The Monkees are gone and I can’t stand it. I mean I’m used to a little chaos and mayhem every day and this peace and quiet is going to drive me stark raving mad!
Hollywood without the Monkees is sort of like a Raider concert without Mark. All the excitement’s gone.
The usually overprotected Monkee set is quiet and empty. No guards, no yelling director, busy cameramen, giggling fans and no Davy, Micky, Mike or Peter.
The chairs they flop into between takes now sit empty and dusty off in the corner of the set. That corner looks a lot like the place where I first met Mike…
It was in a folk club called the Troubadour here in Hollywood. I went down to see someone else, I can’t even remember who now, but I remember Mike. (Like I could possibly forget Mike!)
I was sitting upstairs in the mini-closet they call a dressing room talking with a song writer and in the corner (do you suppose Mike has a thing about corners?) was a thin (underfed?) pale guy who didn’t say anything.
There was something rather interesting about him, but he didn’t talk. It took the combined efforts of all of us in the room (how many people can you get in a mini-closet?) to get him to talk at all.
And getting his name out of him was like pulling teeth. But he finally told us his name was Mike Nesmith and he was a nobody. He said he was a folk singer and had done a little song writing but with little success.
He told us some funny stories about his past and his travels about the country. One was about one time in Texas when he and some friends took this guy who had passed out from partying and put him in a car and put the car on some railroad tracks and set it off down the tracks. They thought it was pretty funny to see this car floating down the tracks with the guy laying on the front seat. What a surprise he must have gotten when he woke up!
His past didn’t seem particularly sad or dull, just unsuccessful as far as a career was concerned. He sat in that corner holding his guitar like it was his most prized, and possibly only, possession.
Then he mentioned that there was something coming up that might be pretty good for him, but he wasn’t sure.
He said he’d been signed for a television show called “The Monkees.” He wasn’t sure what it was about, but at least it would mean steady work for a while.
We all wished him best of luck and went on our ways. I forgot about that quiet Texan until the Monkees happened and then I realized that the Monkees mean a lot more than just steady work for Mike. Little did he know what he was getting into!
Mike was a quiet, private sort of person then, and he hasn’t changed any since. He still feels that his life is of no importance to anyone else and can’t understand why so many people want to know so much about him.
Well, enough of this sentimental nonsense. Back to the present where there are no Monkees on the Monkee set, no Monkees driving up and down Sunset Blvd. and the Jefferson Airplane are recording in this studio where the Monkees record, the same studio that’s been used by the Rolling Stones numerous times. (Don’t you wish that studio could talk!)
It’s far too quiet around here. Hurry back, guys, or we’re all going to forget what insanity is like and go sane!
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