Straight Life - Art Pepper [118]
Diane's sister, Marie, was going with a guy named Bill who had been with the Four jokers, a singing group. Bill's mother had a lot of money, so she set him up running a hotel in Palm Springs. It was more like a motel, but fairly large; there was a bar. Bill had a comedian playing there, Yuki Sharon, a Jewish comedian who played piano and told jokes; Bill tended bar and sang and played a little snare drum with the brushes. Marie and Bill gave us a call and asked us to come up there, and Bill offered me a job working with Yuki. He said he would give us a place to stay and he would pay me a salary, so I said yeah.
Yuki Sharon looked like a caricature of a Jewish comedian. He was like a fat Sid Gould, and Sid Gould was the most Jewish-looking Jewish comedian I've ever seen. And he was the dirtiest Jewish comedian I've ever seen. He used to work for Blinky Palermo in Philadelphia in the underworld after-hours club. Yuki Sharon looked like him, with the big circles under the eyes, and Yuki was a great wit. He told good jokes and loved good jazz, the old jazz, and he played sort of like Fats Waller, simple but pleasant. It was easy work. We'd blow together and then he'd stop and tell a joke in the middle of the tune; I just followed him; and then, on a couple of songs, I was featured-he'd play behind me. It was enjoyable, and Bill gave me a good salary. Since we ate there and got our room for nothing, whatever I made was clear. We saved most of it because we had stopped using.
We stopped because it got impossible for me to support two habits. Now I was getting Percodan from a doctor, and we were getting Dexamyl Spansules, and we were drinking Cosanyl cough syrup-Cosanyl had dihydrocodeinone in it, which was very strong. So between the Percodan and the Dexamyl and the Cosanyl and pot and juicing very heavy I was doing good because I wasn't using heroin.
The first day we went to Palm Springs, the police were waiting for us when we came back to our car. They put us up against the car and searched it, the whole thing, because a '47 Pontiac sedan was an East L.A. or a Temple Street gang car. It wasn't like anything they had in Palm Springs. I explained the situation, the fact that I had a record. I had to tell them the truth because I didn't want to take a chance of anything backfiring on me. They told me to go to the police station and get a work permit and they said, "Once the cops get to know your car everything will be okay, but if you could get a better car you'd save yourself a lot of grief." In Palm Springs they try to keep up a certain air of respectability.
It was embarrassing, and we felt bad, so Bill said, "Let's go down and look around for a car. I'll give you an advance. We'll work something out." This was in '58, and we found a '57 Lincoln that was just beautiful. It was a convertible. It had a fantastic maroon paint job and a white top. Inside there were fur rugs, actual fur, and every single thing had a push button. It had been made for the shah of Iran. He'd ordered eight cars, all special, but two he hadn't taken, and this was one that had been used by somebody in Palm Springs and then traded in. It was in perfect shape. I told Bill, "God, I'd love to have that." I was afraid he wouldn't go for it but he said, "Well, you don't have anything else to spend your money on. Okay. If we can get it through, great." He signed for me. We got the credit, and the payments were ninety-nine dollars and fifty cents a month. At that time that was really high. I stayed on that job for quite a while, and Diane and I were getting along pretty good because there's nothing like success.
And then-I forget what happened-I think Bill's mother got angry at him. At any rate, she cut him off; he blew the hotel; and it ended the job. We had to go back to Los Angeles.
When we got back to L.A. we moved out to Studio City into a motel, and I looked in the newspaper for a job because I wanted to keep the car; I was really in love with it. I became an accordian salesman. I'd go to people's houses and give the kids musical aptitude