40 Years Ago, I Left My Heart Somewhere

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

I received my absentee ballot today, and since my last US address was in San Francisco, that’s where it was sent from. As I scrolled down the list of other candidates aside from the presidential ones (amazing there are so many “third parties”), the only familiar name to me was Nancy Pelosi running for about the 90th time. What I found most intriguing was a candidate for State Assembly, representing the Libertarian Party, with the single name of Starchild. That took me back to the days when I lived in that wonderfully eccentric city in the 1970’s, where candidates for local offices included Sister Boom Boom (real name Jack Fertig), Jesus Christ Satan (Robert Swallow), and someone I actually knew who ran for Mayor in 1979, Jello Biafra (Eric Boucher).

Biafra was best known as lead singer of the very political Punk Rock band The Dead Kennedys. Aside from the shock value their name brought to the table, there was the greater shock that his mayoral campaign felicitated. First off, he was only 21, well under the eligible age to serve. The one thing I remember from his manifesto was his resolution that all attorneys would have to identify themselves by wearing clown suits when they were going to work downtown. I also remember his slogan plagiarising the one associated with the dessert he was partially named after, There’s Always Room For Jello. Most astonishing was out of a field of 10 candidates, he finished 4th, losing to interim mayor Dianne Feinstein, who had become mayor after the 1978 assassination of George Moscone. While it was pretty certain she would be elected, it was great that Biafra instituted the challenge he did. My then-wife and I had a party a couple weeks after the election, and we invited my manager, who was an attorney, our local veterinarian, and my brother, a psychiatrist. All three had voted for Jello Biafra.

It was those type of eccentricities that made me regret deciding to leave San Francisco just about 40 years ago today. I officially moved to LA on January 3, 1981, and though the reasons for leaving were plentiful, I sure wanted to avoid that inevitability. But 1980 had been a very disappointing year, given the promise the year before had shown. Many people of influence had told my partner and me that they couldn’t do much for us unless we were actually in LA proper, because there were only so many entities that would pay airfare for an audition or meeting (though several did!). Also it felt like the city that had embraced us the year before was already finding newer heroes.

Not only was the career in San Francisco backtracking a bit, but I was in a marriage that was failing, and there just didn’t seem like much I could do to remedy it. So when my partner (who had just gotten married and was pregnant) called one day in late September to say, “I think we’ve done all we can in San Francisco, you want to move to LA?” I responded with, “I’ll start packing now.” That was a bad response in that it probably should have been, “Let me ask the Mrs. about that,” which in turn made my wife certain that we should split up.

A shame that we were splitting too, as her house was a popular destination for visiting celebs that my partner and I had befriended along the way. For dinner guests, we had Robin Williams several times, Penn Jilette (when he and Teller worked as Asparagus Valley Cultural Society with a third person named Weir Chrisemer), and Lily Tomlin among the internationally known. In January of 1980 we hosted American TV and music icon Dick Clark and his business partner to talk about a potential TV series that unfortunately never got off the ground. (I showed him my record collection, he asked if I had a certain single, and after I showed him my copy, he mentioned once owning the record label it was on.) On the local front, we had rock stars like Eddie Money, members of The Tubes, and of course Jello Biafra over at various times.

It was also sad to be giving up San Francisco for a more plastic existence in Southern California. I took the attitude of, “Well I already know what to hate about LA, I guess I’m gonna have to find things to like about it.” I must have done, because I stayed there twice as long as I did in SF. The incentives were already there by the time we made the move too. We were going to be working every Saturday in a theatre production called The Pee Wee Herman Show, which became a major local hit and an HBO special I still get residual checks for. Not to mention that guest starring role on Mork & Mindy which was in the offing but didn’t really come to fruition until we were firmly entrenched in LA, so the move was probably the right one.

Still my respect for that great city continues even though nearly 40 years have passed since I left. I love that I was there when there was a post-hippie creative surge, meeting so many artists I admired, and honoured that they found me and my partner clever and funny and other adjectives. I also remain a fan of all the major Bay Area sports teams, hating and rooting against all the LA ones. That will never change.

In the meantime, even though Trump probably won’t fuck with the mail as much in California since he knows he won’t win there, I’m not taking any chances, and I’ll be sending my ballot out tomorrow. I probably won’t be voting for Starchild though.

September 23rd, 2020



Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.