Them Changes

By Jim Paris

One of Jim Paris’ first jobs after serving in the Army from 1962 to 1965 was in the mailroom of the entertainment public relations giant, Rogers and Cowan. He spent his nights exploring and enjoying the clubs, music, sex and drugs that defined the Hollywood scene in the late 60s. He formed Paris Management, Inc. a multi-media company involved with television, record, and concert production based in San Francisco in 1970 and began working with solo artists, garage bands and assorted performers.
This book is as much about an insider’s personal and professional life during the rock and roll scene of the 60s, 70s and into the 80s as it is about the seminal moments in history . . . including the sex, drugs and incredible music . . . that so many would have given anything to experience, but were born too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Paris
• Release date: Jan 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310575600

Jim Paris

Jim Paris was born in Los Angeles in 1943 and spent the first 13 years of his life in Mexico City with his mother and his brother and sister. The family returned to the United States in 1956, ultimately to Los Angeles, where he lived for close to 50 years, give or take a few years in San Francisco and Germany. He currently resides in Texas with his wife of more than 22 years and his dogs, Buddy and Lucy.One of Jim Paris’ first jobs after serving in the Army from 1962 to 1965 was in the mailroom of the entertainment public relations giant, Rogers and Cowan. He spent his nights exploring and enjoying the clubs, music, sex and drugs that defined the Hollywood scene in the late 60s. He formed Paris Management, Inc. a multi-media company involved with television, record, and concert production based in San Francisco in 1970 and began working with solo artists, garage bands and assorted performers.Paris became a quasi-partner with The Robert Fitzpatrick Organization, an entertainment management company that managed top recording artists including Cream, Buddy Miles, and Martha and the Vandellas, and for several years directly produced and managed Buddy Miles -- including his tours, stage shows, and albums. He produced and directed Miles’ “Roadrunners” album in 1977 and the Buddy Miles Regiment’s “Sneak Attack” in 1980, released by Atlantic records in 1981.

Book preview

In 1970, the Band of Gypsys released their only album, the eponymous "Band of Gypsys" featuring Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox and Buddy Miles. The album was recorded during a two-day concert at the Fillmore East on December 31, 1969, and January 1, 1970. One of the tracks was a song by Buddy Miles, perhaps his signature song, titled "Them Changes." Fast forward many years and I still haven’t been able to come up with a more appropriate title for my book, so I’m going to have to borrow it; I know Buddy won’t mind. As you will see, I spent plenty of time with Mr. George Alan Buddy Miles and I definitely went through ‘them changes.’

From the day I was born it seems I was always going through them changes. They certainly weren’t always about Buddy; they weren’t even always about rock and roll.

By some strange twist of fate I often found myself in incredible situations, either in the middle, or at least on the fringe, of seminal moments in time. From the very beginning, music, art and sex were my major motivators. As a child, I loved Ranchera Music like Jorge Negrete’s "Allá en el Rancho Grande", or Miguel Aceves Mejia’s "La Malagueña Salerosa."

As a child I loved to draw and paint. As a child I was introduced to sex.

Whenever I mentioned bits and pieces of my life to friends, their reactions were always the same; that I should write my story down. But whenever I attempted to do it I always got stuck on the same questions. Should I tell about what really happened? What happened before that? And, I could never really figure out where to start.

Recently I was discussing with a friend how I should start my story, and he said: Start at the beginning. How simple. Thanks, Sam Cutler. You were right.

I guess I’m lucky that I could never fully rely upon my memory, especially during my drug-taking years, which is why I always wrote everything down. Fortunately, I found my daily journals, where most of the information contained herein can be found in meticulously hand-written calendar notes. For every story I’ve written, there are 10 I’ve left out -- some out of respect for a memory or a reputation, some because, although true, they sound way too bizarre for anyone to believe, and some to protect the innocent . . . or the guilty. People introduced by first names only are real although the names may have been changed. In all cases the stories found within are, to the best of my knowledge and memory, factual.

The terms I use to describe people or events are also factual in that I use the vernacular of the times. From the vantage point of 40-50 years later, however, I realize some might take offense or be insulted and I apologize for that. However, there was NO political correctness in the 60s and 70s, at least not among my generation and the counter-culture in which I found myself. If we were referring to a pretty or desirable woman we called her a chick, hottie, munchie, munchkin, or chuchi. We called African-American women chocolate morsels and brown sugar. None of these terms was ever meant to be derogatory; in fact, they were all meant as compliments. Just don’t try them today!

Chapter 1 – In the Beginning There Was Jimmy Clark

I was born on June 29th, 28th or 22nd in 1943 at Park View Hospital in Santa Monica, California. Or so I've been told. I was born to Mary J. Ridler - aka Mary Perez - aka Mary Clark, and I don’t know who the father was or even if there was one. Well, I'm absolutely certain there had to be a father but I have never known who he was, although at different times I was given several names from my mother's colorful past from which to choose. From here on, my story gets really confusing.

Apparently Mother decided to leave her past and her husband behind her sometime in mid-to-late 1943, fled the country, and headed to Mexico. Actually, she didn't leave her entire past behind; she took her three children – Randy (approximately 2 years old) Susan (a little over a year old), and me. I was never told very much about her reasons, or how she accomplished this. All I know is that I have always retained the memory of a fantasy childhood, although perhaps a concocted one on my part. Since I was only, at the most, a few months old and living in Mexico, my first language naturally became Spanish.

I had been told that Mother Mary Clark was an actress in Los Angeles and that she decided that there were more opportunities for a buxom blonde bombshell in Mexico. So she packed up the kids and went searching for fame and fortune. I actually saw mother in a couple of Mexican movies; one was called La Casa Embrujada (The Haunted House), with the English actor David T. Bamberg as Fu Manchu, and the other, I think, was a Mexican Disney Movie called Los Tres Caballeros in which she had a small walk-on part in a beach scene where the Disney characters fly on a magic carpet and Donald Duck jumps off and lands in the middle of a group of beautiful women…. or something like that. There was a third film, El Amor no es Negocio, that I never saw where she appropriately played the part of a Gringa. Anyway, I guess all that convinced me that she had made it as an actress.

I remember living in a rather large apartment in the middle of Mexico City near the Castillo De Chapultepec on the Calle de Pachuca near or in La Colonia Condesa. We were the Clark family; I was Jimmy Clark, my sister was Susana Clark, and my brother was Randy Clark. We had several maids, including Cuca, Lupe, Placida, Lola, and Eva; I believe Eva was Cuca’s daughter. Placida was the bedroom and laundry maid, and Lola was the kitchen maid and main cook; she would make all our meals, while Lupe basically looked after us. Placida was my favorite because she would always take me to the azotea with her and let me just hang out while she did the laundry and also because every so often she would whip up a chicken mole that would take her all day to perfect. We would all take turns trying to get pieces of the dark chocolate she used in her recipe, but ultimately we were always forced to wait until dinner time for that provocatively sweet taste that exploded in our mouths. I’ve been searching for that mole ever since. Recently one restaurant in San Antonio came close, but it still wasn’t Placida’s.

Mother Mary had a friend, Veronica, who lived upstairs with her two daughters, Luzana and Rosalinda. Luzana and I used to play together all the time and she was, indisputably, my first love.

We had elegant hand-made furniture that always gave me the impression that we were wealthy. I also recall attending a private parochial school; I think it was French-Mexican. I was always called Guerito, Guerejo, or Rubio (blondie), and sometimes I was called Jaime, the Spanish translation of the name Jim. I loved living in Mexico and, as far as I knew, being Mexican. After all, both my brother and sister had brown hair, brown eyes and brown skin. I was the only blue-eyed blonde, and I was told it was because I took after my mother. I don’t remember anyone ever telling us we weren’t Mexican and I knew nothing else. Viva Mexico.

I always lived under the false impression that we had a lot of relatives in Mexico. It seemed that every time we met someone new they very rapidly became our uncles or aunts. There was a rich rancher who lived on a huge ranch that we visited from time to time. I remember that he had a black stallion named Minuto.

I think the rancher's name was Pancho, and for a while I somehow thought he might be our father . . . because there never was a man or father figure living with us and because whenever we visited Pancho’s ranch Mother always, at least in my childish imagination and perhaps hopeful wishes, seemed to be very affectionate with him. Eventually I came to understand that he wasn’t family any more than any of our other Mexican relatives. But I did learn how to ride a horse and shoot a gun during our visits to his ranch. That was good.

There was a woman named Brownie Ursula, whom I had always thought of as our Godmother, and her husband who was an Ambassador or held some kind of political office. She had a beautiful daughter named Frances and two sons, Eugenio, who would later follow in his father’s footsteps and become an Ambassador, and Francisco (Pancho) who were a few years older than we were. They lived in a huge home outside of the city, and we would visit relatively often. I remember that their maids always made tortillas for us out on the patio. I loved those handmade, hot tortillas smeared with butter. We were always busy with school and going to different relatives homes or ranches or going to fiestas with the maids. Once we went to Cuernavaca, but I can’t recall anything about that except that every morning I was awakened by cooing pigeons.

I was in some sort of school play when I was about ten years old and Mother, surprisingly, was actually there for that. I stood on the stage of the Teatro Ferrocarrilero and played the part of one of the young school boy heroes that defended the Castillo de Chapultepec during the Mexican – American War of 1847. I remember her taking me to another part of the theater, and going backstage to introduce me to Cantinflas, the world famous Mexican comedian whom she had said was my Godfather. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out that Mario Cantiflas Moreno was every child’s Godfather. Oh well.

A young married couple lived in the house next door to us, and we were always visiting because the husband was some kind of miner or something and he had barrels of Liquid Silver, (Mercury), stored in their garage. We all used to go in there and play with the liquid silver, using it to rub on coins and throw handfuls up and watch as it would break into a million thick silvery drops that we would then push together and watch as they would merge.

The wife was a beautiful woman who was always very nice to us, and from time to time she would offer us Coca-Colas. One day the husband announced that they were moving to a new home in the hills, Las Lomas, a very ritzy part of the city. She asked if I wanted to see their new house, and I immediately accepted. The next day she drove us up to Las Lomas. On the drive there, I was sitting in the front seat and she demonstrated her driving skills by hiking up her skirt and driving with her knees. I’m sure that my look of astonishment made her smile, but she probably thought I was astonished at her driving abilities when I was actually, even at that tender age of maybe 11, admiring her gorgeous nylon-clad legs.

We had an American grandmother of sorts, Grandma Mabel. She came to visit us once that I remember. How could I forget; she brought me a present all wrapped up in shiny American paper with a bright ribbon and bow. I remember that I couldn't wait to open it, but when I did I was disappointed to find a half of a Milky-Way candy bar. I always wondered where the other half went. Perhaps Randy or Susan got it. Who knows? Maybe she ate it herself.

Eleven years had passed, and life seemed fine. Mother Mary came home very late at night, but we were allowed to visit her in her bedroom when she awoke in the late afternoon. She was like a queen holding court. I remember watching her while she prepared for her escort for the evening. She sat in front of her vanity and applied her makeup and brushed her beautiful long blonde hair. I watched in childish fascination as she would choose her favorite perfume from an array of giant colorful decanters and spray her entire body. I used to marvel at how beautiful she was and how lucky we were to have her as our mother. Her escorts would always arrive early, and we would entertain them while she got ready. They would name different songs, and if we could sing them they always gave us money just before she made her entrance. Then the lucky man who was her escort for that evening would take her arm and disappear with her into the night.

To this day the words of those songs are still deep in my memory, and every once in a while when I’m driving by myself I’ll belt out Coo Coo Roo Paloma or Muñequita Linda. The maids: Cuca, Placida, Lola, and Lupe did the other things that typical mothers do, and it all seemed normal to me.

There was a young woman named Mara who many times would be at the house when Mother was getting ready to leave. Mara, in my young mind, was stunningly beautiful; she had shoulder length wavy hair, dark with hints of red like cherry cola. She would innocently, or maybe not so innocently, enthrall me when she would push her dress up to snap the top of her nylons to her garter belt, exposing her vibrant warm-toned skin just above the nylon tops.

I have no idea exactly when or why everything changed, but suddenly my mother's hair turned from a long, beautiful, golden blonde to a short, mousy brunette, and she was at home all the time. She opened a boutique around the corner and called it Jessica’s. She sold handmade clothes of her own design which she learned to make by practicing making shirts for Randy and me and dresses for Susan, all of the same material. I hated those shirts. We had always had an abundance of gifts at Christmas time, all beautifully wrapped and under a huge tree, but that Christmas she handed us our presents unwrapped, and there was no tree. It was obvious that we were going through some kind of changes, but I was still too young to understand or worry about it. My recollection is that ours was a family where no discussions took place, no questions asked or answered; a pattern that continued into my adulthood.

When I turned thirteen, Luzana gave me thirteen kisses while we hid in the closet. I don't remember having a birthday party, but I remember those kisses. I also remember going to school and having some friends wish me a happy birthday or Feliz Cumpleaños as I knew it then. Then one day shortly thereafter, we came home from school and the entire house had been packed up and all the furniture covered with sheets. I panicked; no one had told me anything. I didn't know what was going on. I felt frightened but didn't want anyone to know. Mom was running around the house giving orders to the maids and telling them not to be sad. To this day I still don’t know what happened or why. My siblings have some interesting theories, but I believe none of us ever really knew. Goodbye Mexico – Hello America.

Chapter 2 – Being Jim Ridler In San Antonio

I was eventually told that we were moving to America, back to our home. I wondered what Mother meant by back to our home. I thought Mexico was our home; I thought we were Mexican. There was a kind old man who gave me an American dime just before we got in a car to go to the train station. I wanted to cry; I think I did. All too soon we were inside the train that was to take us away from everyone and everything I knew. We were waving at some of our aunts and uncles, although not too many showed up to say goodbye. I did cry then. I never saw Luzana, Rosalinda, or anyone else from Mexico again.

We spent three or four days and nights on that train and eventually got off in San Antonio, Texas, on a hot, steamy day. Mother took the dime the old man had given me, made a phone call, and somehow got us all into a small motel. While Randy, Susan, and I tried to amuse ourselves in the motel room, Mother, to the best of my knowledge, went out in search of gainful employment. It couldn't have been easy for her, a young Caucasian woman with three Mexican kids -- two brown ones and a white one -- trying to make a new life in San Antonio in 1956.

I spent most of the next three months or so trying to learn English and wondering why we had left Mexico so suddenly. Mother, as always, explained nothing. When school started that year, I was enrolled as Jim Ridler. (Mother was apparently using her maiden name at that point, although I didn’t know it at the time.) Randy and Susan were in another school. I felt totally alone. There was no one for me to talk to. Anyway, I couldn't very well talk to anyone because I really hadn't learned their language yet. I don't remember if anyone ever tried to explain to me why I was no longer Jimmy Clark. I felt alone, shocked, and confused.

I somehow managed to get through that first school year. At some point, during a weekend or holiday, someone took Randy, Susan, and me to a State Park. I remember having a great time and running wild. We never spoke much about Mexico, and it was fast becoming a waning memory; I suppose I was too busy learning how to speak English and how to become Jim Ridler to try to hold on to my elusive past.

I just didn't have time to look back or, as it turned out, forward either. As I was running through the park, not looking ahead, I tripped on a cable that was stretched between two poles and I went flying over a small hill that to my mind was a cliff the size of the Grand Canyon. I remember that short flight vividly to this day. I broke my arm and, as if I didn't have enough new things to get used to, I now had something new to learn again. I had to learn how to write with my left hand and become a lefty. Welcome to America, Jimmy.

Breaking my arm was not so bad; I had lots of sympathy from my school buddies, especially Edna. She helped me hold my paper down when I wanted to erase something. I wish Mother had done as much, but I suppose she was too busy trying to earn a living to support three hungry teenagers. If she hadn't been so busy, maybe they could have found her in time to have given the doctors permission to operate, and maybe they could have saved the nerves and muscles in my right arm. Maybe. Oh well, I didn't have any aspirations of becoming a world-class athlete anyway. And the sympathy from my friends at school was a new experience that I really enjoyed.

I think it was at the beginning of that summer, Mother somehow arranged for me to go to some sort of summer camp for children with disabilities. Although I didn't consider myself disabled, other than that my right arm was in a cast, I was allowed in. Anyway, I really enjoyed myself most of the time there. In fact, I guess you could say that I really enjoyed the whole time I was there, except every day during mail call; I never received any.

Unfortunately, camp only lasted a few weeks, and all too soon I was back at home. Freight trains rumbled all day and night on tracks behind the house. There was a huge empty field to the right side of the house and across the field was the Boys Club of America, where Randy and I spent a lot of time.

You could always find me there during the summer and most afternoons during the school year. It was our entertainment and the only real structure we had. I learned to shoot pool there, and I became good enough to win some tournaments. I also was getting pretty good on the trampoline and rings, at least before I broke my arm. After that, it was more about playing pool and going to movie nights when we always got to go to a tiny burger joint a couple of blocks from the Boys Club and get a delicious, juicy, greasy burger and the best curly fries I’ve ever had before or since.

Mother became friends with Marylou, a woman from work, and she soon moved in with us. She must have been in her late twenties or early thirties. Marylou was a thin woman with short brown hair and an impish personality that seemed to fit her perfectly. She had a baby only a few months old that she doted on, but to me, it just never seemed like she really knew what she was doing. One day I pretended to feel sick and stayed home from school, and as it turned out, unbeknownst to me, Marylou had also stayed home. I got up after I heard everyone leave, or so I thought, and walked into the bathroom holding on to a painful morning erection, which I had become quite accustomed to since by now, being 13 years old, it was an everyday event. I was shocked to see Marylou sitting on the toilet, and I froze there with my dick in my hand. She stared at me and just smiled. I apologized and ran to my room as fast as I could and dove into my bed.

A few minutes later Marylou came in and told me not to worry, that it was normal and that she wouldn’t tell anyone. She sat on the bed and as she did, her robe opened just enough to bare an inch or two of bare legs. I think I must have shivered or sighed because she smiled and reached for my hand as she said that it was all okay. Marylou showed me the road to manhood right there and then, and she didn’t stop showing me until we both heard her baby crying. Back in those days, no one ever talked about, much less complained about, child abuse. Then again, I guess I was no longer a child; I was thirteen and not about to complain.

The music that I heard during that first year in America was nothing like what I had been raised with in Mexico. It certainly was far away from Ranchera music, but I quickly gravitated towards rock and roll, and even more so, to rhythm and blues.

My sister developed a teenage crush on Elvis Presley and constantly listened to him on the radio. In fact, at some point one radio station had a Presley marathon and played Love Me Tender all day long, and I believe that Susan was one of their most avid listeners. Me? I was more into Fats Domino and his pounding on the piano as he sang Blueberry Hill.

It was listening to Fats, the Platters, Little Richard, and cats like that when I first developed my love for R&B.

Chapter 3 – Being James Perez In Houston

As I was finally starting to get acclimated to this new country, Mother, in her usual inexplicable way, announced that we were moving to Houston and that Marylou was coming with us. No reason; we just were. And on a hot summer day, in 1957, just before my 14th birthday, we drove there, with all our belongings and the three of us kids in the back of a pick-up truck. I was angry; I was starting to hate these changes.

Anyway, we arrived in Houston and moved into an apartment near downtown. Sundays were our version of family time. Mother used to send us for ice cream every Sunday, and the three of us would walk downtown and back in a few minutes. She would sit and eat her ice cream and watch TV, constantly shouting Shush if we made any noise.

Marylou would go out at night, and Susan would babysit her baby. Marylou and I didn’t have many chances to be together in that tiny apartment, but we did manage to get in a couple of lessons that were not soon forgotten.

Just before school started that year, Mother sat the three of us down and explained to us in her vague way that we now had to be registered in our new schools as Perez. I remember thinking, who the hell is Perez?

She simply said that was our father’s name. What father? What the hell was she talking about? I had a million questions, but she ignored or refused to answer any of them. In the end, I now had to learn to become not Jimmy Clark, not Jim Ridler, but James Perez. I knew it all along; I was Mexican!

I forget the name of the school I attended in Houston, but I do remember having to take a bus there and back home every day. It was a junior high school and I was in the eighth grade. I still didn't have a complete grasp of the English language, and I found myself being rejected by everyone; I was a misfit. The American kids didn't want me because my name was Perez, I spoke with an accent, and my brother and sister were Mexicans. The Mexican kids didn't want me because I was white, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Even though I spoke their language (for the most part better than they did since they spoke Tex-Mex), to them I was clearly a gringo.

It was on one of those bus rides home that I first encountered racism. I decided to befriend some black kids since they were the only ones who hadn’t rejected me, and, in my innocence, went to sit with them at the back of the bus. None of them would talk to me, and when I got off the bus at my stop, several of them got off with me and followed me home. They beat me