Read Online Diamond in the Rough by Shawn Colvin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Shawn Colvin
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drunkard, like a balloon up in the air.
I am needing a puncture and someone to point me somewhere.
Having cleaned up enough rat shit to last a lifetime, I finally had enough money saved to try leaving home again. This was the real thing, do or die. My old boyfriend, Jim Bruno, had moved to Berkeley and loved it. Armed with my guitar, my protective layer of fat, and a daily ration of alcohol, I headed out for the San Francisco Bay area in the spring of 1979.
I moved into a large, rambling, run-down house in Berkeley with Jimmy and a few other misfits, in an attic room with a skylight. Many were the nights that I drank a six-pack of Coors and crawled out onto the roof from where I could see out across the bay to the lights of San Francisco. I remember precious little about my yearlong stint in the Bay Area, because I was drunk most of the time. I call it my lost weekend.
Most of my roommates were Deadheads. They didn’t drink Coors; they ate watermelon laced with acid. Let me say right now, with all apologies, that I never dialed in the Grateful Dead. You either get it or you don’t, and I am not among the converted. To me my roommates were what I imagined vintage San Franciscans to be, all Haight-Ashbury and free love and you better wear some flowers in your hair. One morning I was in the kitchen and one of my roommates, Julie, a lanky, wire-rimmed, long-stringy-haired, peasant-skirted, pit-hair-baring, sandal-wearing gal, stumbled in. As I was pouring myself a glass of orange juice, she said, “Hey, man, can I have a hit of your smoothie?”—assuming, naturally, that it was spiked with something.
The first order of business was getting a job, naturally, but that took some time, and in the interim I developed a ritual. After recovering from my morning hangover, I would scan the classifieds and make feeble attempts toward employment. Then something divine happened.
The documentary about the Who, The Kids Are Alright, came to the local cinema. I went to see it one afternoon and fell head over heels in love with the band. My musical leanings had veered from a well-balanced overview, and due to my unbending allegiance to the Beatles I ignored what I thought to be lesser bands like the Stones, the Kinks, Led Zeppelin, and the Who, among others. I went again the next day. And the next, and the next. Some days I just sat in the theater waiting for the next show and saw it twice. I have no idea how many times I saw that movie but it was a lot.
At night when I was going to sleep, I fantasized about meeting them, just as I’d done with the Fab Four when I was nine. I was twenty-three! Never mind. I was in love. Yes, of course I’d seen Woodstock, but I’d passed over them in favor of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Joan Baez. Now I finally got it. Only four guys and three instruments. One guitar player—and what a guitar player. Pete, Pete, Pete. There he was in his white jumpsuit, lovingly bent over his ax with bloody fingers, or windmilling and leaping for all he was worth, like a punk ballerina. Oh, I wanted to be him. Let’s not even mention his songwriting. The mind boggles. And of course Roger, god of six-pack abs and mike-whirling finesse; the stoic, solid John Entwistle on bass; and the one-in-a-million carnival ride of a drummer, Keith Moon. But finally the sad day came when I got a job, and my secret afternoons with The Kids Are Alright had to end.
I was hired by a stained-glass store in Oakland as a salesperson. I learned how to cut and handle glass, but not without a few minor accidents that put me closer to emulating dear Pete at his bloody best. I made fast friends with a woman named Shelley Arrowwood. She was amused by the way I put down our insane boss and decided that this kid was all right.
Shelley had taken on her last name when she grew tired of changing it every time she got married, which was fairly often, so she legally became “Arrowwood,” nature lover to the core, for good and always. I called her
I am needing a puncture and someone to point me somewhere.
Having cleaned up enough rat shit to last a lifetime, I finally had enough money saved to try leaving home again. This was the real thing, do or die. My old boyfriend, Jim Bruno, had moved to Berkeley and loved it. Armed with my guitar, my protective layer of fat, and a daily ration of alcohol, I headed out for the San Francisco Bay area in the spring of 1979.
I moved into a large, rambling, run-down house in Berkeley with Jimmy and a few other misfits, in an attic room with a skylight. Many were the nights that I drank a six-pack of Coors and crawled out onto the roof from where I could see out across the bay to the lights of San Francisco. I remember precious little about my yearlong stint in the Bay Area, because I was drunk most of the time. I call it my lost weekend.
Most of my roommates were Deadheads. They didn’t drink Coors; they ate watermelon laced with acid. Let me say right now, with all apologies, that I never dialed in the Grateful Dead. You either get it or you don’t, and I am not among the converted. To me my roommates were what I imagined vintage San Franciscans to be, all Haight-Ashbury and free love and you better wear some flowers in your hair. One morning I was in the kitchen and one of my roommates, Julie, a lanky, wire-rimmed, long-stringy-haired, peasant-skirted, pit-hair-baring, sandal-wearing gal, stumbled in. As I was pouring myself a glass of orange juice, she said, “Hey, man, can I have a hit of your smoothie?”—assuming, naturally, that it was spiked with something.
The first order of business was getting a job, naturally, but that took some time, and in the interim I developed a ritual. After recovering from my morning hangover, I would scan the classifieds and make feeble attempts toward employment. Then something divine happened.
The documentary about the Who, The Kids Are Alright, came to the local cinema. I went to see it one afternoon and fell head over heels in love with the band. My musical leanings had veered from a well-balanced overview, and due to my unbending allegiance to the Beatles I ignored what I thought to be lesser bands like the Stones, the Kinks, Led Zeppelin, and the Who, among others. I went again the next day. And the next, and the next. Some days I just sat in the theater waiting for the next show and saw it twice. I have no idea how many times I saw that movie but it was a lot.
At night when I was going to sleep, I fantasized about meeting them, just as I’d done with the Fab Four when I was nine. I was twenty-three! Never mind. I was in love. Yes, of course I’d seen Woodstock, but I’d passed over them in favor of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Joan Baez. Now I finally got it. Only four guys and three instruments. One guitar player—and what a guitar player. Pete, Pete, Pete. There he was in his white jumpsuit, lovingly bent over his ax with bloody fingers, or windmilling and leaping for all he was worth, like a punk ballerina. Oh, I wanted to be him. Let’s not even mention his songwriting. The mind boggles. And of course Roger, god of six-pack abs and mike-whirling finesse; the stoic, solid John Entwistle on bass; and the one-in-a-million carnival ride of a drummer, Keith Moon. But finally the sad day came when I got a job, and my secret afternoons with The Kids Are Alright had to end.
I was hired by a stained-glass store in Oakland as a salesperson. I learned how to cut and handle glass, but not without a few minor accidents that put me closer to emulating dear Pete at his bloody best. I made fast friends with a woman named Shelley Arrowwood. She was amused by the way I put down our insane boss and decided that this kid was all right.
Shelley had taken on her last name when she grew tired of changing it every time she got married, which was fairly often, so she legally became “Arrowwood,” nature lover to the core, for good and always. I called her
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