Jerry A. Lang - Black Heart Fades Blue: Volume 1

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Copyright 2022 by Jerry A. Lang

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Set in Dante

epub isbn : 9781644282786

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THANKSTo Adam Parfrey, for first hearing the rhythm of it. Tom Roberts, for convincing me it was worth it. Tyson, for seconding the motion. Jeff Larsen, for helping me take it out of the box, and George Pavlids, for helping me assemble it. JCPenney, for the cover photograph. This is dedicated to Jennifer.

Contents

Volume number one, this book, is my happy childhood. It shows a picture of happy baby Jerry on the cover. It starts from the first things that I remember up to playing and making my first album with my band, Poison Idea. The story does not end at the finish of this book. The story doesnt end until the fat lady sings. Which I think means when I die? And then its anyones guess what really happens.

So yeah, volume number one, front cover, happy baby Jerry. Then the second book has a photo of bloody teenage Jerry. Which kind of gives you a hint of what to expect from that book. But dont skip ahead or it will be confusing, to some, maybe? Read this book, volume number one. Then read the second book, volume number two. And then read the last one, volume three. Repeat. Until I write the next one.

PREFACE

This book was intended to be my suicide note. Yes, thats the truth. All I wanted was to tell my side of things before I was dropped into the ground. Because you know its just a matter of time. And as I started writing all this down, something happened. I gave up. I figured it was time to die. Nothing extreme, nothing depressing. I just accepted that it happens to everyone, and I felt I wanted to write my story down and turn out the lights. But then, when I least expected it, there were some twists and turns that changed everything. I found good reasons to go on living.

The story before you starts when I was born and continues through the death of my best friend in 2006, along with a few stories and highlights that function as a long postscript. It updates my story to late 2019.

If youre looking for the events that inspired the lyrics to all my songs? Those stories are in this book. If youre looking for what I did when I was younger? Thats in here. What changed me, made me stop hating and hurting? Its all here. This is my story, and Im sticking to it. Thats the one thing I have, the truth. Ive said that before.

And so now I present to you a failed suicide note. I never saw this coming, and I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but what a wild, crazy ride its been. You cant make this stuff up. Hang on, I think its starting.

3/6/2020

I dont know if there was a high point (or a low point) of our debauchery, but there is a moment that comes to mind that would probably land in the top ten.

Our band was on a short tour. We found ourselves in the Rocky Mountain states and pulled into Salt Lake City. I should preface this story by saying that SLC has the reputation of being a conservative place where you cant get a drink and where you will be surrounded by prim and proper religious fanatics. That was never our experience. Maybe it was the crowd we brought out, but we saw more hedonism and debauchery than in LA. But I dont think it was all us. Ive heard other entertainersmusicians, actors, comedians, and even athletesreport the same thing. We encountered sex-crazed couples participating in orgies and people shooting mystery drugs. Were they so extreme because they lived in a repressed society?

We had a place to stay and immediately began getting loaded as soon as we dropped our bags. At some point, a member of the band went off for a three-way with two Mormon girls. The rest of us were getting drunker and higher by the minute. When our bandmate came into the living room after his latest conquests, the rest of the band was watching a compilation video of utter madness. It had stuff like R. Budd Dwyer blowing his brains out with a .357 Magnum and clips from German scat movies. I dont remember everything but it was pretty depraved. The band was hooting and hollering watching it. We asked the stud whod emerged from the bedroom if he wanted to watch, but he said, No, I think Ill sit this one out. The rest of the band turned our attention back to the video and more drugs and drink and female companionship. Our bandmate left and went outside. He didnt come back anytime soon so we figured he went out to the van. After the video ended, we were wondering about him, not exactly worried, just curious. Maybe he had more girls and they were getting it on in the van. The band decided to check it out. But we creeped up as silently as possible so as not to startle them. Maybe he was being blown by two more Mormon girls. We edged up close to the van and were shocked by what we saw: there was our resident Casanova alone, kneeling in prayer, asking to be delivered from our miserable influence.

To many teenage boys, he was living the dream. He was touring the country, playing loud rock music, getting high, and hooking up with a girl or two in every port. But something had happened. What I imagine is this: he came out of the bedroom after boning his mini-harem, feeling pretty good. And then he was confronted with a tableau of his bandmates: a massive amount of drugs and alcohol, maybe some puke on the floor, someone contemplating a brandy enema, my assortment of weapons on the table, bizarre subculture magazines strewn all over, and a bunch of idiots watching truly disturbing videos and cackling. I think in that instant it just got to be too much. Deliver me from evil. Rocky Mountain Low.

Hail, hail, rock and roll.

I would guess everyone has their own opinion of when would have been the best time to be alive and to have been pissing around this place. Some people probably would have liked to have lived before we had any written rules, back when might made right. When the biggest guy with the fastest sword made all the rules. But that wouldnt have been so great for more than 80 percent of the Millennials today. Or maybe during the simpler times of hunting and gathering: the original hippy. Being one with nature? And when dying of old age at thirty-one was the norm?

Ive heard a lot of people longing for the time after one of the first two World Wars, when the economy was booming and everyone had a chicken in their pot. This isnt a question I ponder too deeply nor care to. I can see good sides and bad no matter the era. But I do know that I was born into a very cool time period: the sixties. You have your opinion, this is mine. For a kid, it was the best. But then I wasnt born in the mollycoddled, I am special entitled world that we live in right now. I was born within the first few years of the sixth decade of the twentieth century. On the sixth day to be exact6/6/6. And Ive come to learn that doesnt mean squat. Its funny that scholars decided recently that the mark of the beast was really 616. A lot of metal T-shirts suddenly have no meaning. And now that I think of it, the sixties was the seventh decade of the century. Oh, well, so much for numerology.