aggressive or psychopathic rudeness, told me that I was doing the mountain route out to Frisco, adding that "Did anyone inform you?"  I said no, that no one informed me of what Saturdays would be like.  She informed me but only AFTER I made a couple of stops locally, one of them being to Rose Medical on 19th.  I am so glad to be rid of the Liliths that work there.