randulo’s unblog

It's an old slogan, I even recall a store in Minneapolis that used the name "Life Socks". The pessimistic ode reminds me of the story of 'D', a young woman I met years ago. D was probably less than 18 when she began hanging out with musicians. She was sexually active in a day when everyone was, but she never really had a relationship with one guy for the first few years of her adult life. She had a sweet disposition and got along with everyone. She didn't seem to mind being used and always acted like this was her role. Then she got into hard drugs. What was unique, was that her personality didn't change, she was still sweet, never put anyone or anything down and didn't resort to stealing to feed her habit, although she did widen her sexual network to include more users, in order to get off.

At one point, we were in different cities and exchanged letters for a while. One day she wrote me saying she had finally realized she had to clean up, she wanted to change her life, and she went to rehab. As is often the case, she met her soul mate in that program. This often is not a good thing, but they both turned their lives around to the point that they got married and had a child. They embarked on a "normal" life, jobs, raising the kid, etc. I never met D's husband or saw the child, but from what I heard, they were doing allright, until the day her husband died in a car crash. Not too long after I heard that news, another piece of news came in, D herself was also killed in an auto accident. I never heard what had happened to the child or whether he or she had even survived.

Somewhere on the planet, an orphan of these two extremely unfortunate people lives (I hope). You probably have no idea how hard it is to escape from heroin addiction, but these two people somehow managed to do it against enormous odds and they were headed for a (hopefully) full life. A life outside of what we used to call the merry-go-round, the cycle of addiction where you live to cop illegal drugs and will do absolutely anything to get them.

D made a lot of people "happy" in her short lifetime and that life, more than any other, makes me hope that somehow our essence (soul, if you will) is recycled in the cosmos somewhere.

The 70's were turbulent times, sure. But on an individual level, have you ever shot a gun? Although I've never owned one, I shot an automatic weapon a few times in the Air Force. There have been many times where I would have enjoyed shooting something inanimate, but never to wound or  take a life. The story I'm about to tell was documented in a comic book called "Fu**t Up", which I will attempt to dredge up on the Interwebs  Real Soon Now, since I haven't found my copy of it to share.
 
Paul, a highly-talented drummer, tattooed ex-Marine got home after a  long and grueling rehearsal with a bunch of guys who couldn't read  music. He started talking to his wife, who was watching "Let's Make a  Deal". After a few attempts to get her attention, he went into the bedroom and came back out with a hand gun. The wife looked absolutely terrified, Paul fired several rounds in to Monty on the tube, silencing the latter forever, albeit not the former. One wonders what the rest of the conversation was like?

Although I'm not a country music fan in any stretch of the imagination,  I was introduced to the music of Patty Loveless through her husband and producer Emery Gordy, Jr.
 
Emery was the kind of talented person I respect most, someone who is  deeply professional, yet totally humble. He produced Patty's later work  after a long career as a sideman with Elvis, Neil Diamond, John Denver, Emmy Lou Harris and a bunch of country stars too numerous to mention. He also did a great Jimmy Carter imitation.
 
I know that Patty had throat surgery and that her husband was a ham  radio operator. For the nine weeks after her operation, she could not  speak or talk. Emery tried to teach her Morse Code, as well as using pen and paper with yellow Post-It notes. According to the Wikipedia article, "after this her interest in Amateur Radio developed and she was eventually licensed with the callsign KD4WUJ".
 
Though I never met Patty, I did spend some good times with Emery in L.A.  and later in Paris when he flew over in Denver's jet for a gig. I had  also heard that Emery nearly died of an illness but I believe he has recovered. At least I hope so because he was one of the nicest people I've ever known in the music business.