“Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the singing of the national anthem, tonight being performed by Bob Forrest!” The crowd gave me a huge ovation. I walked out to my mark and faced the microphone. I stood on the waxed and polished hardwood floor and started the song.
Oh, say can you see …
I blew it. Badly. I forgot the words. I froze. I had to start over. My throat was tight and my voice sounded strained. The song was a complete mess and the crowd started to boo me. Their cries became deafening. Paper cups and trash were tossed at me. Ron Harper shook his head in disgust. It was an utter embarrassment. I could sense some real hatred in the stands. The Clippers lost and a lot of people felt my performance had jinxed the team. I was seen as “anti-American” and disrespectful. In the parking lot, after the game, two marines approached.
“Hey, dude, good song,” the bigger one said.
“Wow. Cool. I’m glad you guys got what I was trying to do.”
“He didn’t mean you sang it good. He meant that the song is good,” said his buddy, a squat, muscular guy who resembled one of those little dorm refrigerators.
“Yeah,” said his bigger friend. “We’d give our lives for that song, and we don’t appreciate some dumb-ass getting up there and making fun of it.”
“That’s not what I—”
Before I could finish, I caught a roundhouse left in the jaw and went down hard on the asphalt, the heels of my palms scraped raw on the rough surface. I tried to get back up but was hit again in the temple. I heard the dull thud as the blow crashed into my skull. It was plain I couldn’t fight these two, so I curled up and tried to protect my head and vitals as best I could. They stomped me with their hard-soled shoes. It was as quick and brutal a beat-down as any ever given in a prison exercise yard, and it left me dazed, bruised, and reeling. The next day, out on the street as I made my way to the corner liquor store, it felt like every eye that passed was on me. A dog approached me. “Do you want to bite me?” I asked it sarcastically. It just stood there with one of those goofy dog smiles on its face. It gave a friendly bark and wagged its tail. “Ah, well, here’s a creature that just takes me for who I am. You don’t hate me, do ya, boy?” I bent down to give it a pet. “Good doggie,” I said. The pooch and I had a nice moment of heart-to-heart communication until its owner saw me and shouted, “Get the fuck away from my dog, man! I saw what you did last night, you rotten little fucker! I fought in Vietnam, for cryin’ out loud! I ought to get my gun and put one in your noodle, creep!” It had come to the point where I couldn’t even pet a mangy mutt in the street without drawing somebody’s anger. It was dispiriting and I was exhausted. Little did I realize that there was worse to come.
By 1995, I was essentially homeless and I crashed on peoples’ couches. I sold drugs for dealers I knew just to keep myself high. People died around me. It was a rootless existence and my life was in a complete shambles. There were people who offered to help. Big James was a guy in Los Angeles who was the ultimate Thelonious Monster fan. A huge, hulking lump of a man, he’d go into near paroxysms of delight when he’d come to our shows and he was always thrilled to talk to me. He took me in, but room and board—like everything else in this world—came with a price. Big James liked to party and he liked music, and with me under his roof, he hit upon an idea: living room concerts that featured the front man from his favorite band. He had easy access since I stayed in his spare room.
“You’re putting on a show tonight, Bob!” he said enthusiastically one late afternoon, a big goofy grin plastered across his face.
“What?” I asked, not sure I had heard him right. I hadn’t been booked anywhere. Had I forgotten a gig? Not likely.
“Yeah, it’s all set up. A bunch of my friends are going to come over and you’re going to play. It’ll be awesome!”
“Uh, I don’t know, man,” I said. I had things to do. Drugs to take. Friends’ cars to crash. Some kind of trouble waited for me out on the streets and I didn’t want to miss the appointment and be stuck here putting on a half-assed, rinky-dink show in some guy’s living room. I wasn’t in the mood. I was a rock star. I played real-life, honest-to-goodness concerts. I didn’t do stupid stuff like this. I mean, the Red Hot Chili Peppers didn’t perform in some guy’s squalid and festering living room for a bunch of jokers who couldn’t find anyplace better to go to drink cheap beer on a Friday night.
“Well, you are kind of staying here for free, man,” Big James said. A look of hurt and disappointment clouded his usually sunny face. “It wouldn’t exactly kill you to contribute a little,” he said, pouting.
He had me there. He was a good cat and he would lend me money when I asked. Big James fed me. It didn’t feel right to take from the guy without giving something in return. Besides, I thought, where else did I have to go? Was I really prepared to sleep in an alley under a soggy cardboard packing crate with only the crook of my arm for a pillow? That didn’t really strike me as a great alternative, so I became Big James’s dancing, singing rock-and-roll marionette. A punk-rock sock puppet. His glassy-eyed friends rolled in, beer drinkers and hell-raisers, and sat around the living room on the
