Chapter 10 LET IT BLEED
let it bleed? I Lived It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9jyXD5yWA
from the book The Wild Roller Coaster Ride of Jimmy, Jo Jo and Joe...*
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COLLECTOR'S ITEM - rare photo of Joe V with a beer in hand on this page!
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These are unedited random thoughts from the book splashed on the page to give a bit of Medford area history. Incoherent but fun, I'll organize them better at a later date as I'm working on a different music book right now.
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THE LATE JIMMY MILLER'S LATE WIFE, GERE ROCK, WAS NOTORIOUS FOR STABBING PEOPLE AND HAD A 2 1/2 YEAR SUSPENDED SENTENCE FOR STABBING JO JO AT THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK RECORDING STUDIO IN 1988, A STUDIO I WAS THE MANAGER OF.
CHARLIE MANSON WANTED MILLER TO PRODUCE HIM
JIMMY MILLER'S MANAGEMENT BACK IN THE DAY IGNORED IT FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.
THOUGH MANSON WAS ALREADY IN PRISON, HE WAS PROSECUTED FOR HAVING OTHERS DO HIS DIRTY WORK.
THE THOUGHT OF CHARLIE MANSON IN CAHOOTS WITH GERELDINE ROCK, JIMMY'S WIFE, HAS MULTIPLE, CREEPY POSSIBILITIES. -
GERELDINE ROCK
Rock was actually her birth name, go figure again. She proudly said to me over lunch at the old Howard Johnson's at Wellington Circle, now a CVS across the street from the mayor's law office, that she never took her clothes off for Playboy. She was a waitress at the Playboy Club....
It was actually a very nice afternoon lunch. She was sane, she was polite, a rare moment, and Gere and I actually had a fun lunch I still remember. Sad she couldn't have been this delightful all of the time...but, alas...she was the most addicted person to marijuana that I have ever met. Jimmy was constantly feeding her pot because if she didn't have it she got extremely violent. Just a side note about legalizing marijuana - perhaps the grass was her medicine to keep her from flipping out?
Jimmy would say "I have to level Gere out with some pot before the recording session" and we could not go to a session if he hadn't, as he called it "sorted her out." Her drug dealer said to me "You'll never be able to pull them apart. They may not get along, but they have that deep connection." And the dealer - a notorious Medford gangster - was absolutely correct. He's off hiding somewhere...probably in New Hampshire...good. He was a disgrace, and reveled in that fact.
Jimmy loved the paradox, that I'm a student of Christian Science. He would laugh and tell associates "Joe won't even take an aspirin" - which wasn't and still isn't true, but you get the idea. I rarely drink and certainly loathe all sorts of drugs...and I'm dealing with these rock and rollers who....well, you can use your imagination. I consider myself a "sober person" without ever having a problem. I go for the Coca Cola or cup of tea or even coffee before the Budweiser. Interesting the guy I was seeing last year (and taking to AA meetings for his own benefit) kept feeding me alcohol all during our relationship. He acted like it was just just a social thing...I'd reach for a cup of coffee (and he would bake me cookies and feed me coffee quite a bit) and he'd put a beer in my hand. I dumped him and he immediately got engaged to some woman...so quickly was his rebound that he better get himself some counseling. Talk about a beard! He thought we would get back together and I texted him "Get xxxxxx, Go Fxxxx Yourself...Goodbye..." I'm too old for nonsense and what the heck was I thinking dating someone in his mid-40s....much too old for me! I digress....just some inside info on my ideas on drinking, drugs and skipping church on Wednesdays to try to help a guy out...he wasn't my type when we were platonic...great looking guy but just not my type. It was his issues and keeping him from committing suicide over his failed marriage that bonded us. Guess God put me there at the right place and the right time... but ...back to Miller and Charlie Manson....apologies for the digression...but it's my book!
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It is a stretch but how do we not know that Manson didn't send Gere to kill us all at the New Kids on the block recording studio?
SO two nights after Gere stabbed Jo Jo Laine and my stepson (he's about 35 today and proudly notes he is my stepson on his Facebook page. Of course after years of Jo Jo's kids getting birthday cards signed "Your wicked gay stepdad" well...)
so Jo Jo and her baby son were asleep in my bedroom at the studio where The New Kids on the Block recorded (JO JO taking me to dinner one night saying "I will love you forever for introducing my daughter to the New Kids!" Jo Jo never bought anyone dinner! Except for me!!!!) ...two nights after the stabbing the big glass sliding door at the recording studio slowly opens...in denim jeans it was Gere Rock, Jimmy's wife...she breaks into my home, sees me, and this is truly sick, she has a tire iron hidden in her denim jeans. She pulls the tire iron out and comes at me...but quick thinking - I grab the big wooden doorstop for the glass door and raise it saying "You're in my house...I have a right to defend myself. Come at me (See You Next Tuesday)....Gere thought long and hard about it...and she turned and vanished back into the night.
Second Amendment wooden doorstop should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame...from the Rolling Stones to the New Kids on the Block!
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WE HAVE ANOTHER STORY REGARDING PHIL SPECTOR MURDERING THAT ACTRESS. THE ACTRESS WAS A FRIEND OF A FRIEND OF MINE WHO WORKED WITH JIMMY. SO COURT TV WROTE TO TV3 MEDFORD TO FIND ME TO ASK IF MY FRIEND WOULD TALK ABOUT THE SPECTOR INCIDENT. MY FRIEND DECLINED. HE AND HIS WIFE WERE CLOSE FRIENDS WITH THE ACTRESS AND SHE PHONED HIM TO GO OUT WITH HER THE NIGHT SHE WAS MURDERED BY PHIL. MY FRIEND REGRETS NOT GOING OUT, HE RETIRED EARLY. HE SAID HE WOULD HAVE NEVER LET HER GO WITH PHIL.
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Meredith photo has Jimmy looking like Kenny Rogers...I'm quite sure it was intentional.
Photo 1986 by Molly Day. Molly Day had photographed Joe Walsh of the Eagles. I met her in the offices of Music Connection, down the road from Chateau Marmont (yes, from the film Myra Breckinridge) where we were staying. The late Kenny Kerner was the editor of the magazine (Producer of the band KISS and Gladys Knight and the Pips Midnight Train to Georgia.) So Kenny liked the idea of interviewing Jimmy - two great producers talking, of course- and Molly met me in the hallway of the magazine...we are good friends to this day. Molly took Jo Jo Laine and Jimmy to her studio and they spent the entire night at the studio snapping magnificent photos that we still use to this day! Molly recently sent me this amazing color photo of the black and white we used in the press for years. I was exhausted from the flight and decided to sleep...and there was that handsome man at the desk of the Chateau who was oh so polite to me...yes, I definitely wanted to invite him back but being a professional...well, I kept my distance...file under: the one that got away!
Our limousine driver Ed (he volunteered to drive us around, he loved driving Jimmy, Nils Lofgren from Springsteen's band and others around for our company...) picked up Gere and Jimmy to go to an anniversary dinner at Ed's restaurant. A wedding anniversary for their sexless marriage, go figure...
Jo Jo is in the kitchen and I'm typing correspondence for our planned trip to New York. She's bored as I'm working away on the typewriter...rips her shirt off and squeezes her nipple in my face saying "Would you like some meeeelk (as in milk)" I'm keeping a straight face and ignored her, and she's getting very frustrated now...she kept acting in a very sexual manner while I'm ignoring her at the typewriter...finally I just lost it and burst out laughing.
As her uncle Ira told me after she passed "She was one of a kind." Indeed.
Backstage at the Orpheum Theater in the 1980s I was with a handsome fellow I was very much in love with, so Jo Jo YELLS out for Suzanne Vega, Jimmy Miller and everyone onstage after the concert "I'M GOING TO MARRY A GAY MAN" ....in 1999 on TV3 in Medford Suzanne said she remembered that night. How could you not?
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Good old Jo Jo. Our relationship did have its problems, as I say onstage singing one of our songs,
there was ALWAYS some handsome young man coming between us... ..or as the president of the corporation I worked for said "You and Jo JO were the talk of the hotel."
Ya think?
File under: figuratively AND literally.
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True Story - Manson couldn't get Terry Melcher to produce, so her wrote to Jimmy Miller's management.
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When Manson's hippy thugs went on their murder spree it was allegedly to murder record producer Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son.
Charles Manson Marked Doris Day Son For Death | National ...
Jul 22, 2014 · A rejection from DORIS DAY’s record producer son TERRY MELCHER ignited madman CHARLES MANSON’s HELTER SKELTER slay spree – book. When madman Charles Manson dispatched his murderous minions to slaughter everyone in a particular ritzy house overlooking Beverly Hills, his target was Doris Day’s only son, Terry Melcher, NOT pregnant actress Sharon Tate,__________________________________
But Melcher had rented the house to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski of "15 going on Roman Polanski" fame.
Helter Skelter was written by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.
The late Bugliosi was a guest of Visual Radio twice, and gave me his home phone number...God bless him and rest is soul.
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Big Steve Marra at TV3 Medford laughed as I was doing the interview. For every prepared question I had Bugliosi would pivot back to what HE wanted to talk about, not my questions. In both interviews, mind you! The first was for his anti-George Bush book
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So Marra kept laughing because Bugliosi had his script and stuck to it...Marra mouthing silently "THE PERFECT GUEST."
Well, in one respect, yes, little work for the host. IN the other respect, Vincent didn't get to explore my genius questions...oh well...
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Phil Green, engineer for New Kids on the Block, Beaver Brown and our Buddy Guy Project as well as the Jo Jo Laine album and my song "I Want You Sexually" on Visual Radio a few years back.
