April 2012
53 posts
themessyamerican asked: Hi Michael I'm having fun reading your blog. It makes me miss when I was blogging, but I write in my journal which is almost as fun but not for an audience. One thing I'm enjoying about the blog is finding out things that I never knew about you. Also, you can be very funny, you have a great sense of humor. I'm looking forward to seeing Billy's book as well. Hope you're...
April 29th, 2012 (Paisley)
Paisley arrived yesterday evening with two friends, an older couple named Jerry and Eileen who are very Christian and very devoted to Paisley. It was great getting to meet Paisley at long last and Jerry and Irene seemed nice (although I think I made them a little uncomfortable with my dirty mouth and some of my wicked stories). We had dinner (I fixed pasta and salad) and then we had time to chat...
April 28th, 2012 (Television)
Spider and I had our Adhoc zine interview yesterday afternoon with Samantha who is writing an article about New Wave Theatre. We really enjoyed talking with her and she asked really great questions. She was very good at putting us at ease and we both really opened up (something we don’t do very often), plus it was interesting getting her feedback and perspective on us (keeping in mind that she...
April 27th, 2012 (Interview)
They say that after you have lived in Tucson, you can move away, but you will always come back.
Spider and I loveTucson. We love the Sonoran Desert. There is no other place on earth like it.
Spider received a few texts this afternoon from friends wanting to know how I’m doing because I wrote about a bad toothache in my last blog…..So, here is the latest…. I went to the dentist yesterday afternoon...
April 25th, 2012 (Vinyl)
Despite some good things happening, Spider and I aren’t doing too well today. I have a horrible toothache (and I’m going to the dentist tomorrow, god help me) and Spider is really stressed out about a work situation. We’re just having a shitty day. It feels like we are on the Titanic just before hitting the iceberg.
Billy Ingram wrote and asked for our address so he can send us a copy of the first...
April 24th, 2012 (Barbra)
She was born in Brooklyn, New Yorkon April 24th, 1942. She has been in the entertainment business for 50 years as of this year (from 1962 to the present). She redefined how we see beauty at a time when Hollywood was moving away from cookie-cutter movie star faces to people with real faces. She began her career singing in small supper clubs. Today she performs her concerts in large sold-out arenas....
April 23rd, 2012 (Aspirin)
When I first met Spider, I had a sugar daddy. His name was Vic and I met him when I was living with Mike Russell and Marty at our beach apartment. Then after Mike and Marty and I went our separate ways, I turned to Vic and became his boy toy. Vic had a partner, also named Marty. Vic and Marty were in there mid-forties and had been together as a couple since the end of World War Two and they had an...
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?
April 22nd, 2012 (Spider)
Spider has many names. His family calls him Jim or Jimmy James. At work they call him J.T. Most of our friends call him Spider, however some call him Jim. I usually call him Spider when talking about him to friends and always when I’m referring to music, but at home when it’s just the two of us, I call him Jim or Jimbo. However, if I really want something from him, I call him Boob, and if I...
April 21st, 2012 (Report)
When I was a child in the first grade (1960), my teacher (Mrs. Romberg) made the following observations about me in an evaluation report:
Michael is very courteous and a gentle child.
He needs to be more self-reliant.
He is an extremely reserved child.
He is very polite and considerate.
He shows no reaction when corrected.
He hides his feelings.
His progress in reading is very slow.
He needs to...
April 20th, 2012 (Bisexuality)
When I was in my twenties, I worshiped David Bowie and all of his different personas from The Man Who Sold the World to Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to The Thin White Duke. I especially liked the glam side of Bowie in the early seventies, and I would sometimes go to Hollywood with my friend Terri Gebo wearing my glitter shoes to dance at Rodney Bingenheimer’s Discotheque on Sunset Blvd. I can...
April 19th, 2012 (Dogs)
Last week I was depressed and feeling sorry for myself and I mentioned that I didn’t think most of our close friends could even name one of our CDs. I also questioned how many people are reading my blogs. Well, since then I have received many emails and FaceBook messages from friends letting me know that I was wrong about the CDs and telling me that they are indeed following my blogs, and I want...
April 17th, 2012 (Clare)
Today would have been Clare’s 57th birthday. Sadly, she passed away a couple of years ago from a heart attack. She was a close friend. She was also the owner (along with Jack Marquette) of the Brave Dog, a little downtown L.A. club where Red Wedding got its start and became house band. We first met Clare when Jack brought her to see a Hey Taxi gig, and we became instant friends. She was very...
April 15th, 2012 (Childhood)
I spent my early childhood growing up in Norwalk, Ca….
When I was around 3 years old, I had an imaginary nighttime friend which was a white hand, actually more like a white glove. Every night after I was tucked into bed I would wait for the white hand to appear, and every night like clockwork it would enter my room, crawl across the floor, crawl up the front of my dresser and then sit on top of it...
April 14, 2012 (Ancestors)
Spider’s real name is James Taylor. He got the nick name of Spider from his dad because as a little boy he was full of energy and always climbing the walls like a Spider. Pop Taylor had nick names for nearly everyone in the family, so it was a great honor when I received mine. He called me Shakespeare.
A few years ago, Dee Dee researched the Taylor family tree, and now she is researching my...
April 13, 2012 (Bi-polar)
It was four years ago today (April 13, 2008) that I got put into a lockdown loony bin. I wasn’t sleeping good, and I was taking lots of Xanax, and I was taking Chantix (to quit smoking), and I had stopped taking my psyche meds (because I thought I didn’t need them), and I was taking Vicodin (from an old prescription), and I was really, really stressed out over a CD that we were recording and it...
April 11, 2012 (Gloomy)
Billy Ingram once told me that one can never expect friends to support you in your creativity. He said it’s the “if my friend did it then it can’t be very good” theory. I don’t know about that, but sometimes I think there may be a grain of truth in what he said. For example, Spider and I have released four CDs since 2003 (music that we put our blood, sweat and tears into, some of the best music we...
April 10th, 2012 (Parents)
As of today (April 10th, 2012) my parents have been married for 60 years. Yep, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, my parents are still together.
My mother was 16 years old and my father was 24 years old when they married in 1952, and I was born the following year in 1953.
When my parents first met, my mother was working at a gas station (sort of a gimmick...
April 9th, 2012 (Easter)
Had a wonderful Easter Sunday. Our friend Karen (Miss K) and her daughter Aika decided to get out of New York for a few days and come to visit Arizona (Sedona and Tucson), and we invited them to stay with us. Karen is a dear friend from the old days (back in L.A. in the early 80’s during Red Wedding). Haven’t seen her in about seven years since the last time she and Aika were here visiting...
April 7th, 2012 (Youth)
Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could be young again. I wish I could be young again, and, of course, be young again and know what I know now.
It’s true when they say that youth is wasted on the young. It’s also true that the older you get, the faster time goes by. Seems like Spider and I were kids just a moment ago, and now we are a couple of old farts.
Now and then when I get out of the...
April 5th, 2012 (Tracers)
When it comes to performing in music, I was a late bloomer. I was 26 years old before I sang in my first band…..
Spider played in his first band (Sons of Satan) at the age of 12 in the mid-1960’s and for the next 15 years he played in a variety of other bands including Emperor (a glorified Orange County cover band), The Don Harrison Band (with a couple of former Creedence Clearwater band...
