Late, Late at Night

by Springfield, Rick

  I now have a $90,000 mortgage hanging over my head like a two-bedroom sword of Damocles, emphasizing the fact that I had better start hitting some career home runs or there will very shortly be a large fiscal train wreck in my future. This RCA deal is my “last shot.” I know it, and I am determined to make the most of it. The Darkness, the voice of my lifelong depression, assures me that I will not only look this gift horse in the mouth, but I will kill it, cook it, eat it, and choke to death on a piece of gristle. He is a dick.

  Lifespring is a New Agey, est-type self-awareness program that a friend of mine has recently turned me on to. I sign up for the weeklong intensive course and the timing is perfect for where I am in my head—free, open, and ready to take on the world. I don’t realize it, but I have neglected my spiritual path over the “lost years” in Glendale and there are quite a few devotional reawakening exercises in this program that are exactly what I need at this point. There is also a lot of hugging, sharing, and uncovering the wounded child, as well as other assorted hippie-dippy shit, but it’s all new to me and I suck it up like a brand-spanking-new Hoover. I meet a girl named Sylvia at Lifespring and I write the final song for Working Class Dog about her. “Inside Sylvia” confirms my suspicion that classes are an awesome source of writing inspiration.

  Bursting with confidence when the week is over, I feel like I’m finally back on the right track. I’m so high on the possibilities for the future that I do something I would never have had the balls to do before: I pick up the phone and call Barbara Porter, the incredibly hot receptionist at Sound City, the recording studio my manager Joe owns. I’ve had my eye on this girl ever since she started working as a receptionist there—and I’m not the only one. Every horny musician who enters the premises makes a beeline for my girl. They just don’t know yet that she is my girl. And for the record, neither does she.

  Wish two: The girl of my dreams

  Barbara Porter looks like a teenage Brigitte Bardot. She’s only eighteen, but I’m pretty sure I would risk a lengthy prison term for her if she were underage and her dad were a cop. She is astonishingly beautiful. I have never seen a more breathtaking face, body, or smile in my life. And I have seen a lot of movies.

  I dial the studio number. I know she will answer …

  “Sound City?”

  “Hi, is Joe there?”

  “Yes, just a minute.”

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Joe says, “Hello?”

  “Joe, it’s Rick … I’ll call you right back.”

  Click.

  Dial again … ring, ring.

  “Sound City?”

  “Hi—Barbara?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Rick Springfield.”

  “Do you want to speak to Joe?”

  “No, I just … would you like to go out with me?”

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ?

  “Hello? Barbara?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Would you want to go out with me?”

  “Yes, I … what about Diana?”

  “I’ve broken up with her …”

  “Okay.”

  And the deal is done. Set in stone, or at least wet cement. My penis thinks that it’s just another potential weeklong romp in the sack, but my heart and my soul suspect that this relationship might last a little longer. Possibly a lifetime. And that I could maybe learn a thing or two about life and love from this young Midwestern girl. I quickly understand that she is a sharp, tough, no-bullshit person. She is the product of a twice-divorced mother and an absent father. Fortunately for me, when she was fourteen, she convinced her mother and her younger sister, Kathi, that they would all have a far better life if they were to pick up their meager belongings, pack them into a small U-Haul trailer, and head for the certainly bright lights and possibly hot boys of Southern California.

  On our first date, she makes it pretty clear that her original impression of me was that I was a snotty, stuck-up, and possibly gay older man. Her “snotty, stuck-up” take on me is a fair cop. At this point if I am attracted to a girl, I feign indifference. That way I can’t get hurt. I can’t get laid either, but I’ve learned to take the good with the bad. She is, however, smarter than I am and sees through my pathetic proto-teenage shit. The truth is that I’m prone to being painfully shy, self-conscious, and awkward around girls I’m attracted to, and cannot, for the life of me, strike up a real and meaningful conversation if there is anything even remotely sexual between us. That is the big, fat, pink, and glistening banana that always positions itself between me and the object of my hot desire. Barbara is innocent and open enough to not accept this. Thank God.

  I have always had a tremendous fear of failure in the sexual arena. The anonymous sex of one-offs on the road has served as a successful way around this fear. I have been as promiscuous as women have allowed me to be in my life. And I thank the worn-and-torn skin of my weary dick that they want it as much as I do. But all the one-offs have not built my self-confidence in this area at all. The Lifespring experience has momentarily imbued me with a powerful confidence that extends to all areas of my life, presenting me with a small window of opportunity that will soon close, I know, once the euphoria of the experience has worn off. But it’s enough to help me hook up with this teen-dream queen with an attitude. And I dive through that window like my life depends on it. And it does.

  Since I am clueless and broke, I take Barbara to a double bill of obscure art films she couldn’t possibly have any interest in seeing (but at $4.50 a ticket, you can’t beat it for value), and then to dinner at Delores, a grease pit just across the street from the theater. Even I, in my bachelorhood, am thinking we might be risking salmonella by dining there, but again the price is right, so I’m sold. I figure Barbara is young enough to handle a good stomach pumping at the local ER if necessary. So my future wife (God bless her spirit and strong stomach) and mother of our two children enters my love life via an inexpensive and nondescript little date on the night of January 21, 1980. Just before all hell is about to break loose. But I mean that in a good way.

  Keith Olsen is soon to become one of the most sought-after record producers of the ’80s. He is already much in demand, having just had great success with Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours as well as the latest Foreigner album. He has agreed to cut two songs with me. The sessions with Keith are first up and I’m being sandwiched in between his recording tracks for Pat Benatar’s new album, Crimes of Passion. He’s chosen one of my songs but has brought in an outside tune as well called “I’ve Done Everything for You” that was written by Sammy Hagar. Sammy is, at this point in time, a singer-songwriter with some regional success, and he’s been working with Keith as well. Keith Olsen is a great cross-pollinator. If we were girls, we’d all be pregnant. Keith tells me Pat Benatar has passed on recording “I’ve Done Everything for You” because she thinks it’s too macho for her, but he emphatically informs me that it’s a hit! It’s a good song with a solid chorus, but honestly, at this point he could have brought in “I Am Woman” and I might have gone for it.

  When it comes to the song of mine that Keith elects to produce, I’m actually a little perturbed. He picks “Jessie’s Girl,” a tune I consider a good album cut but not really a single or a standout. Keith, as is his wont, assures me that “Jessie’s Girl,” too, is a hit—second only to “I’ve Done Everything for You.” I’m not so sure. To add insult to injury, Keith is apparently not a big fan of my guitar playing, the bastard. Although I will play guitar and bass on the other eight tracks of Working Class Dog, Keith brings in Pat Benatar’s husband Neil Giraldo (of the previously mentioned, repo’d, Linda-Blair-giveth-and-taketh-away four-track tape machine) to play guitar on the two songs he produces. We begin work. A buzz starts to make its way around Sound City as people drift in and out of Studio A and hear parts of the almost-finished tracks. Musicians and s
tudio personnel are asking Barbara if she is “Jessie’s Girl.” She has no idea what they’re talking about.

  I produce the rest of the album with studio-employed sound engineer Bill Drescher. We crank up the volume and work our butts off to finish the record. Because we are an “in-house” production, we are squeezed into whatever studio is open when the real paying clients pack up their guitars and drugs and go home. It’s a cost-effective way to record, but it means our sessions begin at 2:00 a.m. and end at 9:00 the same morning. Sometimes we get a call telling us there’s been a cancellation and we can have the time. I drop everything, fly out the front door with my stinky dog under one arm and my car keys under the other, and make my way at a breakneck forty-five miles per hour (the top speed achievable for a Ford Fiesta back then) to meet Bill at Sound City and jump straight into whatever track is crying for our attention.

  It’s a tough way to record, but we are more than up to the challenge. This time everything feels different and there is a flow and a vibe to the music and the sessions that I’ve never felt before. People continue to wander in and out of the studio, hear songs, and tell others about them. The feeling is like magic, Christmas, getting laid for the first time. Lethal Ron is with me through all the sessions and clears the studio from time to time as he lives up to his name. I’m beginning to get a novel idea for the album cover. It involves my ever-present canine soul mate and a rather large shirt and tie.

  Being with Barbara gives me a sense of security I’ve never known before. She’s also a major distraction through the recording of the album, and I’m constantly sneaking out of the control room to rendezvous with her in the bathroom, which creates a bit of a stir amongst the natives, especially my manager Joe, who thinks he’s paying her to answer the phones, not to work his artist into a sweat in the employee john. We beg to differ. He fires Barbara but keeps me. I keep Barbara and think about firing him. With B behind me I am fearless. Which leads to:

  Wish three: The working actor

  Out of the blue I get a call from Mike Greenfield, who is theoretically still my acting agent although I haven’t heard from the neglectful little bastard in over a year. I thought he might have died. Did he think I had? “Why haven’t you called?” I ask him. “You said you’d still respect me in the morning. I’ve missed you, man.” Actually I’ve missed working. He’s been a pretty weird and inattentive agent most of my time with him and I’d heard he’d had a penchant for falling asleep on casting room couches instead of hawking his desperate and needy young clients. I’m surprised and actually a little psyched to hear his voice on the other end of the line. He tells me he hasn’t forgotten me and to “suck it” for thinking he had.

  He then says there’s a soap opera that’s casting the part of a new doctor. The casting people remembered me from an audition for another show the previous year (wow) and called Mike because they want to see me for this role. I’ve never heard of the show: General Hospital. The new character’s name is Noah Drake and I’m fairly certain the part is not for me. I have a record deal at last. Do I really need this? I say this to Marvin Paige, the General Hospital casting director who has called me in. He asks to hear some of my new music, so I play him a couple of the finished tracks. He’s not impressed and tells me he thinks my new album will probably get into the lower reaches of the Top 100 chart and then drop out a couple of weeks later. And that is exactly what had happened to my three previous albums.

  My Darkness has snuck into this meeting while Marvin and I are chatting and he is real glad to hear this assessment of my new record and its potential. “Fuckin’-A, baby,” he whispers gleefully into my good ear (yes, even back then I had hearing damage from loud guitar amplifiers). “This guy knows what he’s talking about.” Self-doubt curls itself around me like a serpent and I agree to read for the part of Noah Drake, M.D. “You won’t get this acting gig, either,” says Mr. D.

  In the adrenaline-filled waiting room for the audition I see another actor up for the same part. He looks more the soap-opera type than I do. He’s wearing a wine-colored velvet jacket and has thick, wavy hair. “That’s the guy who’s going to get the part,” I say to myself. I’m actually a little relieved. I go into the reading, run through a scene or two, and then drive home and forget all about it. It’s the most anxiety-free audition I’ve ever had. All I really care about is seeing Barbara again that night … plus, I have a record deal, dammit! Whoooo-hoooooo!!!

  Marvin Paige calls me the next day. “How do you like being Rick Springfield?” he asks. I reply that it’s had its ups and downs so far, why?

  “Because you’re going to be Noah Drake from now on,” he answers.

  Against all odds I have landed the part, my first acting role in more than a year.

  Keith Olsen has just finished the final mix on “Jessie’s Girl” and “I’ve Done Everything for You,” and he is dead-set against the General Hospital idea. He tells me he thinks the album is strong and that I don’t need the TV stuff. He presciently warns me that doing General Hospital will be a double-edged sword I may come to regret. But after all the crap that has gone down so far with my previously recorded work, I am understandably dubious about his enthusiasm for this new album. I take the GH gig and the steady income it represents and focus on finishing my first album in four years.

  None of us has any idea that the following summer General Hospital will become the national obsession, exploding in popularity, drawing eight million viewers a day. Thirty-one million people will tune in for the much-ballyhooed wedding of Luke and Laura. Colleges throughout the country will reschedule classes around this afternoon soap because students aren’t showing up on campus during the hour the show airs. Back in their hometowns, mothers are tuning in to life in Port Charles. Along with their mothers—and their daughters, too. It becomes a family passion. Oh, and guys like it as well.

  The house I’m buying is tied up in a long escrow while the little old lady who sold it to me collects her furniture and her memories from forty years of life lived there. So Joe, feeling bad for firing my hot new girlfriend, lets me crash on the living room floor of a house he’s selling in the hills of Encino. I close the door on Maryland Avenue and my life with Diana for the last time, pack up my new dog, my old TV, and a worn suitcase full of bad ’70s clothes, climb into my Ford Fiesta (the last $4,000 car ever made), and with the Who’s Quadrophenia blasting on the stereo, drive away from a life I once believed was my fate. So much has happened so fast that I am spinning. And the real ride hasn’t even started yet.

  “When you wish upon a star …”

  Flash forward fourteen months. I’m racing down the darkening Hollywood freeway in my little Fiesta, pursued by not one, not two, but three cars full of shrieking fans who have been waiting at the ABC Television gate for me to finish the day’s shoot on General Hospital so they can follow me home and find out where I live. They are blasting my music out of all three car stereos and waving, screaming, and taking flash photos as they pass by me and then drop back behind again. I am driving like a frigging maniac, weaving in and out of traffic, missing other cars by inches, getting irately honked at and flipped off as I whip up exit ramps and back onto the freeway, all in an effort to try and shake them before I reach my house. I break out onto the surface streets, spin around a corner at sixty miles per hour, zip up a side street, kill the engine, turn out the lights, and wait in the dark, breathing heavily and hoping I lost them.

  Wait … this is what I wished for?

  CHAPTER TWO

  MY GOLDEN CHILDHOOD

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

  The ’50s

  The world is sunshine-soaked, warm, lazy, and shot through a gossamer filter, at least as I remember it more than fifty years later.

  Australia is a majestic, sweeping, raw, bare bones of a country. The single oldest piece of real estate on the planet. The first island to separate from Pangaea, the mother supercontinent, at the beginning of time. It carries within its withered womb, on the Murchison
range of Western Australia, at 4 billion years old, the most ancient rocks ever discovered on earth. A truly bizarre and unique assortment of animals, including marsupials (kangaroo and koala bear) and monotremes (platypus and echidna), have carved niches for themselves in its barren earth. Its topography shuttles between parched red desert to lush, rain-soaked tropical bush, all perched on top of nutrient-depleted soil leached of most of its vitality by eons of rain. Its shores have been battered by already ancient seas, and neither earthquake nor volcano has ruptured its primordial body in millions of years. The island continent … Gondwanaland.

  Moving ahead a bit, Sydney in particular and Australia in general at one point serve as a dumping ground for England’s overcrowded prison system. In the late 1700s, the dreaded “transport ships” begin to arrive on Australia’s forbidden shores. These are leaky penal-colony vessels, stuffed to the rafters with men and women convicted of petty theft and various other inconsequential crimes. Thanks to the notorious and newly instituted “Bloody Code” of England, anyone convicted of anything from the theft of more than five shillings all the way up to murder was dispatched on the gallows, so truly, these poor fuckers on the boats included men, women, and kids who’d been caught stealing a half a loaf of bread to feed their families. If they don’t succumb to the harsh discipline, foul conditions, or rampant disease and manage to survive the six-month journey chained belowdecks, they are immediately clapped into irons as soon as they are herded ashore. And look at the treacherous land they inherited, these wretched, luckless lawbreakers.