Member-only story
an Art of Dying fragment
The overture to my Los Angeles life was an eighteen-month apprenticeship called New York City.
Not that it prepared me for Los Angeles. All New York City will ever make you ready for (or acclimatize you to) is New York City, and I wonder if the City, amazing though it is, ever finishes that job, with anyone. As for me, I bailed before I concluded one way or another.
And what was I doing in New York? Good question.
I left England late 1978 on a mission to spread the Fylde word in the United States (see the Fylde fragment for more on this). Fylde Guitars was (and still is) Roger Bucknall’s shop of magic were he (and a handful of Roger’s helpers) make the best acoustic instruments I had ever heard — mainly guitars, but also mandolins and bouzoukis.
Even on meager (and irregular) Sea Org pay, with the help of some extracurricular sources of cash, I had managed to acquire a Fylde Ariel which I just loved to play. So good it almost played itself. What a tone, and what a sustain. Also, I got to know Roger quite well.
I am now on a brief leave of absence from the Sea Org in order to pay some debts (that I had decided that I had) and knowing that my then wife Deven and I would soon go to the United States I was casting about for what to do in America to make some money.
