99 Miles From L.A.- Time Tripping

Do you know how as song can bring you back to a time, a place, or an era? Certain tunes bring me back to the point that am having a breath of the air, & hearing the sounds from a time when that song was having an impact on my life.

In the early 1970s, while going to college at Loyola Marymount University, I was able to live what I thought was a very quintessential "L.A. lifestyle". I drove a '59 T-Bird, a gift from my father. I lived on the beach in Playa Del Rey, with double sliding glass doors that opened onto white sand beach & the Pacific Ocean; on a clear day I could see Catalina Island. My travels & adventures were almost entirely "beach". I would go to cafes & bars in Venice Beach & Santa Monica. I had a professor that lived & had events at his house in Malibu. My red curly hair turned the color of straw & I became deeply tan. I went to school with & was friends with children of stars. I did cocaine & fooled around with a major sports figure in the bathroom of a very famous producer’s home in the Hollywood Hills. I saw a brand new show from London at The Roxy, with some actor named Tim Curry, called The Rocky Horror Show, which blew my mind. I saw Linda Ronstadt at The Troubadour with Joel Douglas (son of Kirk, brother of Michael). I was doing my L.A. thing & loving it.

I know I should feel a shutter of embarrassment for my love of Johnny Mathis. I think it started at an early age listening to my parent’s record collection. I find this tune, (& I have it by other artists including Art Garfunkel, Julio Iglesias & Nancy Sinatra), is a real little pop gem. I like that it strays from the –“I am so in love with you” format of many pop songs of the era. It has a real melancholy & a sense of the rhythm of driving in a car alone. The music is by Albert Hammond with lyrics by Hal David. The session players on Garfunkel’s version included Toni Tennille, Andrew Gold, Stephen Bishop, Paul Simon, & David Crosby. It was produced by Richard Perry, who I fantasized would produce my first album- Jockstraps & Valium.

This morning, on the MAX train, 99 Miles From L.A. was on my Ipod in shuffle mode. I listened to it 3 times & I had an incredible sense memory trip of being on route 101, heading back to the city & not being able to shake my feelings for some hot dancer guy that I was in a show with. I felt like 1975's Stephen... traveling that experience again, smelling the smells & feeling the feelings of driving towards L.A..