Episode 35: Jim Gordon part 4/The End

Jay wraps up the torturous story about most sought after studio drummer, Jim Gordon. The fame and success were no match for his crippling schizophrenia. With no control over the voices in his head he is commanded to commit the most unthinkable crime you could possibly imagine. Find out in this episode of Jay’s Rock and Roll Stories. 

Contact the show: jaysrockandrollstories@gmail.com

Transcript

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Hello, Rock and Hello, welcome back. Thank you for coming back. Welcome back to Jay's Rock and Roll Stories. I'm your host Jay. Um, I want to tell you something. Uh I really dig doing the this podcast, I really dig doing these episodes. So do me a favor. Whatever whatever app you're using, Spotify, uh, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRated, whatever, give me five stars. You know, if you like this, if you like it, give me five stars. Leave a comment. Email the show. Tell me who who the hell you are who are you? Alright? Let's get back into it. So uh this is gonna be part four of Jim Gordon. This is the end, and oh my god, this book was oh, this was hard to read. I've like this is this is a story that you've never heard, and this is uh this is this is insane. And I'm done. I'm I'm so happy to be done reading this book. So the last thing we mentioned was that you know he wanted to see Led Zeppelin. Um the voices say he can't. Amy, his daughter broke her leg. So at the same time, he's supposed to be on the road or or to to check in to get on the road. Uh he's gonna be drumming with uh Hollow Notes, 1978. And uh he calls the um the manager, Martin, his last name is Martin, who's putting together the tour, and he says to Martin, send send me my drums back to LA, please. Martin's like, I know you need to be here in two days because we're we're we're starting and we're we need to rehearse, we're gonna start in five days. And he's like, No, send me my drums to LA, please. Because the voices are telling him you're you're you're not you you don't no, no, no drums. So he gives in and he sends the drums back to Jim, and then Jim calls his office, telling like his secretary, saying, I'm not going to going on the tour, and please tell Martin, do not call me. No, of course, Martin call calls him. Like, what the hell's going on, Jim? I'm I'm not going on tour with you. So Martin just hangs up. He's got to find a new drummer. The voices are telling Jim, you can't go drum for Hollow Notes because you didn't do a good enough job with the weeds in the backyard. I I it's it it's like um it's like we uh yeah. Yeah, okay, so he doesn't eat, he he he misses projects because the voices won't let him drum anymore. Um his mom leaves him a letter and she's concerned about his behavior. The voices are now uh telling him that uh you know he did a lousy job on the hill and uh he's not getting all the weeds done, and now he hears his uh Aunt Thelma's voice saying, Dirty, dirty, dirty, this this house is dirty just like you. So now Aunt Thelma's tormenting him. So he he phones this guy, Dr. Arbach, uh, who was a psychiatrist who was suggested to Jim. And it's uh he meets with this doctor, and it's the first time that he taught, you know, really, really lays out all of his um all of his entire delusional system. That's what's what's going on. And the doctor checks in it, checks him into the Van Nuys Psychiatric Hospital, where they see all the signs of uh anorexia. Um they diagnose him with psychotic depression, severe depression, and suicidal ideation. And this would this was a time when um they really didn't um mental health and the mental health industry didn't really understand what is now termed as uh dual diagnosis, which is you know organic mental illness entwined with substance abuse. Uh this whole time, like forever, the mom is just saying, and and other people are saying, no, it's it's it's he's this way because it's just because of the booze and alcohol. So the book explains that uh his family were his um tormentors, and he could hear their disapproving words towards him through anything, really. It could be it could be communicated through spoken commands that he hears in his head, it could be through uh nonverbal signs coming from maybe from television, from uh people's motions, just strangers moving around, um, facial expressions, and the chief tormentor uh of the voice is um the harshly critical one, the dismissive, discouraging is uh is Osa, the mom, his mother, and um but she is uh she is his only friend, and Osa comes to visit him in the hospital, and they allow Jim. This is amazing. I I don't see why they should permit this, they allow him to leave to go spend some time with his mother on the weekend. I mean, I I don't know, I I would figure you'd just have a little break from that, but um uh so nothing helps Jim, not nothing is working, and he checks himself out of the hospital, and he he does continue seeing Dr. Arbeck. One time he misses an appointment with Arbech, so the doctor, Dr. Arbech calls his mom uh and she finds him slumped on the floor. He's unconscious from attempting suicide with sleeping pills. Jim is readmitted to the hospital where he apologizes to Dr. Aurbach, excuse me, and he explains that the voices don't care whether he lives or dies. Uh after a while, he uh he slowly improves. He goes to uh psychiatric um meetings at uh UCLA and um sort of is quote unquote better, you know, but there's still uh he does out little outbursts. He's he's back in the studio, he's always getting jobs, he's recording with um Johnny Rivers, and there's a moment when he yells at the guitar player Dean Parks. They're wrapping up their album, they're on their last song, they're almost done, they're just about to wrap it up, and he yells over to uh uh Dean Parks, the the guitar player, he says, Hey, don't do that. Dean's like, uh, I'm not doing anything. Jim says, You're moving my hands, you're messing me, you're messing me up, you're messing with my time, you're making me miss a note ever in every bar. And everyone's like, What the fuck? Like, and because Dean Dean parks on the other side of the of the studio. So Johnny Johnny Rivers chimes in. He's like, uh, Jim, it's not possible because he's the way he's way over here. So uh let's just count it off. One, two, three, four, and then they wrap up the song. So now it's it's kind of like that now the industry kind of knows there's like talks behind people's like people's ears, like, oh yeah, you hear what happened to Jim? That kind of thing. Um it sort of creates like uh like this irresistible fodder for gossip, you know. People are talking, it's just it's just getting weird. Um there's a time when um 1978 Amy gets taken to uh a concert to see uh her dad play at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach. But um Jim is uh really big in Devodka, he's medicated, but he is working a lot. He uh he does the drums on the The Muppet movie, the soundtrack for the Muppet movie. He does an album with um Cheryl Cad. She was from uh Charlie's Angels. Um wrapping up the end of his uh professional musical career is like a two-parter here. So one is Bob Dylan contacts Jim to help him on his uh gospel tour, uh Slow Train Coming. Bob Dylan did did a little trfecta. He did three uh religious albums, and uh and Jim is is incredibly excited to work with Bob Dylan. It's like a dream. So excited to work with Bob Dylan. He's always wanted to work with Bob Dylan, but the voice is the voice is on the phone telling him on the phone to say no and hang up the phone. Uh now it's it's just it's just desperation. Um you wouldn't let me play with Bob Dylan. I have to find something to let me back into the industry. Like you you you can't take this away from me. That's that's where this is going right now with Jim. So he's contacted by Paul Anka, the the like the Krooner singer, to do some uh shows in Vegas. So he does. He's there, he's sitting behind his drums, his his drum kit, he's about they're about to practice, he's doing it. Then his mother's voice in his head tells him, do not play one more note. And he stops and he tells the music musical director, I'm sorry, I'm having psychological problems, and he leaves, he flies home, he flies back to LA. It's more of the same thing. Um he plays, then he can't play. Uh this is now cut to like 1980. Um he meets up with some guys, some buddies, and creates a band called I5, like the freeway going through California. And at one point, um Jim Keltner, his old his old drummer buddy, uh wants to help um Jim Gordon out, and he contacts the editor, um editor of the magazine Modern Drummer to do a feature on Jim Gordon. And at this point in time, uh it's 1980, Jim is overweight, he's like kind of a bigger guy, he boozes a lot, he doesn't eat, he doesn't bathe. Um so Scott F. uh Scott K. Fish, the editor of Modern Drummer, does an in-depth interview with uh with Jim Gordon, and Jim like really gets into this interview, like it's it's it's really like uh pulling up the hood of a car and like just explaining the details about it. And uh Jim Keltner's son Eric is in charge of uh taking some photographs for for the for the feature. So Jim Gordon and Eric, the the son of um of Jim Keltner, they go to this uh garage where they have a drum set they're gonna have to set up, right? So they they pull out there's like a like a table where they they pull out all the drum sets, the the pieces to put together That's what I meant, to put the pieces together to to build the drum kit, and Jim Gordon is like I I don't know how to do this. Like he he he doesn't uh i this is this is foreign all all of a sudden I don't know how to and and Eric's like what? So Eric set it up like okay Eric sets up the drums to for Jim to sit behind with the sticks and everything. So Jim sits behind with the sticks and he doesn't even know how to play and he's like he he's just frozen. And Eric said that it was it was a weird experience because I figured, you know, my my dad's buddy, this amazing drummer, he'd be going crazy on the drums, and he just sits behind the drum drum kit with the sticks, and all he can say to Eric is, How's your dad? Uh how's your dad doing? Like that, like it's just like this awkward. Um so this is 1982, and uh he checks into a hospital again. This is his 14th admission since April of 1979, and he he tells the doctors that he's dying of hate and the world is falling apart. So now Jim's theory is his mother, his mother who's um manipulating his thoughts to get him to go to the hospital because after all, his mother's a nurse. That's that's his idea here. And he's out again, and the doctors are warning him that he's doing damage to his liver with all the alcohol, all the prescription medication, all the fast food. He he's living alone, he rents a storage space with uh freeze dried food, other supplies, and he disconnects his phone. Uh his head is now full of so many voices, and he believes that now he believes that his mother is just evil, and she had a power to inflict negative feelings toward him from other people, from doctors, from people in stores, from strangers on the street. The mom is getting them to do this to him. Um he also believes that his mother had a hand in the deaths of Karen Carpenter from The Carpenters and the comedian Paul Lind. And okay, right now, so the book explains that the new commands are more demanding. The punishments that are dished out are even more torturous. Um before it was just the white heat like uh head strap, but now um the pains are all over his body. Sometimes it knocks him to the ground, causing him to wet his pants. He feels his whole body is on fire. Um he's still playing drums, and this is uh bringing us to where we begin when we uh discuss in the very beginning when he's in Santa Monica. He's in a band called the Blue Monkeys. Uh they just play for like the locals, the beach bums. They do three sets a night, which is which is incredibly exhausting for the guy. Um the drums are helping him, but he is completely lost. He really can't tell reality from his paranoia and his pain. Um the voices are saying, now the voices are saying, throw away your gold records. All of his all of his achievements and his awards that he won with Derek McDomino's, with um all the other previous bands, and there's there they are his achievements. He keeps them on the wall in his study. It's like you're you're you're these are his trophies. It's a it's a back and forth thing. So the voices say to take them to the dumpster. So he sets them on the on the ground by the dumpster. Then he goes back inside and he drinks a fifth of scotch to quiet the voices, and then he, when the voices are quiet, that goes back out, grabs the grabs the gold records, his achievements, and brings him back inside. But when uh when he goes to sleep, he wakes up, uh, the voices say it again. So now the voice, the now the mom's voice is saying, throw away your drums. So now he's doing the same thing with the drums. He's uh taking the drums outside with a dumpster, going inside, drinking a fifth of something, and vodka, scotch, whatever. Numbs the voices, goes back, brings the drums back inside. And this goes this can go up to ten times a day. Oh my god, this my god, what a what a what torture here. And uh it just gets louder and louder. Now, now the voices, the mom's yelling, throw out those damn drums. That's the order from the mom. Uh, same thing, going back and forth, drink, bring him back in. Uh, he goes back to the blue monkeys. Um, the voice says, like he's sitting, he's sitting at the drums, and um he's gonna play the blue monkeys. The voice in his head says, You hit that drum one more time and you die. So this is incredibly exhausting. Um, the hospital didn't work. Uh, he checks into the Crossroads Alcoholic Recovery Unit. Um, it's a failure as well. He checks out, uh, of course. Um his mom moves away to Washington State, and he and he's kind of excited about that because now he feels like his mom won't be in the same city. His mom sent sends a letter to Jim, and but he never opens it. He never reads the letter. And it's just saying, I I'm I'm moving away to um Washington. Uh you can take some, you can take the furniture that I left outside. It's just a like, uh good luck, see you later. Um I'm gonna I'm gonna go live in Washington now. And uh so he doesn't read the letter, but that's that's what it said. His brother sends um him a letter. His brother sends Jim a letter explaining that mom is moving. And uh he's he's reading this news from the brother's letter, and he hears his mother's voice in his set in his head saying, You're gonna have to kill me. The voice in his head is his mom saying, You're gonna have to kill me. Jim doesn't believe this. Uh it continues, it's an endless loop, followed by the white heat pain. You know, he drinks himself to sleep. The morning he wakes up, the voices are are are returning. Um Jim Gordon is crawling on the floor crying. I can't stand it, I've done everything, leave me alone, I've thrown everything away. Uh now clearly in his head he hears his mother, Why don't you kill me? Why don't you just go ahead and do it? Um now he hears his ex-wife's he uh voice in his head saying, You're gonna have to do it. You know, you you you have to kill her. Go on and just do it. Osa speaks again, kill me, kill me. You're gonna have to kill me, you're gonna have to do it. Uh so Jim decides um he must follow the orders or else the the pain sets in, the pain will set in even worse. He calls his mother Osa on the phone. Uhsa's freaked out about this. She and um it's a strange, scary conversation. She writes down the conversation. This is 9 30 PM Hello, is this Osa Gordon? Yes. This is Jim Gordon. Hi Jim, how are you? Not good. If you don't stop bugging me, I'm gonna have to kill you. Is it because I sent you a letter saying I was moving? I didn't read your letter. You better leave me alone. I sure will, Jim. I will leave you alone. Then he hangs up the phone. Okay, she calls the police and begins to take out a restraining order on the guy. Um the strange calls continue. The same the same thing. Stop bugging me, mom. Um stop torturing me, mom. Like it she's uh she's like, I don't know what the fuck is this guy's talking about. The book explains that Jim, quote unquote, gives in. And he feels relief. Uh he hears the voices say that, you know, the voices tell him, well, you're you'll get 22 years in prison, but you'll you'll be okay. He grabs a hammer and he grabs an eight-inch kitchen knife. And uh he looks up his mom's address in uh Washington. So he goes there, goes and she's not there. And he um he goes to he just drives and and sits and drinks vodka, then he goes back around around 10.50 p.m. He knocks on her door, and then you can hear her say, come in, doors unlocked. He goes in, she's sitting in like a recliner watching TV, and uh he says that he feels he feels good to see her, he feels relief from the trance for a second. He wanted her to talk to him, but out of uh all the voices were in control, they all spoke as one through Jim's mouth I'm gonna kill you. He gets behind her chair to to hide from the guy. He strikes her on the head four times with the hammer. This is this is his own his own mom. She she does not lose consciousness, but she falls to the floor. He then grabs the knife and averts his face as he stabs her three times with the knife in the heart. Osa dies instantly. Thank God. Poor woman. The knife pierces her aorta, and the third stab was so forceful that the blade of the knife sticks into the floor. This is his own mom here. He leaves the knife protruding from her chest. He walks out of the house to his car. Not run, but he just walks out. A neighbor heard all the screaming and watched and I saw him leaving to his car. So she calls the police and reports it. And the police come and they find her body. And you know, she's she's covered in blood and and she's dead. And Jim left to just he went to a few different bars. He went to one bar, drink, he, I think he drank a bunch of Long Island Iced teas and went to another bar, had a couple margarites. But it's nothing's helping. He he thought this was it was gonna, you know, he'll be fine now. Um the police, when they're in there, they find OSA's journals and they find the the notes about the phone calls. So all the fingers kind of point to Jim. And they go to his house. So this, sorry, this happened in LA. She wasn't in Washington yet. Sorry, that because he went home, he came, he went back. So they found it at his home. Uh they're knocking on the door, no answer. They're knocking again, no answer. They just smash through. They find him curled up on the ground crying, and and he admits it. He confesses, I did it, I killed my mom. I'm sorry. Um I stopped af I I stopped taking notes after that. I was like, okay, I'm almost done with this book. I don't have to read this shit anymore. This is so intense. So he let me just wrap it up. So he um he goes on trial and uh he gets uh 15 years to life with chance of parole, but he never goes to um the parole hearings. Oh, I was gonna tell you. So when the cops bring him in, when they when they bring him in to question him, you know, like the initial thought is like this motherfucker just killed his own mom. You know, let's, you know, we might have to, you know, rough him up or something. But um but he's like bawling and he's like tortured. They they can see this this guy has been through hell and they're just like, Jesus, fuck. Um so yeah, so he goes to prison um with uh 16 years to life and uh chances for parole, you know, because um uh he is insane, he's diagnosed as uh schizophrenic, and but he never goes to the parole board. He never goes to the parole meetings, the parole board. And he dies. He dies in prison in uh 2023, just last year. That was uh that's Jim Gordon. It's a horrible, horrible story. Such a tortured man. Uh a very, very talented, talented person, a talented drummer, talented musician, just uh just consumed with with with this uh torturic this insanity. Um I don't know. If you have you if you ever see something like that, speak up. Get let help the guy. Try to get someone some help to help someone. That that's just it's awful. Um yeah, I'm glad I'm done. That that took a while, but okay, so I'm gonna wrap it up right here. Thank you for coming back to uh Jay's Rock and Roll Stories. If you enjoyed that story, I wanna I I'll definitely want to do more. So, whatever uh app you're using, if you enjoyed that story, give me five stars, leave a comment, and I will uh I will talk to you next time. We got we got uh a different project we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna do something happy. Alright, so uh thanks for sticking around and uh see you later.