I am now on a train riding down the middle of Interstate 10. I’m leaving LA. I am listening to Joni Mitchell on my walkman singing the line "You can’t hold the hand of a rock ‘n’ roll man for very long" from her tune Blonde in the Bleachers. That seems to be where I am at…free, no anchor to "the life" any more. Tears of letting go are present, but I am ready for a new life. A greater world is calling me. I have to do something else beside survive on bullshit jobs and chasing after guys in bands. Yea, there were some pretty amazing times, and how wonderful it would be to linger in certain moments or have some sort of magical replay. I was lucky though, I happened to be in the right place at the right time and managed to achieve my childhood dream of mingling with the rock ‘n’ roll elite.

There are many blanks to fill in about the last months of life in Hollywood. Maybe releasing them to paper will help to let go and yet allow me to hold onto the memories…

After Robert’s motorcycle accident I saw him one last time. I guess I realized how our lives were now altered forever. He eventually had his arm amputated and went into severe depression. I had to finally let him go and hopefully he will find some comfort with his new girlfriend.

David Kaffinetti, who once played in Billy’s band, recently did a stint in a movie called Spinal Tap. When I saw it, I laughed my ass off. The satire is too real, I guess that is why it is such a cult success. He pretty much plays himself in the flick, the keyboard player on the sidelines, how funny!

Lori and I went to the "new" Troubadour one evening a few months before I left. No longer is it a place for acoustic/folk rock and the softer end of the music scene. It now features heavy metal and punk music. It was insane, a sold out crowd. In the midst of all the hair spray, leather, and make up, one guy caught my attention, the drummer for Poison. Ah…but I’m getting too old for the game and these much younger musicians. I felt ancient in fact! Instead of wading my way through the awe struck girls and boys to say something coy to blonde drummer I opted for a drink and went home before the evening’s venues were complete…maybe another time.

My sales job at Alexander’s auto detail supplies is awful at best. My best client is the cousin to the Hillside strangler, how creepy is that? The Hillside strangler used to be a regular client here.

So when my Mom built hangars and a restaurant at the Addison Airport in Dallas and made me a proposal to start a catering business for the corporate jet clients at the airport, I decided to make the leap. It was going to be food platters and other culinary delights. It sounded so much better than Alexander’s. I packed up, went back to Dallas and got to work right away. Unfortunately my step-father had his own ides and agenda about the catering business. I found myself not able to make decisions or hold a directive. None of his roadblocks to the success of the business made any sense. After a month of haggling on stupid things I bailed out and went to work for a new company just forming, 800 Flowers. I was the first one hired doing all of the jobs from recruiting florists, to taking orders, solving customer service problems, and working with the computer and telephone people to tweak the system to be ready for the 500 new employees. After 5 weeks they began to hire dozens of employees, many of them I had to train. They offered me a management position, but I refused it because I would loose my first employee status and have to take the less favorable evening shifts. It pissed them off so they laid me off. I sold the Impala and took the cash and went back to LA…one last time! I made a promise to myself that if things weren’t going well, I would come up with a new place to live and get the hell out of Hollywood.

Rusty arranged for me to stay with her friend Barry who oddly enough lives at the exact spot where she grew up. Gone is her house and in it’s place is an apartment complex at 333 S. Elm, Beverly Hills. I have Monique in Beverly Vista where I went to elementary school. It is so nostalgic walking the streets past the houses of my school friends. It’s as if a circle has now been completed.

Days after I arrived back in LA, I began with a new vocal coach, Harry Fields, determined to give the singing and songwriting one last shot. He and I did not work well together so I stopped that after 5 or 6 lessons.

After a few weeks at Barry’s his ex-girlfriend who is now his current girlfriend wanted to move in with Barry and have me sub-let her apartment on Arnaz Drive. That proved to be a good move as I would have the house to myself.

Days after moving in, Rusty took me to a party the UCLA film department was giving on campus. I met a guy there, Jonathan, a film student. We had a lovely time dancing and talking. He is very sweet, very cute, and wow…amazing!!! Everything was going well for several weeks. I took him to my favorite wilderness places in the mountains, we went to movies, we connected on so many levels, but one day it all began to unravel. A round of misunderstandings that were cleared in several days had altered everything. It was the catalyst leading up to my decision to leave LA. The experience left me realizing how fragile everything can be. I spent days grieving for what was lost.

To lift my spirits I got tickets to see John Waite at the Hollywood Palladium. I decided that I would give the groupie thing another try. I found out through a friend that he was staying at the Sunset Marquis. After working at 800 Flowers I had new ideas for approaching the desired. I would send him a dozen white roses and a bottle of champagne…along with my phone number of course. The day the flowers were delivered I waited by the phone, sure that the gift would be welcoming. Mid day I got a call. It was a female who said she worked for John Waite’s management. She asked me how I knew where he was staying. I told her that it was easy to find out where people stayed. She thanked me and firmly told me to not contact Mr. Waite ever again. I hung up the phone feeling creepy as if I had violated someone. This had never happened before. I’m sure it had to be his girlfriend. That night I went to the gig dressed in white leather, my now blonde hair was magenta and spiky. It was a great show. After the show he came out to the audience just inches from where I was standing. I walked up to him, the music was so loud I had to whisper in his ear, I’m Morgana (his hair smelled very good by the way). His girlfriend came up to him at that point. He quickly said hello and split as if he was frightened of me. That was way too strange and disappointing. It seems that there is now a wall between the "fan" and the "star". The days of access seem to be over. The groupie thing has changed from what it was in the 60’s and 70’s, as rock ‘n’ roll reinvents itself once again.

After subletting Barry’s girlfriend’s apartment for a couple months I felt the need to disconnect myself from her and Barry and starting looking for another apartment. Beverly Hills "proper" was too expensive, so I looked on the surrounding streets in LA. I went to see an apartment near Robertson and Olympic. The landlord met me at the vacant apartment inside a large stucco building, probably 14 units in the building. The apartment was remodeled with a loft for an extra bedroom and shelves covering every wall in the place. All the wall were indigo blue. It needed work, but was in a great location and the price was good. The old lady landlord took me back to her apartment for an application and had me wait at the door. As I stood there I was astounded. There her twin sister, maybe 70+years old, was having dinner at her TV tray in front of the television. I looked around at the apartment, being able to see several rooms from my vantage point, and noticed that every single inch of the place from floor to ceiling had peeling paint. It looked like white chocolate shavings glued to every inch of the apartment. I wondered how many paint chips fell into the old lady’s plate during each meal. Not a wall or part of the ceiling were flat, they were all dripping with old peeling paint. It must have been that way for years, this sort of thing does not happen over night. I decided that even though those ladies now intrigued me, I would pass on the apartment. I kept giggling to myself on the way home. That was too strange!

The next morning I had one of those rare moments of awareness when the world is revealed to you. Not like the LSD trips of days gone by but a lucid knowing when you are completely straight…sober. It happened on my way to work. Each morning I would walk from my apartment off Robertson up Gregory to Century City. I would pass all of the places I used to walk as a kid, past the childhood homes of friends, past Julian Wasser’s apartment where he snapped our pictures, past Beverly High, it was like a time warp for me. I loved each moment of taking in my past.

On this particular morning, I was walking down Gregory with my Walkman tuned to KROQ. The subtleties of life were more lucid than usual. A Rolls Royce whizzed past me, and as it did I clearly saw through the glamour and attraction. For so much of my life, I had wanted a home like the ones I was walking past, wanting a car, like the ones that were passing me by, wanting that whole Beverly Hills dream that I grew up with. In an instant I saw it for what it was and felt release. I felt free of the desire. I realized I could leave it behind. I felt great about that shift in my thoughtform. I kept walking with more exhilaration and determination that I was breaking though an illusion that had held me for so long. I was breaking through to a new level of awareness and I knew it and was feeling it. Then I got dizzy and panicky. I sat down on the curb. I knew I was going to be late for work, but I had to sit down. Something had frightened me, something that came from in my own head but I did not know what. Seconds after I sat down, the radio was interrupted with a Special Report. The space shuttle blew apart after take off. I grieved. The analogy to what I was previously feeling hit me very hard, as if the metaphor of the space shuttle was my own life breaking apart and dying. I was still panicky but I had to get up and make it to work. I sat in my office that day deciding what to do about my life. It was a slow day, which gave me time to think.

That night I took a map and spent hours looking for where I could move to and start a new life. I narrowed it down to 3 towns that are within 100 miles of each other. I called Lou, the freak, who is now a psychic, to see if he had any impression of my future. I think he is full of shit, but I asked anyway. He told me I should leave LA for good. I knew this would be the last time I would talk to him. And I was glad about that. I often wondered why we had become friends he is so bizarre and really disturbed, but of good heart…I guess that is the bottom line of what matters.

Once I made my decision to leave LA for good, I moved out of Sherrie’s apartment and into this bizarre hotel in downtown Beverly Hills for the two weeks until school break. Sherrie and Barry were getting stranger as their coke intake was increasing, so I didn’t want to stay at her place any longer. The hotel is called the Beverly Vista Hotel and oh, my God, to say it is a world apart from the rest of the city, is an understatement. I can’t believe this place exists. I feel as if I have either entered the 1950’s, or another country, when I walk through the front doors. It is a typical 1920’s style building right off Beverly Drive and Wilshire. At the front desk is a woman who must have planted herself at the switchboard and front desk in 1950 and never left. She must not have noticed that fashion and hairstyles had changed. She has a tall bee hive and vintage original clothes. This is a woman who is not one of the hip/vintage types, no. I know that look well and can spot a fellow fashion freak. Her mind, soul, and body stopped right at the switchboard circa 1955. I imagined to myself that she was once a wanna be starlet that Hollywood had spit out and littered and when she found herself a job in Beverly Hills, that was good enough. That thought really depressed me.

The little hotel was filled with seedy people not at all the usual Beverly Hills crowd. One of the rooms down the hall had police tape across the door. A questionable death happened there. The room Monique and I have is not the nicest thing, but the price was right for Beverly Hills and hey, the room has it’s own bathroom, not all rooms do. What a gloomy place compared to it’s downtown Beverly Hills location. I imagine gigolo’s live here just for the address. What an appropriate send off…another brush with the seedy, unmasked Beverly Hills.

I booked a private room on a train once I made my decision to leave. I am going to check out the three mountain locations that seem to be where life is taking me. It has been a very interesting ride living out the Hollywood life. I would never trade it for anything. How ironic that marriage was my downfall in all of the escapades with the men of rock ‘n’ roll. But now I am glad to leave the allure of fame and fortune for now. I always say "you can take the girl out of Hollywood, but you cannot take Hollywood out of the girl." I suppose I will always possess a bit of Hollywood no matter where I go. And I suppose I will always be attracted to the men of rock ‘n’ roll. Once it gets that deep into your blood, there is no point of return. But it is also time for me to walk away and try something new. I think I will write a book about my life in Hollywood one day. But for now it is the lovely train ride and a new adventure. The first adventure is happening now. I have met a very nice man on the train. He has invited me to the next compartment for a drink after Monique goes to sleep…life is good!

I am banishing the fairy tale images
In search of a new truth
I lay to rest in the mystic graveyard
Fantasies of greatness
As seen through the tinted spectacles of
Hollywood

Thank you to the following bands and musicians who musically or otherwise were the backdrop to my crazy little life.