Somebody to Love? (24 page)
Skip more than proved his ability to handle almost anything on that tour by taking care of three difficult situations at once. The first was looking after the Brandy Twins (Sally and Grace); the second was taking on the job of road manager after the first guy suddenly freaked out and quit. The third was in Seattle, on the way back down the coast, when Skip saved one of the boys in the band from committing suicide, by tackling him when he tried to drown himself by diving off the hotel balcony into the Puget Sound. All that and lighting director, too—I was getting more impressed by the minute.
Sally and I made it back home on Christmas Eve, just in time for us to flip into mother mode for Jesse (Sally's son by Spencer) and China. Jesse was about the same age as my daughter, and Sally and I were about the same age as Beavis and Butt-head. We loved our kids, but we hadn't quite finished being children yet ourselves.
“No rghuofmr!” (Roger Ressmeyer/© Corbis)
For a while, the sneaking around was exciting, but I finally had to admit that it wasn't fair to anybody. After making a decision to put an end to it, I got out the want ads and found an apartment in Sausalito. I then called Jefferson Starship's trucker, Mike Fisher, and asked him to meet me at the Seacliff house with the truck. Finally, I talked to Paul. I told him I couldn't pretend anymore, and I moved out and into the new apartment—all within a period of about twenty-four hours.
Sadness, yes. Regrets, no.
Although it was an unpleasant time for Paul, I'm sure he felt relief as well; it takes two people to ensure the failure of a relationship. Certain pop psychologists disagree, but I believe that staying together “for the child” creates a hideous atmosphere of daily bullshit in which the kid is surrounded by mixed messages at best and, at worst, chronic battles that make so-called family life a sham. I'm grateful there were never any custody fights over China. Paul and I shared her without written agreements or arguments.
During that time, Sally and I took up residence in the new apartment, which she referred to as “the combination palace.” Skip stayed there off and on when he was between tours, and the three of us—sometimes accompanied by the “real” children—stayed in that
Three's Company
configuration until Skip was hired back by Jefferson Starship on a full-time basis. It was inevitable—he was the best, and there's just no substitute for adept professionalism. Now, living together as a bona fide “couple,” Skip and I resumed touring with the band and tried to maintain a social environment as free of open hostility as possible. I roomed alone on that tour as I always had, savoring my privacy and indulging whims as various as shouting at the moon and, literally, walking on the edge.
An affinity for near-death experiences doesn't necessarily indicate that a person is miserable and wants to deanimate the body. That devalues what may be really going on. Perhaps the person is just attempting, in a primitive way, to join the cosmos, or bump into his or her original DNA, or flush out his or her adrenaline. Bungee-jumping, race car driving, astronautics, working on an art project until you drop, taking psychedelics, swimming the English Channel—these are all extreme activities pursued by people who're trying to “push the envelope,” trying to test so-called limits. That urge to know why and why not has resulted in incredible discoveries that have changed the face of our culture forever. And sometimes it has just boiled down to an individual yearning to be part of the greater picture.
To wit:
It happened in the Midwest, where the elements regularly put on a spectacular thunder and lightning show, the likes of which I'd never seen. One such storm was in full swing that night and the entire sky was alive in fast-frame time. Undulating colors moved in and out of gray, white, blue, and black exploding clouds, which were sliced down the center of their fat, rolling surface by spears of bristling electric white light. And beneath their high-voltage crackle was the crashing bass of thunder.
I wanted to be a part of it—it was an instantaneous reaction. I opened the window, took off all my clothes, climbed out on the ledge, and cheered like a rabid sports fan for the clashing natural Titans. I could feel the rain and the wind on my naked body and I could sense the sound of the thunder in my chest. My hair was thrown and whipped around my face. My own shouting voice moved in circles up through the percussion of thunder claps. For just a few minutes, I was embraced by the
original
choreographer.
Fantastic—until I heard the flat voice of caution.
“Grace, this is your drummer, John Barbata, speaking to you. Get back into your room!” He was using that pseudo-authoritarian crowd-control tone that security employs when large groups of people are threatening to become unruly. I don't know if he thought I was going to jump, or if he was just worried about the group's having to come up with a quick replacement for a vocalist, but he was clearly confused about my intentions. That was understandable; I'm not an athlete, so I suppose he was justified in questioning my ability to maintain balance under the circumstances.
The short of it is that I eventually stepped back through the window and lived to tell the tale. I'm not ordinarily a nature girl, but there are some weather opportunities that can't be refused.
All-Access Pass
I
n 1976, I was back in the place of my birth, Chicago, for another offer that couldn't be refused. Skip and I were on tour, enjoying an evening of room service and lovemaking, when he suddenly asked me to marry him. My marriage to Jerry Slick had been nothing more than assumed theory sliding into practice, and Paul and I never tried to formalize things, so no one had ever
actually
proposed to me before. I was honored and delighted. But since Skip was so young and we were both high at the time, I said, “I love you, too, but it's late, we're loaded, and maybe you're just reacting to the moment. If you still feel this way in the morning, ask me again. And if you don't, I'll understand that it was just temporary enthusiasm.”
Since Skip had to get up early for work the next morning, he was gone when I awakened, but there was a note on his pillow that said, “Will you marry me?” The guy was serious.
YES, I wanted to be his partner; there was no question about it. And I knew that China adored him, which also helped me make my decision. Skip was young and energetic enough to offer her more than the usual “I'll watch while you play” togetherness that often passed for adult/child bonding. Both mother and daughter found his antics pretty irresistible.
The group always tried to book Hawaii as the last job on our tours so we could stay a while afterward and enjoy the islands. One afternoon in Oahu, Pat Dugan, China, and I were hanging out in Pat's hotel room on the ninth floor, when she looked over at the window and let out a yell. There was Skip, who had climbed up the outside of the building. Casually swinging one of his legs over the ninth-floor balcony railing, he smiled and said, “Good afternoon, ladies.” China did a hand-clapping giggle, I decided Skip was Robin fucking Hood, and Pat wanted to strangle him for almost giving her a heart attack.
That same night, the band and crew had dinner at Michelle's, a fantastic restaurant right on the beach. The open room included long, wide windows facing the beach, close enough to the ground for a child to climb out and run off for some fun in the sand. Skip and China took advantage of the situation. While the two of them headed off in a random dance toward the water, the reddish pink sunset and bright blue ocean surrounded their silhouettes—a clear memory that I call up from time to time when I want to remind myself how lucky I am to still have both of them in my life.
Skip is from Philadelphia, and as a lighting director, he literally shines his lights on me, so this old Elton John song still makes me get out the Kleenex:
Shine a light,
Shine a light,
Philadelphia freedom,
I love you.
Another wedding party: Cynthia Bowman, the bride, China Kantner, Skip Johnson, and Billy Johnson. (Ivan Wing)
From cleaning toilets at the Spectrum in Philadelphia to production manager for The Who in the space of three years, Skip was one of the lucky kids, like myself, who saw it, wanted it, and got it.
The all-access pass.
Drugs, groupies, limos, five-star hotels—we lived the all-expenses-paid life that everyone dreams about while they're wiping off the countertops at Burger King. A lot of people will tell you, quite sanctimoniously, that money won't buy you happiness, but as David Lee Roth said, “Maybe not, but it'll buy you a big fucking yacht that cruises right up next to it.”
Sure, there've been times when I've been miserable over one thing or the other, but I'd rather not have the burdens of back rent, no job, and an overdrawn bank statement to pile on top of whatever the base misery may be. Bucks grease the hassles; a good attitude drives the whole car. But maybe it's a matter of personality types, because I've noticed that some people are unhappy no matter what's going on. I remember feeling pretty good, even in my rats-in-the-basement, shit-hole apartment in Potrero Hill in San Francisco, so I guess I've managed to live my entire life in a kind of splendid Disney denial. Whether I'm ecstatic or furious, my life seems part of some colorful fairy tale that just rolls out in front of the 130-decibel soundtrack with endless production credits.
Skip and I were married by a Japanese justice of the peace in the outdoor pavilion of the LaHaina Hotel in Maui in November 1976. Right up to the last minute before the ceremony, my mother was helping me sew organdy flowers onto my wedding dress. Nervous and afraid we wouldn't finish in time, I snorted some cocaine to zip through the sewing process, then popped a quaalude to get “serene” for the wedding. Everything came off as planned, but, in hindsight, I would have preferred to be a totally sober bride—no chemicals at all, not even food.
Some kind of belated desire for purity.
China was the flower girl at the ceremony on the beach, where we both stood by Skip in front of a spectacular Hawaiian sunset. Cynthia Bowman was my maid of honor; Skip's brother, Billy, was best man, and I brought the entire band and their families over for the occasion. Everyone seemed genuinely happy for us, and the party afterward took place in various parts of the hotel until people were
wearing
the champagne and confusing some chips of fallen white ceiling plaster for lines of cocaine, trying to snort up the rugs. Paul wasn't there for obvious reasons, but neither was Marty. Why? Who knows. The man remains a mystery to me. Everybody else in the group brought their girlfriends, wives, and children, but I guess Marty had his own illusion to attend.
Firing Myself
S
ometimes I'll be driving on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, watching the ocean roll in and out under a sun-blasted sky, and I get so happy, tears run down my face. That happens about once a week these days—the feeling of things being exactly perfect—no drugs, no reason, just some spontaneous reaction to beauty. But in the late seventies, it was hard for me to see that much beauty in anything.
In 1978, Jefferson Starship was bound for a European tour. Let's bring wives! Mothers! Children! Oh boy!
Arghh. My idea of hell.
By that time, everybody was competent enough with whatever instrument they played to pull off the shows without a hitch, but the disparities in personalities were not as easily mastered. The comedy of errors and irritations escalated until they became nearly unbearable for Yours Truly, and while everybody else seemed to think this Jefferson Starship tour was a great family-fun adventure, a big rock-and-roll party atmosphere all the time, it made me very uncomfortable.
Imagine the confusion of fifty people showing up for a train ride, someone's kid kicking someone else's kid, and the parents, of course, sticking up for their own kid. Somebody's girlfriend forgetting her hair dryer and the entire pack of us waiting for her to retrieve it. And since China was with us, we brought along Pat Dugan to watch her because Paul and Skip and I were all working. I ask you, how many insurance companies, banks, publishing houses, etc., bring a circus to work? Since I was the kind of person who prefers to do one thing at a time, my biggest problem was dividing my attention between the ex-boyfriend, current husband, daughter, and entourage. Not to mention travel considerations and attention to performance.