Free Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye by Robert Greenfield Page B

began wondering if I was about to speak to the President of the United States, I picked up the phone in my office only to hear Keith shout out my name as though it had been only a few days since we had last seen one another.
    Although the topic at hand was supposed to be the life and times of Ahmet Ertegun, Keith began telling me that the reasonPhil Spector had been so good at recording in mono was because he was deaf in one ear. Although Phil could also sometimes be an asshole, Keith said he was now thinking of sending him a cake in jail. When I asked if the cake would contain a file, Keith said, “No, a bomb!”
    Unable to help myself after yet another particularly outrageous comment, I said, “Keith, you are so fucking politically incorrect.” Laughing out loud, Keith replied, “Yes, and it’s all quotable, man!” True that, both then and now.

    Before the first show begins, a writer and a photographer from some German magazine wander into the dressing room. Clad in shiny black leather, they both look as though Erich von Stroheim has chosen them from central casting to play these parts. When someone asks them what they are doing here, the writer says he is looking for “Mick Jagga, ja?” Led off to the far corner where Mick sits, the writer starts firing questions at him as the photographer snaps madly away.
    Getting ever weirder, the night wears on. At some point, someone asks me to take Gram Parsons upstairs so he can watch the show. Gram is so loaded tonight that he can barely see. His eyes are slits in his face, he is slurring his words, and his skin is so deathly pale that I am afraid to ask how he is feeling. That there is no way he will ever find the stage on his own is obvious.
    Eager to be of service, I lead Gram out into the still-freezing corridor. Pushing open the door I think will lead us into the cavernous hall where 2,000 sweaty kids are smoking as much hash as they can to prepare themselves for the Stones, we instead findourselves standing before a steep flight of stairs. Since the only way to go is up, I lead Gram to a landing only to discover that the door is locked.
    Up two more flights of stairs we go, only to encounter yet another locked door. With no other choice, we keep on climbing. Feeling like a kid trapped changing classes in a high school of the perpetually damned, I look over my shoulder to see how Gram is doing. With his breath so labored that he cannot speak and his face even more deathly pale than it was before, Gram Parsons is now seriously losing it in every possible way.
    Knowing this is not cool at all and I am failing miserably at taking care of Gram in the manner to which he has long since become accustomed, I start climbing the stairs faster than before. After what seems like an eternity even to me, I finally find a door that has not been locked. When Gram joins me, I shove open the door and we walk through it together only to find ourselves standing on the completely deserted balcony of a huge movie theater.
    Right in front of us on a screen that looks to be at least twenty feet high and twice as wide, the extremely awful movie Myra Breckinridge is being shown in very lurid living color. As Raquel Welch, Mae West, and John Houston cavort before us like overblown figures from a fever dream by Hieronymus Bosch, Gram and I look at one another in horror. Both of us know we have entered another dimension. Gram Parsons and I are now in the twilight zone.
    Getting out of there just as fast as we can, Gram and I run back down the stairs like the hellhounds are on our trail. Making our way back to the dressing room, we head to the other end of the corridor, go up some stairs, and walk through an open door intowhat looks like a big barn of a discotheque. Because the wooden floor beneath us is sprung, it actually moves up and down when we step on it, thereby making everything seem even more surreal.
    After I finally deposit Gram Parsons by the side of the stage, I start apologizing for