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AIN'T TOO MUCH I NEED I AIN'T ASKIN' FOR ALL OF YOUR LOVE GIVE ME WHAT YOU CAN AND SET ME FREE ... (JUNKYARD) My dad was a junk car man and I'm proud of where I came. Though I was born on November 3, 1964 in the Orange County Hospital in Santa Ana, California, I grew up 48 miles out of California's state capital city of Sacramento in the Twin Cities known as Yuba City and Marysville. The Feather River is the only thing that seperates them. Though I'm 3,000 miles away and haven't been home since I left in October of 1994, it's there all things important in my life began for me. The good as well as a lot of bad. I will never lose those small town core beliefs and values. So much of what I've loved in life has lived and died there. The big city life I found in Philidelphia has never been me, though I love that city. South Street was always my hang out. I played music on the streets there and was able to experience many different races and cultures on a personal level but it wasn't the "Small Town, U.S.A." I came from. I have fond memories of Kevin Harrison (my childhood friend). We killed ourselves working on old Mr. Keys' pig farm. That old pig farmer in Wheatland - 14 miles outside the Twin Cities - was by far, the smartest man I have ever worked for. The old guy was on crutches because of bad knees and he was running our young asses to the dirt. We worked from dawn to dusk, six days a week. He didn't work on the Lords' day. Mr. Keys would always be out there a couple hours before us when the sun hadn't even started to show yet and a couple hours after Kevin and I passed out sitting up in our chairs without even eating dinner. We were in our early 20s and hell of a couple of hard working guys but that old man, the pig farmer, was more man than Kevin and I could ever be. My very first date was in that small town in 1978. She was a pretty blond girl by the name of Lina Hapkie. We went to Cal-Skate for a dance and skate party. My very first true puppy love was with a beautiful girl who lived across the street from my uncle L.V.'s house - my dad's brother - who lives in Bakersfield California. Her name is Marica Lusk. We were only sixteen then. It was in Bakersfield that my foster brother Paul Santos forced me to listen to KISS' song, Rock 'n' Roll All Nite. This changed my life forever. It was Paul who taught me how to write songs. My first guitarist and music hero was Jon Michael Glavin, the most talented man I'd ever known and he was everything I had ever wanted to be musically. In 1987 cops let Jon Michael Galvin die in a stinking jail cell in Yuba City, of a drug overdose. Till this very day I still cry over the way Jon left this world. He left behind three beautiful children who will never know what a talented musician and funny guy their dad was. I named my first son Glavin after Jon. The first instrument my son picked up was the piano. The exact same instrument Jon first picked up as a child when his mother taught him perfect pitch that allowed Jon to play any instrument he ever touched. Jon Michael Glavin came from a very good, loving home with great parents. Naming my son after him was my way of trying to heal the deep emotional wounds I still hold inside over Jon's death. After all these years, I can't think of him without tears coming to my eyes. I had made a promise to Jon's mother and his wife Lori at his gravesite, that I would never let Jon be forgotten and I would never let our musical dreams die. I feel like I failed them all. A bitter pill to swallow and one I've never forgiven myself for. I have held hate in my heart for my mother for the past 19 years because of her refusal to call my son by the name I gave him ... GLAVIN. I feel my mother has shown both Jon's memory and me total disrepect by refusing to call my son Glavin. I will never forgive her for that. The girl I should have married, Deana Lock, my guitar player, Mark Lock's little sister, had a couple of pretty daughters, kept a clean house and even worked on cars with me. I was just too stupid in my younger, wilder, bad boy days to see the diamond she was. It's been 15 years since I saw her last. She was one of the few people I allowed in my heart and I will always be humbled that despite my faults and I have quite a few, she was a true friend who believed in me. I will love her until the end of time. We can't forget my step-sister, Sheila Lewis, who I dearly love. She was one of my best friends and she too admired me for my musical talent. I have never cared about obtaining fame or materialistic possessions. Those things could never bring me true happiness. There is not one single day that I don't miss these people I mentioned here. There has been a huge hole in my life these past 15 years without them. It's these people and those small towns of Yuba City and Marysville that are a part of the good that's within me. What I wouldn't give to be back there driving a junk car, just like my dad, playing in my old band, IVY RIPPER, and most of all, to be with these people I love. I am a simple man, who plays in a rock In' roll band. Who hails from a small town in California, who only wishes to be loved by those closest to me. All the other things of the world, like keeping up with the Jones, will never hold value in my life. As long as I got a ride to get from point A to B, a beater guitar, a woman who loves me by my side, a job that allows me to pay the bills and that keeps a roof over our heads and food on the table, good caring friends and family, a little ugly face dog, that to me is happiness here on earth. Without these simple things, life is a huge black hole. |
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"The true object of all human life
is play. Earth is a task
garden; heaven is a playground"
GK Chesterton, 1908
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