By Tom Roche
One thinks of Hollywood’s famed Sunset Boulevard as the glittering avenue of success and dreams, but the locals know it extends miles and miles eastward. The velvet-roped club entrances, the theater facades, the neon and jet-set restaurants... it all fades away the farther you drive, until Sunset is lined with cheap grimy hotels, pawn shops and ethnic greasy spoons. Litter, noise, and an air of struggle greet the poor and homeless every day here.
It was in this atmosphere that I, through dogged research and help from friends of friends, came in search of a meeting with the reclusive Larry “Wild Man” Fischer on the last day of November, 2001. Would we somehow luck into finding the brilliant but troubled (and clinically paranoid/schizophrenic) songwriter of Los Angeles’s ’60s street scene?
The first stop was a grubby Motor Lodge well past its prime and paint job, called the Oak Tree Motel. You’ll find it on a traffic-clogged stretch of Sunset where not surprisingly, an oak tree has not been seen for decades.
The Asian desk clerk looks up at us. “Larry Fischer, yah-yah, that room there,” he says briskly. He points across the drab parking lot, with each empty parking space covered in small oil puddles from years of rusted clunkers. “Stay here, Tom. Don’t go with me,” says my friend-of-a-friend. “I’ll go knock first. With Larry you never know.”
Soon Larry comes bounding out. “Look at this! Look at this!” He holds up E-bay auction webpage printouts of a Japanese CD of the (not-available-on-CD) An Evening With Wild Man Fischer album.
Wow. So this is my first encounter with Larry. He is happy, animated, disheveled but full of life, thrilled that this CD, the cause and curse of his notoriety, might finally be re-issued. “I know I’m big in Japan. This proves it!”
Standing outside his motel room we examine the printout carefully. It warns of “surface noise” on the CD. It is, alas, only a home-burned copy with a color photo cover, but selling to the gullible for $40.
Larry’s excitement vanishes. "So it’s not really out on CD. Well. No one asked me anyway. How can they do this to me? This is just another rip-off.” Standing in the parking lot he begins a 10 minute monologue, seemingly his whole saga, his unreleased duet with Rosemary Clooney, his falling out with the Zappas, the computer printouts his friends give him, the hard times, his popularity all over the world, the mental institutions, his unreleased duet with Rosemary Clooney, the crooked music business, everyone ripping him off, his unreleased duet with Rosemary Clooney, Frank Zappa offered good advice, Frank Zappa was evil.
When Zappa had recorded Larry in 1968, there were dozens of hilarious and innovative songs, yes, but Zappa left the tape rolling, putting Larry’s most private feelings in the public eye.
“But don’t forget, Frank, despite how happy I was in ’61 and ’62 I was committed to back-to-back mental institutions -- I was raised with the fact that I was crazy, I was raised with the fact that I had to sleep with old men who pissed and shit in the floor, I was raised that you’re crazy, you’ll always be crazy and I never dug that. I can’t be happy anymore when I sing, that’s the main reason, the fucking bastards, they’re all fucking bastards, Frank! Are you ready for that? I’m trying to get myself back to where I was in ’61 and ’62 if I can…”
It’s time to find out myself how Larry has changed in the 30 years since those songs, and rants, were released. I send my guide on his way and offer to buy Larry some coffee. It is hard to get him to calm down. He is 57 now and by his own measure “a burn-out.”
Larry sits across from me at a Starbucks. He is uncombed, unshaven, and to a slight degree unbathed. He’s wearing a very faded Hawaiian shirt under a very unwashed threadbare parka. He tends to tell five stories at once with happy enthusiasm until one story leads to a dark place. Then the accusations fly, the conspiracies gather, until even I am under indictment for ripping him off by buying him coffee. Now he’s pretty angry. He says that some folks fear him; they think he knows people who can cut you up and bury you… but he really hasn’t seen those people in a long time.
Here is where I must be patient. I calmly remind him he has a gift few possess and that there is a circle of admirers worldwide, albeit small. The records you’ve made are wonderful and timeless, they’ll live forever, you have a real talent and I’m glad to meet you today. He smiles. This brings him ’round; he’s agreeable again. The talk turns to Gail Zappa’s possession of the masters of An Evening With... and her (depending on your source) reluctance or refusal to issue the LP on CD. “Frank's wife refuses to talk to me. She’s scared of me.” He tells me about a recent encounter with Gail at a local deli. She was placing her order when she looked over and saw Larry. She cancelled her order, ran out screaming, and sped away in her Jaguar.
I asked why would she act this way, and Larry admits that one time at Frank’s house he got angry and threw a bottle and it almost hit Moon Unit, who was a baby at the time, and he got thrown out of the house. Larry does seem to have an elephant’s memory concerning past incidents, but he remembers his perceptions and paranoias equally as well.
“Monkeys versus donkeys, monkeys versus donkeys
Monkeys versus donkeys now
I’ll take my monkeys, you’ll take your donkeys
We’ll have a race right now
I’ll bet my monkeys, I getcher donkeys
The better will win right now! Ow!”
All agree he signed a bad deal on that first album. But regardless of the quality of any of his later deals, and regardless of his loyal fan base, he just doesn’t sell that many albums, and never has. “I got no royalties from any of my albums. I just get tiny disability checks.”
He grows solemn. “I hate the music business. My old songs were the good songs but I can’t write good songs like that anymore.”
This is a bit puzzling to me. I can imagine he’s correct about getting no royalties anymore from the Zappa-produced LP, now decades out-of-print. (“I’ve seen some of the original Mothers Of Invention show up in the unemployment lines” he says. “And you think I’m bitter!”) The 1999 Rhino set The Fischer King must have made him a little money. But Rhino limited the run to 1,000 copies, and it is already out of print, so that money is likely long gone too.
“I’m working for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics
Doont doont doont doont, doont doont doont doont
Doont doont doont doont doo-ooooo
My mother hates me
My sister despises me
Sandy Koufax - woosh! - likes to throw fastballs at me.”
Bill Mumy, the former child star (Lost In Space) turned musician (Barnes & Barnes) is perhaps Larry’s closest friend. He posted these words to a webste last year: “Larry has shared moments with countless artists... He’s spent many evenings with Tom Waits... hung with Linda Ronstandt, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and he was once given a bath by Troubador owner Doug Weston. The list is endless... Larry has worked for and with Mark Mothersbaugh in the last decade a few times. Larry got the short end of family love. That’s the saddest part of the story. His father passed away when Larry was a little boy, and his mother... didn’t love him. When Larry had some money, he bought a year pass to Disneyland. He used to call me from the Magic Kingdom all the time. He went there ‘to soak up family love.’ It touched me in such a powerful way, I can’t even begin to describe.”
“There is a girl I like best
She is my dream girl
Well, a dream girl, a dream girl, that’s what I want
A dream girl, a dream girl, that’s what I’ll get toda-ay.”
This is about the crummiest Starbucks I have ever seen, but not surprising given this stretch of Sunset. Out of tea, out of pastries, “no comprende” clerks. Still, Larry and I sit with our coffee and our talk goes on for an hour. My sympathy for his situation is tinged with discomfort. He can be so outrageously happy, but it is a struggle to keep steering him away from the dark memories. I’ve put my camera away. Larry is a guy I’ve wondered about 30 years. But now, inexplicably, I’m trying to wrap it up. I’ve had fun Larry, it’s been great to finally meet you, Larry. “Wait,” he says.
“Don’t go yet. I’m lonely.”
We leave the Starbucks and walk to a sandwich shop. Order anything you want, Larry. He carries with him an already-tattered copy of the new book Songs In The Key Of Z, which contains an honest profile of him among similar profiles of a variety of so-called “outsider” musicians. (The An Evening With... 2-LP set, along with albums like the debut LP by The Shaggs, are now recognized as pioneering classics of the outsider genre.)
“I’m big in Germany!" he suddenly proclaims. There'’s now a book about me, have you read it, it’s a good book! He’s really laughing out loud now, really on. “Am I big in Atlanta?” he demands, although he’s possibly making a joke. I ask if he’s read any of the other profiles in the book. No, just the one about Wesley Willis he says, he didn’t read about the singers he hasn’t heard of. Larry tells of a possible duet between Wesley and himself, which cascades into still more energetically-told stories about fun times, the Sunset Strip in the 1960s, the hippies, other projects and other songs in the near past and distant past, his duet with Rosemary Clooney again, Gail Zappa again.
In no time at all, he has again gone from self-pride to self-doubt. He is now sour on Songs In The Key Of Z. “That writer says that I am ‘human wreckage.’ Did he really need to say that?”
This is as hurt as I have seen him all day. This is all too weird. I am torn between wanting to help out in some way beyond merely buying him lunch, or just driving off. I was warned that an outing with Larry can be happy and sad, entertaining and nerve-wracking... which of course has been the essence of Larry's personality all along. I feign a story saying I have to meet my brother at 2 p.m. so I must move along, even though this is a lie. He begins to volunteer details of the experience of recording An Evening With… in 1968 with The Mothers Of Invention and I am momentarily transported to a happier place. Damned if he doesn’t sound just the way he did when I was a skinny kid in Tampa listening to side four of that album in 1970.
These are wonderful stories, rich with detail, tragic-comically told. But, today I have already heard them at least twice. Yet again I offer cheerful reassurance, but realize I am now retelling my stories too.
I drive Larry through a few blocks of thick smoky traffic back to his motel. I feel uncomfortable and awkward. “I’ve got to go now Larry,” I say as I pull up in an oily parking space at the Oak Tree Motel on Sunset Boulevard.
I shut off the engine. We sit in my rental car. The light around me seems muted even though it is sunny California day.
He grows solemn again. “I hate the music business.” I reach to the passenger seat to shake his hand. “Hang in there Larry, you'll be alright,” I say to Larry as much as to myself.
“I don't know, man. I don’t know.” His motel room door is faded green and scuffed. He walks toward it without looking back.
EPILOGUE
The story you have just heard is true, as they used to say on "Dragnet." It came about after I heard an acquantance of mine, British DJ John Peel, lament on-air, "I wonder what ever happened to Wild Man Fischer?" Peel has been playing records on Radio One since 1967, and had been a fan of Larry then and now. I messaged John that I was going to California soon and would endeavor to find out.
Right after my meeting with Larry, I composed a long letter to John about what I'd seen and heard. John is old-school; he likes actual snail-mail letters. The quotes and experiences were still fresh in my head. Later I mentioned the strange events, and the letter, to a regional music magazine publisher (Stomp & Stammer) I knew here in Atlanta. He was also a Fischer fan. I was asked I like to expand what I had written so far into a magazine profile of Larry Fischer?
I had never written a long music feature but it seemed like it might be fun to try. Me, a "rock journalist." So I sat down and banged out the story, trying to be accurate, did some extra research, embellishing a very few details to a minor degree... but mainly calling it as I saw it.
I did not give much thought to Larry actually ever seeing the piece run in a regional freebie 2500 miles away. I should have.
He still had my business card. It had a toll-free number on it. Months passed, and then he called at work. Not happy, but not upset either. He said he didn't know I was a writer.
Well I'm not a writer. Or I wasn't then. I guess I am now. He said he didn't see me writing down quotes, that I mis-quoted him. What was misquoted I asked?
It was all pretty much a mis-quote in his view. All he could specifically point to was that the Rosemary Clooney duet was released, not unreleased.
He called back the next day, a good bit more upset. That was really unfair what you said. I would stop my edit sessions to take these calls (I'm an video editor) and I guess I was still a bit flattered that THE Larry Fischer was calling me. We would engage in somewhat friendly debate at the start, but it got less friendly with each call. It was depressing me. I like Larry yet I had upset him greatly. I began to have the receptionist gently divert the calls to voice-mail.
The calls continued, eventually becoming less frequent. The last message was three words long: "You stabbed me."
Whoa, I felt bad about all this. Had I indeed used this guy, used his situation, so I could experiment with my skills (if any) as a writer? But isn't this the essence of much of journalism? Or at least pop journalism, if you will excuse the oxymoron?
I re-read my story, this time thinking about how Larry might have felt. It's a tough call. I wrote what I saw. I was more than 60-70% sympathetic, maybe more. But someone in Larry's condition might latch on to anything unfavorable, no matter how minor.
I still don't know if I would have done it all very differently. But I still feel bad about how it all went down. I do wish I hadn't said he seemed unbathed, that's for sure. My publisher, who has penned a hundred-plus music features over the years, would hear none of it. "Welcome to the world of rock journalism," he said.