Phase 11
My second year of high school started much like the first in that I again played football. It was, as usual, a bad decision on my part, even though I got the chance to play quarterback (again on the B team). Most of the B team duty and direction was given over to two guys who had played on the team the previous year. It was a bad decision by the coach to allow those guys that power. Both guys had powerful dads, and that probably played into the coach’s decision, though neither guy was mature enough to handle the responsibility. I don’t know what eventually happened, but both guys lost interest or something and they were gone long before the season was over. So was I. No, I didn’t do the honorable thing and quit, I would occasionally attend a practice, but most of the time I just hid out in the restroom to make a break for the busses when the bell rang. Whatever love I’d had for football and the team spirit of things was gone, and it never came back. The idea that I was supposed to help and support guys who wouldn’t give me the time of day started to eat at my craw, so I took a fuck it all approach and that seemed to work best for me.
Billy D was home from basic training (he’d spent six months on active duty to begin his guardom) and I believe attending barber school. His marriage had already broken up and he was looking for something to do. He still owned a Farfisa organ, and had collected a guitar, a fuzz tone, a small amp, a mic and stand, and a set of drums, and lived with his mom, step dad, and two younger brothers. We often jammed in Billy D’s bedroom. The Thumbers’ drummer had begun playing guitar, so Billy D and I would back his seemingly endless stream of improvised licks. “I don’t wanna play drums no more,” he said, sitting on the edge of Billy D’s bed while picking away on some guitar he’d borrowed. “Listen to this.” He played a lick. “That’s Stephen Stills,” he said. “I just love the way he does that.” He replayed the lick and added a variation. “Stephen Stills, man.”
We got to jamming pretty regularly, and were mightily influenced by The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, especially the song, Dear Mr. Fantasy. The guitar guy had heard Stephen Stills jamming with Bloomfield and Kooper on the Super Session studio album. Several times when I’d ditched football practice I headed over to Billy D’s to get in a living room jam before his parents got home. We seemed to be moving toward a band, at one time even inviting two former Heroes to join us. I don’t know why, but I was surprised that the former Heroes were fairly terrible at the art of jamming. Those guys, the bass player and drummer, were really swell fellows, and we were lucky that they actually accepted our invitation, but they worked better within a tight framework where everyone knew what was coming at all times. Our approach was a bit looser than that, to the point where at times no one had any idea where the music was going, but maintained the faith that everything would eventually work itself out, and even if it didn’t, the jam would be a fun ride.
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