Coming from your hearts and minds
Battered drums and old guitars
Singing songs of passion
It's the truth they all look for
The one thing they must keep alive
Will the wolf survive?
Will the wolf survive? -- Los Lobos
People make our lives rich. I have friends who might disagree with that statement, claiming they find richness in nature and animals more so than people. But isn’t that what people do? We disagree. Nature impresses me beyond belief and sustains my soul with her power and perfection, but people, especially friends, keep me company, amaze and inspire me with their strengths and talents and ideas.
One such character who crossed my path many years ago was Patrick Aloysius Murphy. That was the name he gave himself when he reinvented his life at about age 39. It was a bigger than life name for someone who was just about as off-beat and eccentric, with a self-proclaimed IQ of 164. His unruly red hair sprouted out of his head like a burning bush. Yet he kept a trim Van Dyke beard that tapered into a lingering curl of hair below his chin the likes of Lucifer himself. Sometimes I wondered if that was intended. But he was all about peace and love. I discovered that he was sincere, yet irascibly disagreeable at times.
He smoked cheap cigarettes, never inhaling, and regularly self-medicated from a handy pipeful of pot. He never touched alcohol. As unlikely as he appeared, he was also socially inept by conventional standards. He left an indelible impression on me, a sense of wonder and fear. He was the most well-read person I have ever known with an encyclopedic knowledge of history, politics, arts and culture. He was my right-hand "adviser" during the years I was editor of several special-interest publications.
I use the past tense because I lost track of Murphy when he disappeared from his rented apartment in Capitola where he had resided for nearly 30 years, seen frequently in his cut-off shorts with his hair flying in the wind riding his bicycle to market. He was near 80-years-old and living off of coupons, crumbs and sub-letting rooms in his apartment. He always seemed to be one step away from the street. This was my fear: How would he survive as he aged? He was too hard-headed for any institutionalized living, including homeless shelters.
He had no family. He was given up by his mother at birth and never knew his father. He claimed he was adopted by a doctor and his wife, who couldn’t handle their new son. He basically grew up on the streets south of San Francisco, frequenting card rooms and topless bars, running scams, ingesting drugs and alcohol, until things began to unravel. He claimed to have received electro-shock therapy. Through it all, however, he was wise enough to see the goodness in people and I believe that’s what saved him at the end of his first life, when I met him. He loved the arts and those who practiced art to lift the human spirit and caress the soul in the undying hope of making the world a better place.
La Bamba
Murphy was a master of the telephone. He had the gift of gab to go along with his broad spectrum of knowledge and his understanding of the down trodden. During the years we worked together he helped set up interviews for me with water-sport pioneer Jack O’Neill, music impresario Bill Graham, actor Jack Lemon and writer-director Luis Valdez, author of the musical, Zoot Suit as well as the 1987 film, La Bamba. Murphy learned early of the making of the film and the family ties in nearby Watsonville to the star and subject of La Bamba, the late Ritchie Valens (surname short for Valenzuela).
By the time the film was ready for screening, Murphy had made friends with the entire extended family. This included Ritchie's real life, hardscrabble half-brother, Bob Morales, played in the film by Esai Morales. I wrote a feature piece about Bob Morales that appeared in two regional publications and was picked up by a local TV station, thanks to Murphy. Morales was a badass Chicano biker who had turned his life around to become a drug addiction counselor. It was Murphy's kind of story: Pull yourself up from addiction and make something of yourself. With the movie, Morales had also become part of an art production.
Following release of the film, Murphy and I interviewed David Hidalgo at the Catalyst nightclub in Santa Cruz . Hidalgo is lead singer of Los Lobos, the band from East LA that recorded the majority sound track for the movie, including their now signature song, La Bamba, which had been a hit by Valens in 1958, the first Mexican-American rock star. Ritchie died in the infamous 1959 plane crash with Buddy Holly and "The Big Bopper," immortalized in song as "the day the music died." In 2017 the film La Bamba was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant."
On Assignments
Murphy and I attended various events together, he in his cut-offs, funky T-shirts, black leather shoes and high black socks, and of course his duffer's hat festooned with numerous peace buttons. We attended American Booksellers Association (ABA) conventions in Las Vegas and Anaheim, at one time the major trade-show and launch for new books. Here authors would hold press briefings about their new work in front of a small audience of reporters.
Murphy typically would ask the most provocative questions. He asked Ann Rice, author of several vampire novels, "How did your Catholic upbringing influence your writing about vampires?" He was likely the only one in the room who had researched her background from childhood. Rice down-played any such influence. Perhaps she hadn't thought about it. I thought Murphy's question was legitimized in a recent interview by Terri Gross of NPR's "Fresh Air," when she asked singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen basically the same question. Springsteen agreed that his early Catholicism with its religious symbolism and sense of story deeply influenced his songwriting.
We were in Anaheim shortly after David Crosby, of CSNY fame, was released from jail following a drug possession conviction. Crosby played a short concert in the convention theater. Murphy insisted on sitting front row center. After the show, Crosby left the stage only to be greeted by a broad-grinning Patrick Aloysius Murphy, congratulating Crosby for his comeback from drugs. The two of them locked in a strong, manly embrace. It was a scene I will never forget. Murphy was in heaven.
Another image I have is from a dream that Murphy shared with me in which he was sitting at a table, smoking cigarettes and discussing the art of writing with the late American literary stylist Truman Capote. I thought it was perfect and if I ever did get a chance to write about Murphy I would include that image of himself. One very late night in Las Vegas following a day at the ABA conference, Murphy arrived back at our hotel room extremely excited. He had spent the past couple of hours hanging with novelist Ken Kesey and some old Prankster friends from the '60s. Kesey was at the convention promoting a revival of his cross-country LSD-infused journey called "Further." I could see those guys hitting it off. I fell back asleep with a smile on my face. One flew over the cuckoo's nest, indeed.
Murphy called himself a "peaceful anarchist." He believed in the Divine Goddess as the ultimate natural power, our Mother, an alien notion to our patriarchal power structure. He would be proud of the current "me too" movement by women, taking back their dignity.
The Olympic Games
Our final collaboration was a trip to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, I had transitioned into another field but when Murphy called me with this opportunity, I jumped liked a frisky puppy. Always a spend-thrift, he had been rummaging around a dumpster at his apartment complex when he came across a large coupon: "Win a trip to the Olympic Games courtesy of Coca Cola." He sent in the form. When he learned that he had won, he called me. "I know you love sports," he said."I thought you'd like to go to the Olympic Games with me."
Before you could say, "Georgia peaches," we found ourselves in a big room in Atlanta, GA decked in voluminous Coco Cola swag among a very friendly congregation of professional coupon clippers. They were hollering and hugging like long lost cousins. While the Opening Ceremonies were unveiling in the nearby stadium, we were jostling with our contest brethren in a carpeted meeting room where a television was broadcasting those very same Opening Ceremonies. Free Coke for everyone! Atlanta is of course, corporate headquarters for Coca Cola. They might as well have called those Olympics the "Coke Games."
We did get to see Olympic competitions including men's team gymnastics and a baseball game between the United States and Nicaragua. "Go Sandinistas!" cried Murphy. During the men's gymnastics, I commented that the Chinese team members weren't as buff-looking with bulging muscles as were the Russians and USA team. Murphy replied, "That's because they're smarter."
We had a lot of fun getting out of the Olympic Center and roaming around greater Atlanta. The swag included tokens to ride the Atlanta mass transit (MARTA). We visited Civil War sites, town squares and Marietta, GA, home of then Senator Newt Gingrich, whom we discovered was not a popular citizen thereabouts. We spread the love, as Murphy would say, hobnobbing with as many locals as possible -- from southern gentlemen and their lady belles to obsequious African-American transit passengers -- two guys from Santa Cruz on a mission, probing the human heart.
Pat, thank you, wherever you are. Peace be with you.
"Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom, boom, boom
'Hey,' I said, 'You can keep my things
They've come to take me home.' " -- Peter Gabriel
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