Paddy Chayefsky's Dead, the back story
Wow, that's a long story. It started when I was learning to fly small planes. My instructor, who is also one of my all-time favorite people, one of those multi-lingual genius/revolutionary/combat correspondent/stunt pilot/film maker/writer kind of people, had been having kind of a rough couple of weeks, being teargassed and hunted down by the LAPD SWAT team, and as a result of that and some other struggles was feeling a little out of sorts. I had some reservations about our up coming flight/lesson, but I didnt want to add to his self-doubts at the time, and said "what the hell, the worst thing is we die", but I really didnt think he'd want to kill either one of us. So we took the flight, to San Francisco.
To this day, it's still one of the most beautiful flights I can remember. There was heavy fog up to about 4000 feet, so it was pure instruments on takeoff, which can be kind of unnerving for a novice like myself. At 4000 feet we pooped out of the fog into a blindingly beautiful full-moon sky.
We didnt talk much about what was going on, but I'd be lying if I said I wasnt concerned about his general mood and head space, and the thought did cross my mind now and then that he might take it upon himself to auger us into God's fitful earth. . But after a beautiful and strangely tranquil flight we landed in SF. One of our excuses for the trip was to see Jewel, who was playing a small club up there with a band that I'd helped find for her, and I was curious about how they were doing. (Not so good, but it was a very last minute affair) My friend's inherent honesty got the better of him, and he was so appalled at what he saw to be a strictly mercenary approach to the young lady's career that he stood up at one point and shouted "Can't you see what you're doing to her?!! You're making it about the money! The money!!!" Or something along those lines. He was getting very agitated, so I suggested we leave and get some pastries or something. As we were leaving, we ran into
some people from Jewel's record company and her mom/manager.
My friend then told them in no uncertain terms what he thought of the performance, which I did think (and still do) was pretty funny, but as I had to theoretically work with those people, I suggested I meet him outside. I apologized cravenly to the record people etc... and went outside to find him. Somehow in this short time he'd managed to antagonise the Jewel fans on the street to the extent that a number of them were stomping him, amateurishly, but still effectively, with a lot of verve and vigor. In the time it took for me to say "hey, what's going..." They turned as one, and applied their efforts to me, for a little impromtu tap dance upon my tender organs.
Fortunately they got bored, and ceased the performance before I was permanently crippled. My friend was so mortified that he just left. I tried to follow him, for fear he might continue on his madcap descent, but was hampered by my injuries, and gave it up after he got a few blocks ahead of me. I got a ride back to LA in Jewel's tour bus and went straight to an emergency ward here in Santa Monica, where I found I had several broken ribs, broken fingers, minor concussion, and etc...
I was pretty upset at my friend. I mean, it was just a bit much.
The reason I chose Paddy Chayefsky as the nom de tune was because Chayefsky always struck me as the Master Decoder, the
Man Who Could Cut The Crap, and a person I've always looked to to give me the deeper bigger picture, much like my friend.
The artillery and gunfire that you hear was recorded by my friend during a machine gun and artillery assault by the SLORC, the Burmese military government, against a rebel student outpost in I think 1989. The voice saying "the kid with the guitar" is my friend's voice. He was, of course, among the shelled.
In my life at the time, everybody was crazy. Suicides, sudden deaths, unexplained viciousness, outbursts of every
description were quite simply the norm, and I wasnt in much better shape than anyone. It wasnt a dark time, per se, just an extremely explosive one.
Anyway I spent a couple of weeks in a haze of pain pills and
surgeries, and in my scribbles I found what is the bulk of "Paddy Chayefsky's Dead", which sat unconsidered for quite some time until the NFU sessions, when Nick D'Virgilio pulled it out of the notebook and said "let's do something with this", and even went so far as to come up with a beautiful
chord change. So there you have it.
My friend's alive and well, and so am I, but I still don't have a pilot's license.
Yrs,
David Baerwald
Chayefsky, Messes
B
Baerwald
(view)
Paddy Chayefsky's Dead, the back story
Wow, that's a long story. It started when I was learning to fly small planes. My instructor, who is also one of my all-time favorite people, one of those multi-lingual genius/revolutionary/combat correspondent/stunt pilot/film maker/writer kind of people, had been having kind of a rough couple of weeks, being teargassed and hunted down by the LAPD SWAT team, and as a result of that and some other struggles was feeling a little out of sorts. I had some reservations about our up coming flight/lesson, but I didnt want to add to his self-doubts at the time, and said "what the hell, the worst thing is we die", but I really didnt think he'd want to kill either one of us. So we took the flight, to San Francisco.
To this day, it's still one of the most beautiful flights I can remember. There was heavy fog up to about 4000 feet, so it was pure instruments on takeoff, which can be kind of unnerving for a novice like myself. At 4000 feet we pooped out of the fog into a blindingly beautiful full-moon sky.
We didnt talk much about what was going on, but I'd be lying if I said I wasnt concerned about his general mood and head space, and the thought did cross my mind now and then that he might take it upon himself to auger us into God's fitful earth. . But after a beautiful and strangely tranquil flight we landed in SF. One of our excuses for the trip was to see Jewel, who was playing a small club up there with a band that I'd helped find for her, and I was curious about how they were doing. (Not so good, but it was a very last minute affair) My friend's inherent honesty got the better of him, and he was so appalled at what he saw to be a strictly mercenary approach to the young lady's career that he stood up at one point and shouted "Can't you see what you're doing to her?!! You're making it about the money! The money!!!" Or something along those lines. He was getting very agitated, so I suggested we leave and get some pastries or something. As we were leaving, we ran into
some people from Jewel's record company and her mom/manager.
My friend then told them in no uncertain terms what he thought of the performance, which I did think (and still do) was pretty funny, but as I had to theoretically work with those people, I suggested I meet him outside. I apologized cravenly to the record people etc... and went outside to find him. Somehow in this short time he'd managed to antagonise the Jewel fans on the street to the extent that a number of them were stomping him, amateurishly, but still effectively, with a lot of verve and vigor. In the time it took for me to say "hey, what's going..." They turned as one, and applied their efforts to me, for a little impromtu tap dance upon my tender organs.
Fortunately they got bored, and ceased the performance before I was permanently crippled. My friend was so mortified that he just left. I tried to follow him, for fear he might continue on his madcap descent, but was hampered by my injuries, and gave it up after he got a few blocks ahead of me. I got a ride back to LA in Jewel's tour bus and went straight to an emergency ward here in Santa Monica, where I found I had several broken ribs, broken fingers, minor concussion, and etc...
I was pretty upset at my friend. I mean, it was just a bit much.
The reason I chose Paddy Chayefsky as the nom de tune was because Chayefsky always struck me as the Master Decoder, the
Man Who Could Cut The Crap, and a person I've always looked to to give me the deeper bigger picture, much like my friend.
The artillery and gunfire that you hear was recorded by my friend during a machine gun and artillery assault by the SLORC, the Burmese military government, against a rebel student outpost in I think 1989. The voice saying "the kid with the guitar" is my friend's voice. He was, of course, among the shelled.
In my life at the time, everybody was crazy. Suicides, sudden deaths, unexplained viciousness, outbursts of every
description were quite simply the norm, and I wasnt in much better shape than anyone. It wasnt a dark time, per se, just an extremely explosive one.
Anyway I spent a couple of weeks in a haze of pain pills and
surgeries, and in my scribbles I found what is the bulk of "Paddy Chayefsky's Dead", which sat unconsidered for quite some time until the NFU sessions, when Nick D'Virgilio pulled it out of the notebook and said "let's do something with this", and even went so far as to come up with a beautiful
chord change. So there you have it.
My friend's alive and well, and so am I, but I still don't have a pilot's license.
Yrs,
David Baerwald
Wow, that's a long story. It started when I was learning to fly small planes. My instructor, who is also one of my all-time favorite people, one of those multi-lingual genius/revolutionary/combat correspondent/stunt pilot/film maker/writer kind of people, had been having kind of a rough couple of weeks, being teargassed and hunted down by the LAPD SWAT team, and as a result of that and some other struggles was feeling a little out of sorts. I had some reservations about our up coming flight/lesson, but I didnt want to add to his self-doubts at the time, and said "what the hell, the worst thing is we die", but I really didnt think he'd want to kill either one of us. So we took the flight, to San Francisco.
To this day, it's still one of the most beautiful flights I can remember. There was heavy fog up to about 4000 feet, so it was pure instruments on takeoff, which can be kind of unnerving for a novice like myself. At 4000 feet we pooped out of the fog into a blindingly beautiful full-moon sky.
We didnt talk much about what was going on, but I'd be lying if I said I wasnt concerned about his general mood and head space, and the thought did cross my mind now and then that he might take it upon himself to auger us into God's fitful earth. . But after a beautiful and strangely tranquil flight we landed in SF. One of our excuses for the trip was to see Jewel, who was playing a small club up there with a band that I'd helped find for her, and I was curious about how they were doing. (Not so good, but it was a very last minute affair) My friend's inherent honesty got the better of him, and he was so appalled at what he saw to be a strictly mercenary approach to the young lady's career that he stood up at one point and shouted "Can't you see what you're doing to her?!! You're making it about the money! The money!!!" Or something along those lines. He was getting very agitated, so I suggested we leave and get some pastries or something. As we were leaving, we ran into
some people from Jewel's record company and her mom/manager.
My friend then told them in no uncertain terms what he thought of the performance, which I did think (and still do) was pretty funny, but as I had to theoretically work with those people, I suggested I meet him outside. I apologized cravenly to the record people etc... and went outside to find him. Somehow in this short time he'd managed to antagonise the Jewel fans on the street to the extent that a number of them were stomping him, amateurishly, but still effectively, with a lot of verve and vigor. In the time it took for me to say "hey, what's going..." They turned as one, and applied their efforts to me, for a little impromtu tap dance upon my tender organs.
Fortunately they got bored, and ceased the performance before I was permanently crippled. My friend was so mortified that he just left. I tried to follow him, for fear he might continue on his madcap descent, but was hampered by my injuries, and gave it up after he got a few blocks ahead of me. I got a ride back to LA in Jewel's tour bus and went straight to an emergency ward here in Santa Monica, where I found I had several broken ribs, broken fingers, minor concussion, and etc...
I was pretty upset at my friend. I mean, it was just a bit much.
The reason I chose Paddy Chayefsky as the nom de tune was because Chayefsky always struck me as the Master Decoder, the
Man Who Could Cut The Crap, and a person I've always looked to to give me the deeper bigger picture, much like my friend.
The artillery and gunfire that you hear was recorded by my friend during a machine gun and artillery assault by the SLORC, the Burmese military government, against a rebel student outpost in I think 1989. The voice saying "the kid with the guitar" is my friend's voice. He was, of course, among the shelled.
In my life at the time, everybody was crazy. Suicides, sudden deaths, unexplained viciousness, outbursts of every
description were quite simply the norm, and I wasnt in much better shape than anyone. It wasnt a dark time, per se, just an extremely explosive one.
Anyway I spent a couple of weeks in a haze of pain pills and
surgeries, and in my scribbles I found what is the bulk of "Paddy Chayefsky's Dead", which sat unconsidered for quite some time until the NFU sessions, when Nick D'Virgilio pulled it out of the notebook and said "let's do something with this", and even went so far as to come up with a beautiful
chord change. So there you have it.
My friend's alive and well, and so am I, but I still don't have a pilot's license.
Yrs,
David Baerwald
