A night on the Moon

 

 

 

 

A night on the Moon

I am living in Los Angeles. Why am I there? Let's call it a late adolesence I am driving one of those beach buggy cars as if I am some Angelino beach bum. But I am on the 'programme', (which might be termed more adolescence) but I am clean and sober and getting a full frontal on reality, and there is a certain beauty to that. I have friends, amazingly, lots of them, I am no longer isolated as I was for all those years.

I get a phone call, it is from, let us call her 'Hildred'. Hildy's attachment to me is more prolonged than my attachment to her, but my fondness for her is persistent. She is an ex flame, who runs a model agency in Kings Road, Chelsea, that Valhalla for would be's. Where all those leather jacketed studs, or Adonises, would gather outside playing cool, in that studied casual way of the predatory make, as they subdued their drooling over the long legged beauties who would emerge from Hildred's model agency. Me too, I didn't have a motorbike, too timid, although paradoxically brave, for hadn't I fought my own tigers as one of the manipulated in the Roman Amphitheatre called professional pugilism. "Well, you had the brains to get out, didn't you?" the psychiatrist would gently chide.

Back to Hildy. At that juncture of our liaison I was the manager of a chi chi family hotel off the King's Road and in an similarly lupine way had lobbied the model agencies about our family hotel. Well, on the face of it it was part of marketing strategy, underneath the face of it was a self serving aggrandisement, to be seen with a beautiful model on my arm as I sauntered down the Kings Road, as if a woman was no more than a shimmering reflection of my vanity.

And so it came to pass that there were many stunning models, not bad, I thought in my Lothario mode, for a guy who a few years back had his head in the gas oven, it was that close. And Hildy's models were pursued and discarded for there were pathologies to be blindly adhered to. and I am talking more Darwin than Freud. There would be models, then actresses, some famous, then journalists as one plateaued, having met ones match and more.

Now I am on the Hollywood Freeway, coming in from the East Side. Is that a police car behind me? Well, I am clean, and I passed my American Driving Test, so there! But they soon tail off and head into Little Armenia where there might be better pickings than a beach bum in his buggy.

Now I am driving through the Hollywood Hills, it must be here somewhere. Bloody hell, what was that? I am nervous about meeting him, but not that nervous A shape pounds past me then another and another. My God, I don't believe it. Wolves, a pack of them, it is the most glorious sight to see them lolloping along beside me. I slow down and watch them disappear up a path high up into the hills. Wow!

I drive on an on and then pull over for what must be the tenth time and look at the address. Where am I? I am on the Yucca Trail, and that must Kirkwood, I look at a sign 'All Good Dogs Productions.' There is some lights on, maybe I could ask. A dog barks, it sounds like a big dog, All Angelinos living in the Hollywood Hills seem to have big dogs slavering away, "Hey look at the guy, he seem so cute, you know this guy almost talks to me. Wake up you sentimental dope all their communication with you is based around food. I glimpse the dog at the gate, its teeth glint in the evening light, it is almost as tall as me, I drive on.

'Where the fuck is this place' there! there it is, up there, right! I put the beach buggy in gear and roar up the hill, up, up up, this winding canyon, the buggy is straining a bit, no don't break down here. There it is, there! Yes, at last.

I park outside not too embarrassed by the beach buggy parked alongside two very large black limousines, one with darkened rear windows, but then at this juncture I am a naive free spirit, far out.

I ring the bell, it chimes Hollywood style musical. '

She gets too hungry, for dinner at eight
She loves the theater, (sic) but doesn't come late' What! Thank you east European songsters for uber banality.
 Hildy appears, opening the door tentatively. "Well look who is here?", she laughs. "Come in, bastard you never called me?"

"Who give you my number?" I ask, as I take in the cavernous room with the Hollywood light below beginning to blink out their early evening announcements.

"TK. Just a word, before you go in there."

"What?"

"Don't try anything with his lady. Or he will kill you. And I mean that, he will actually kill you."

There is a thin line between bravery and cowardice and at this moment I am in the latter state.

"Has he arrived? Yeah, he has. What's your name again. Peter? Right." And Keith Moon extends his hand. A svelte and very striking blonde has followed him into this palatial room.

I look him in the eye, as now I am in my brave mode. He looks back at, and I assign his look, by dint of his reputation, as mad. But as I reflect now, it was more playful, as if he was set on a deconstructive jouissance of life and no harm was meant, only the unknowing harm to himself. Still the eyes might be brave but I feel my legs are shaking. There is the smell of incense drifting from one of the rooms off left, and the smell of alcohol either from him or from somewhere.

"So what kept yeh, we was waiting for you," is issued in an impatient vernacular.

Shall we get going, come on then, the stagecoach is waiting. As we head out you got wheels?"

Yeah, yes.

"Leave em here, come with us."

I am torn here, because in my clean and compus mentis state I have 'sussed' that I might  be in need of an escape mode. For this drummer carries with him a bit of a hell raising reputation. But even I, latent half-hippy that I was, could not forbear to be seen getting into that pathetic, little beach buggy parked alongside the limousines.

"Which one do you want to take" Keith asks as if addressing no one. But out of a side cottage the chauffeur appropriately  garbed is being addressed. "Take this one, shall I Keef?"

"You's driving, take whatever. This one? Ok let's pile in."

And we are off smoothing back down the Hollywood Hills, to where, God's know where.

"So what you doing here?"

"Just hanging out," I answer, for post professional sport, and I am not trying to big myself up - of international standing, I have no career, no job and post sport I will always be hanging out. It is as if ones is being punished for one's naive folly of being a professional sports person, Most people I would meet since those misadventures would ask me about that part of my life and most for vicarious reasons

"Use your past experience as a pugilist is a kind of appraisal way."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean?"

"Hmm, well, it is a kind of acid test of peoples references.

"Sorry, can you elaborate a bit."

"Well, those who express an interest in it, you keep well away from, and those who express a horror and revulsion of that so-called sport, well then, they might be people that you can talk to."

Keith Moon was not interested in anything of my past even if Hildy had told him. His eyes were away, there seemed little interest in the three of us. Where was he? The glint in his eye seemed to tell of a promise as if getting out of it had some Edenic warrant. I would reflect now and see him as being blindly on the hedonistic treadmill, that shallow walkway that leads to a personal gallows.

'I hope I die young, before I get old.' Oh dear.

"Where first Keef?" parroted the driver. I was glad of the intervention for I was tongued tie in a paralysing sort of self consciousness. My silence seemed to augment, proliferate, the risk of saying anything was just too great. There was also great trepidation that the odd glance towards his drop-dead attractive woman would set him off. For hadn't he actually killed someone in some incident of some kind. There was something about him, he was full of menace. Far better to hang from a cliff top by a rope than walk till your dotage on the safe cliff top path, might have been his Nietzschean motto. The music blared out he started to make some drumming actions, a concert for free, but I felt increasingly threatened as I punned to myself, 'I hope I survive this before I die young.'

We arrive at the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Boulevard and pile out and then pile into the innards of the Whisky. I cannot go into detail about the next hours, or how long we were there except to say dawn was breaking on our return. Suffice to say it was the longest night of my life. I have never been so frightened, or terrified. Moony, to give him his associates appellation, would only return to our table for refills. More and more that evening he was going around the club threatening everyone, pushing his face into theirs and insisting throughout that I am by his side to witness these incredibly  dangerous confrontations. Any break in these confrontations would come with the insistence from Hildy, go with him, "Peter, for God's sake. He is going to get into a fight for God's sake."

So, I would trudge over the club lighting masking my pallid fear. And then I would stand by him as he taunted another person, usually Angelinos the size of Grisly Bears. Oh God, will it ever end. Why didn't I bring the beach buggy, I could have escaped. In my beach bum mode, far out, I had about five dollars on me for at that point in my I was in my credulous mode where I thought having money was 'uncool'. So I stood by Keith in confrontation after confrontation.

I recall it now, there was nothing macho about his behaviour just as if he wished to go to the fiery edge of communication. For most people there is a cordon sanitaire around these emotional extremes, there are limits, for Keith Moon on that particular night there were no limits, he was compelled to indulge in emotional pyrotechnics. I think of him now, poor thing.

I am clean throughout all this and so desperately wish that my brain was fogged by drink and drugs, for I am so afraid as he continues to taunt the punters sometimes pushing has face into theirs - I want to scream out, for fucks sake, Keith, some of these people have guns.

Somehow he manages to inject a saving humour into his confrontations, as he goes on around the club it would seem determined to let every punter have a very personal impression of Keith Moon.

I return to the table Hildy and her model sit. "Still not drinking?" She lobbies in an admiring way. "I wish I was?" it my one attempt at humour that evening.

"He's calling you."

"What?"

"Over there." And I see Keith Moon beckoning me over to observe his conflagration with a Californian mountain more seven than six feet. "Jesus" I wish I had brought the buggy, I would run for it now." I can't remember the details rest of the evening it was dulled out of my brain by fear. But I recall there was a sameness about his encounters with the people in that club. First the display of manic danger to whoever he was addressing, then a kind of emollient winning charm. Then up the stakes again to more threat and danger. Is that how people communicate in hell?

But I suppose having all your wits about you makes you survive and survive I did and we are now in the 'limo' climbing back up inot the Hollywood Hills.

"Coming in?" The glint is his eye is undimmed.

I studiously avoid looking at his woman.

The women walk ahead of us.

"Coming in? He stands outside this palatial built like a giant cake by fairies above a twinkling mountain top. I recall the glint in his then I saw it as terrifying, now I see it as charming and innocent.

"No, no, got to back...got something to do...tomorrow...well great...nice to..

"OK, OK, well only asking...the night is young, isn't it?"

You got to be fucking joking. "It's morning, Keith."

"Oh yeah, so it is. So it is." And he was gone.

That night, paradise, was a stupid beach buggy, chugging back down the Hollywood Hills hoping upon hope I would see the wolves again as the dawn broke

"He likes you," Hildy informs the next afternoon. "Maybe you would like to have a word with him."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he can't go on like this, can he?

"No, no, of course not. Well....is he there."

"Yes, just a mo'...Keith. It's Peter'

"Oh yeah." I hear.

Then he is on the phone, how are doin, my son?"

And then as I best recall, I am into my evangelical role, yes...oh yeah you can have an evening like that without, you know, getting out of it. And my attempted conversion, too inane to detail, continues, for once far away from him I feel strong. But this is not going to be Keith Moon's road to Damascus.

"Yeah...where are these meeting held....yeah...yeah...well I will hand yeh back to Hildy."

Five years later, Keith Moon died on the September 7, 1978. from an accidental overdose of the prescription drug Heminevrin, prescribed to combat alcoholism. He was prescribed to take 2 of the tablets, in the autopsy he was found to have 27.

If I was speaking now at his memorial I would say of him that...'beyond those terrifying surfaces, there went a gentle soul, endearing even, naive and innocent, driven by known and unknown forces. And I would add, me too! me too! And perhaps you! and you! and you!

I would claim that the above is the reality of my night with Keith Moon, however, isn't reality and our claim to know it the biggest illusion of them all.