10/11/23
Newsletter #485
The Crack of Dawn
Here’s a completely stray memory. At least 40 years ago, probably longer, I was sitting and listening to music with my late friend, Jim Rose (I just dedicated my book, Hitler in the Madhouse, to Jim). Jim was both the richest and the smartest kid in school. He once said to me rather offhandedly, “I’m the richest kid in school, but I still don’t have any friends, and nobody like me.” I said, “I like you, Jim.” He shrugged that off with a wave of his hand, “Yeah, but we’ve always been friends.” I didn’t count.
I just brought Jim up in conversation yesterday, as a matter of fact. My buddy Joe and I were driving through downtown Birmingham, which is a very upscale neighborhood, and where Jim used to live. I pointed out the apartment building where Jim had resided. Jim had the biggest apartment I’ve ever seen in my life. It had to be 5,000 square feet, completely furnished in original Bauhaus furniture from the 1920s, which was uncomfortable. Everything single thing in the apartment was a museum piece.
Anyway, Jim and I were listening to the B-52’s new album, Mesopotamia. One of the verses is:
I ain't no student
(Feel those vibrations) Of ancient culture
(I know a neat excavation)
Before I talk
I should read a book!
But there's one thing that I do know
There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia!
Jim looked at me, shaking his head in despair for the whole world. He said, “He certainly should have read a book if the one thing he knows is that ‘There’s a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia.’ Mesopotamia was entirely built of mud and there are no ruins.”
Jim and I were once having a political discussion. Finally, having had enough and rolling his eyes, Jim just cut me off by definitively stating, “You’re a fool!” Thus ended our discussion. Luckily, I never took him seriously, nor do I think he ever meant to be taken seriously.
Jim did this little stunt several times, but the one that sticks with me was in 1986 when I was living in a tiny bungalow in Hollywood on McCadden St. This is where Quentin Tarantino used to hang out way too much with my roommate and writing partner, Scott Spiegel, endlessly discussing and watching bad movies (“You think that’s bad, this is worse!”). Between us we couldn’t afford a box of corn flakes. The phone rang and it was Jim Rose, with whom I hadn’t spoken in a while due to living in different states. Jim asked, “Want to go out to lunch?” I said, “You’re here in L.A.?” He said, “Look out your front door.” I looked out the front door and there sat a black stretch limousine. Inside the limo Jim had severely expensive bottles of champagne on ice. He also had a mirror upon which reposed big fat lines of cocaine. I don’t like champagne and never have, nor am I much of a fan of cocaine, either, but I went along the program. We had lunch at Le Dome. This is what Google says, “Le Dome was co-founded by Elton John in 1977. The ‘chic French’ restaurant was usually packed with Hollywood agents, producers and music-industry names like David Geffen, Danny Elfman and Berry Gordy.” Jim ordered their most expensive champagne they had, and that turned into a whole ordeal. I was so fucked up I had no idea what was going on. During lunch we ducked out to the limo to snort more blow and smoke a joint.
Jim did this little stunt of showing up in a limo a few times over the years. Being picked up at some cheap little shit hole, then taken to the fanciest restaurant in L.A. was like suddenly being one of the Saudi royal family, and it was both highly ridiculous and a lot of fun.
When we were kids my mother commented a couple of times over the years, after Jim had left, of course, “His head is too small for his body.” It seemed normal to me. Then Jim began to work out constantly until he was completely and huge and ripped. He encountered my mom somewhere. She called me and said, “OK, Jim’s head is now way too small for his body.”
The Rose’s house looked like the White House. As we drove past once, my sister Pam quipped, “Every year is a good year for the Roses.”
But that wasn’t true. Jim’s mom, Marge, was the craziest, meanest mother in the neighborhood. She was so vile, and screamed such most awful things that I won’t even repeat them. I actually watched Jim and his mother have the most terrible fight I’ve ever seen between a mother and a son. The insane screaming ended with Jim pushing his mother through a screen door and us running away.
As soon as Jim turned 16, he got a blue, 1975 Pontiac Firebird with the giant firebird emblazoned on the hood. Apparently, Firebirds only came with automatic transmissions. Therefore, Jim had a manual transmission with a Hurst stick shift installed. I don’t think it took him six months to wrap that car around a tree.
Over the years when I would come back to Michigan for one reason or another, I’d always visit Jim in his palatial, Bauhaus Museum, apartment. Each time I was there over the years he kept growing increasingly more depressed. Of course, one could not help but think, “Why are you depressed? You have everything.” Well, here was absolute proof that having everything was no key to happiness. Jim went through every antidepressant, then was finally put on Thorazine, which is strong shit. He would just sit there, staring off into space, a white crust around his mouth, unable to form a sentence. And then one day, without much surprise to me, he was dead at 44 years old. It was probably an OD, but nobody ever got any details. The Roses always denied even the remotest possibility of suicide, but I certainly don’t. I suspect that he just kept snorting coke until he couldn’t anymore, or something like that.
Back when Jim and I were 13 years old, we were on the same school bus. I casually asked him, “What was the Marshall Plan?” Jim thought for a moment, then said (I swear), “Well, we really need to go back about a thousand years. The border of Russia and Germany was always porous . . .”
Look at this, it’s already another day. What do you think of that?
What a lovely tribute to Jim!