Craig Ferguson, Farmers Insurance

On September 9, 2008 at approximately 1.25 I was waiting (2nd in line at traffic light and I always leave space between me and car in front) for the light at Curson and Beverly to change.
For a second I thought that the world had ended, and in a way, my world did end that day.
I was rear ended by Craig Ferguson's wife, Megan Cunningham Ferguson. She was driving a Continental Navigator weighing goodness knows what tons, and she was so apologetic; while being on the the phone at the same time; and told me that her brakes had failed.
Being British, I did not think of lawyers at all. But, when the Farmers Insurance adjuster came to inspect the car advised me that I might only get $100 for it, I was totally aghast.
This was the first accident I had had (aside from minor dings) in 42 years of driving and I was taught to drive in the UK, where the test is far more stringent than I found in Los Angeles.
Plus, although I felt only shock the morning after the accident, and aching, I thought that would pass.
My boyfriend hurt his elbow as he was thrown forward and his hands hit the dashboard. I negotiated $1,000 for him, which he received within about 3 weeks.
As my pain increased, I phone a music biz lawyer and a really good friend of mine for 32 years now. He referred me to a law firm.
I suffer with post traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks and chronic depression, however, was learning with the help of a really excellent psychiatrist to deal with these, plus the right medication.
The accident took all my successful strides forward in trying to live a 'normal' life away from me. I felt vulnerable on the road, and never drove the volvo (thank goodness it was a station wagon) again, except for a few emergency hospital visits.
I ended up with a lawyer, who I will say little about, except that after an extremely successful career in the music industry, where I was used to instructing lawyers, negotiating tough deals; and was even offered by U2's and Pat Benatar's lawyer; a job with his firm and that he would put me through law school, I would not recommend them to anyone.
The doctor they recommended me to, had the bedside manner of a knat.
My chiropractor, Dr Rob Pohomac on the other hand did the best he could for me, and I would recommend him to anyone with the knowledge that he is great.
I also have an extremely good memory and it still amazes me how often this lawyer would say they'd do something, then not do it, and say that they'd never said they would.
I calculate that the accident took 2 years away from my life. And I shall never know whether the terrifying impact caused my beautiful companion dog, a German Shepherd, Anita, to develop spinal degenerative disease earlier than she would have done. I miss her still.
My lawyer informed me that they would file by December 2009, but did not file until March. Farmers Insurance (google them and see how many lawsuits there are against them) claimed that all of my injuries were due to my age! I am not sure how whiplash is due to age, nor the pain radiating around my right shoulder and down my right arm.
Eventually, I gave a deposition to Farmer's lawyer. I am not known to lie and was regarded in the music business as both ethical and honest. I did not lie about what the accident did to me.
I was then advised by my lawyer that Craig Ferguson did not want his wife to have to appear in court, and as I knew she was pregnant, I agreed to mediation the opposing counsel requested. Besides which, my lawyer had filed the case so late, it would not have been heard until sometime in 2011. And living any longer with the case in my life, was not something I felt that I could deal with.
For permanent whiplash damage that I shall have for the rest of my life, and damage to my pelvis, I ended up with just $18,000 in damages, plus the cost of replacing my car, which I negotiated myself. Megan's car cost $11,000 to fix. My lawyer got $11,000. Looking at it from one point of view, it appears that my constant daily pain is only worth $6,000 more than repairing a car and my lawyer's lacksidasical handling of my case.
I wrote to Craig and his wife and sent them a copy of my deposition. I specifically wrote that I did not want anything from them, I just wanted them to know what Farmers had done to me and perhaps to consider changing their insurance company, but only if it would not cause them any disadvantage.
Coincidentally, I had met Craig a few years earlier somewhere on Robertson Boulevard just north of Santa Monica Blvd. and spoken to him and told him how great he was in "Saving Grace" and "The Big Tease". I did not realise at that time, that he also wrote the films scripts. I thought him a very likeable man, and one I could respect.
Neither Craig, nor his wife, Megan have had the courtesy to respond. Just a simple, "I am really sorry that this happened to you" would have been sufficient. I know that Megan did not deliberately drive her car into mine. But they have not. And this causes me to wonder what kind of people they really are, however, I wish them no ill will and hope that they will continue to be a happy couple.
In time my resentment will pass, however, I know that even with yoga and other exercises, sleeping with my head over a pillow to strech my neck into the opposite position to which the impact threw it, and stretching my pelvs and walking, I shall always have whiplash damage.

I hate microsoft and other things

why is it I feel that when I am using microsoft, they are in fact using me! Why do I feel that my laptop belongs to them and they certainly didn't give it to me for free.
Why do they change my English English to American English, when I am writing English English because that's what I want to do!
I have just spent about 20 minutes trying to respond to my lovely friend Franca's recent blog on eye contact, only to have it deleted 6 times before I gave up and just wrote a plain old "great blog" message.
Franca writes about eye contact and I can't remember the Italian phrase, however, I agree with her. You can understand another person much better eye to eye, whether they are bullshitting you (lot of that in the music biz), just plain lying, or trying to get something from you, or they are just (preferable) a lovely person.
On the other hand, you could also, as I did, find yourself turning around and coming face to face with Paul Newman standing in line to get his car back and go completely ga ga at those oh so very beautiful eyes
She also wrote about Il Postino and Massimo Troisi. The film, along with Mediterraneo are among my most favourite films ever. I did not know that Massimo was also a comedian, and have to wonder whether Eddie Izzard is too. Franca wrote about Massimo talking with God and reminded me of Eddie doing the same - doling out methods of procreation for animals, the giraffe is really funny, calling his son jeezey creezy and annoying him, all in a James Mason voice.
Wonderful blog Franca, even if I couldn't write a lot of the above and get the comment successfully posted. After 20 minutes of trying, even my tenacity failed me! Love you

How does one let go of the past

when it won't let you go?
Post traumatic stress disorder is a pretty tough condition to deal with, and I cannot imagine how much more difficult it must be for soldiers, who have experienced the horror of war.
I find that I have no clue what will trigger mine. I know that smoking pot helps stop the fragmentation of my mind, which I can only describe as viewing a kaleidescope of broken chards of glass.
2011 was (with the exception of the years my Dad died, my lovely Aunt Tricia died and my beautiful cousin, Stewart died) the worst year. Even worse than working for Jack Craigo and being cheated by Chrysalis, a company I gave my loyalty to and turned down many job offers to stay with them. This included an invitation by Joe Smith to start the publishing companies for Electra/Ayslum/Nonesuch and I still feel a complete idiot for not taking that job. So much pain would have been avoided. My trust in people I looked up to, broken
In spite of all that one of my brothers has done to me; because again I was an idiot and came back to Los Angeles to help him keep his two daughters (lost all of my money and 90% of my furniture); I sent him an email asking for peace between us, but no response.
How does one let go of that hurt, when that brother has been with me all of my life and we used to have so much fun together as children, just discards me?
Franca Cavaricci (someone I met through managing the most difficult artist I encountered in over 30 years in the music business!) has helped me tremendously and made me laugh as we share our problems. She is an inspiration.
Cindy is another such woman friend. Anyone listening to us share our various illnesses and trials and tribulations, laughing hard all the way through, would probably think us fit for a sanitorium.
So many what ifs in my life. I hope that there is a parrallel world (love Stephen King and his Towers series), in which I am once again the smiling child who ran through the green fields of my mother's birth place, Liscarroll in County Cork.
May we all have a happy New Year and a much better 2011, especially for those people, who have lost their homes, their jobs, families living in a motel rooms, and the estimated 54% who survive on food stamps. May we not lose anymore people whose lives were in such despair, they could not go on living.
As we go forward into 2011:
may President Obama succeed (and be allowed to) in changing the corruption perpetrated by the previous government and that has penetrated throughout the country. May he change America back to the country I first moved to, where although I was a bit confused that an actor could become President, we had some equality.
May the 10% of the people who own 90% of the wealth in the world become more charitible and think of others. May Warren Buffet and Bill Gates with their inspiring desire to share their wealth and help the needy, turn towards this country as well as America (although I do not know whether this is true as I have only heard this). May others join them.
May people like Angelina Jolie and Bradd Pitt continue their efforts to make a difference not only in foreign countries, however, as they did in New Orleans.
May we never ever again see people crowded into a stadium in awful conditions, because an ineffective government could not do their appointed jobs and allowed such awful suffering.
May women at last have more meaningful roles in government, may there be more of the and may we leave behind the absolutely ridiculous notion that women are not equal to men. May we have women leaders like Golda Meir, and not like Maggies Thatcher. May women learn that they do not have to do things the way men have, however, use their difference to make a difference.

Remembering friends with thanks

The music business is not a business I should like to be a part of anymore, however, so many great memories. And some dark moments too.
However, FB has me back in touch with people I really enjoyed and respected, Nigel Grainge and Chris Hill are just two. When they had their company together and I would occasionally have lunch with them, they added more to my grin lines in an hour - almost as good as Eddie Izzard.
Franca Cavarricci has kept me going through a tough year and it's so great to have her friendship. She'll phone me in the morning and I shall be laughing within seconds.
I've been able to let one friend have a copy of his vinyl album, as he never kept one.
Billy Bass, an inspiring co worker and the first friend to buy one of my giclees of Tea with Klee, really encouraging me, as he is the master of taste.
Susan Whittred, who I am so proud of for changing her career completely, getting into Cornell Uni and becoming a veteranarian (think that's correct!) and enjoying her life.
The beautiful Lydia Sarno, irrepressible Vicki Giordano, Linda Carhart, who did such an amazing job organizing two Chrysalis reunions East Coast and West Coast.
Eve Lenton of Belle Epoque, Black is Black and her gorgeous brother, Albert.
Tiffany Lowe who I first met as a 3 year old and who has two of the most gorgeous children, Luna and Lux.
Life is a little more than tough for me at the moment for too many reasons to share, however, I know I have friends who have known me for so long, and their continued friendship and respect for me, outweighs the darker side of family relationships, which have just hurt me deeply.

What do you do when your heart is breaking

and you can see no end in sight to the sadness that has haunted you throughout your life?
Suicide causes so much pain, yet I do not blame my mother. I know how close I have come myself to just give up and not try to get through another day, because I cannot see a future that makes any sense to me.
What do you do when you are just surrounded by the debris of bits of your life that did exist, reminding you of feats that you achieved, people you somehow managed to help, just because you could. Clothes you could wear before you just gave up caring how you looked. Because what is the point.
You plough through bits of paper that you kept for a reason and you look at them and even though it's been a while since you have, you still see that there's valuable information you could use sometime in the future. So yet again you don't throw that bit away.
But then you can't see a future, you can't even imagine a future and sadly you no longer know how to imagine a future anymore

If you had advised me that it was not a good idea

to give up the offer of a job of running a UK publishing company, and return to Los Angeles to help a brother and his two daughters through a truly awful custody battle with a sociopath, I would not have taken it.
Family had always meant a lot to me, I suppose because I just didn't have a "normal" one.
Now, I am the one who is broken and there's no one to help me at all. In fact it would appear that I have become the pariah of the family.
Sad, and finding it hard to start again.
61 is a hard age to realise that all that you've stood for, justice and fair treatment brings you to a point of desperation.
Depression is not understood. Neither is ptsd or panic disorder. A fact that I realise must be common to so many people suffering with the same serious illness.
So you put one step in front of the other, and hope.

The Cranberries, Ray Parker Jr and acts we missed out on

Exchanging comments with Stephen Foster about the Memphis Sound this morning and I got into how some musicians are just so brilliant and so love what they play, that you are drawn into them. And I then to thinking about drummers, in particular Steve Ferrone (was quite happy just listening to him play anything at sound check, as it took hours for the producer to get the sound he particularly wanted) and Anton Fig, who tie as best drummers in my history and then to Fergal Lawley of The Cranberries. From there I found myself wondering how many acts different staff at different companies, would love to have signed and did their upmost to get the "powers that be" to agree with them, yet failed.
I think I'll start with the famous Ray Parker Jr story, when I was still at Chrysalis.
Ray (and his drummer Ollie Brown who both played for Stevie Wonderand goodness knows how many albums, Ray played guitar on. He once commented that he couldn't remember, there were so many) and I became friends through JD Nicholas, who I'd signed as a write to Chrysalis Music Ltd, so wanted to sign to Chrysalis, but no go at Chrysalis, we hadn't yet accepted that r & b could be pop and would go mainstream.
Ray may be African American (and at Chrysalis we hadn't had much luck with a band called Lynx, I think), however, his music is pop and he has one of the sexiest voices, as well as being a great guitarist and songwriter (he told me once he wrote a lot of his songs from listening to women), and he wanted to be with Chrysalis. I tried my hardest, but no, no go, too black for the label. How ridiculous. Anyway, Ray's next album which we passed on contained "Ghostbusters", so how stupid can some A & R decision makers be! Plus, I then had to put up with a lot of teasing as everyone at Chrysalis knew Ray was my friend and the so called close resemblance of "Ghostbuster" to "I Want New Drug". I just kept playing "Pop Music"(signed by another legend of the business, Seymour Stein, and he also signed Madonna - who we also passed on at Chrysalis) and still think that the only similarity is the bass riff.
I can think of one A & R guy I worked with at Imago (he completed reimaged himself to look like TCE), who didn't even know who Tom Dowd is. How can you be in A & R and not know one of the finest producers ever?!!!
Chrysalis turned down The Squeeze, a great rock band with fantastic songwriting, whose early pub/small club performances I haunted. And the irony of not only passing on still one of the best rock bands, but the opportunity to get The Police thrown in too.
Dire Straits were another they just couldn't get, although Chris Briggs and I did our best to convince the powers that were, to sign the band.
TCE once phoned me a year after sending him a cassette of a band, Minor Detail, whose manage couldn't get a meeting with the UK company, but could see me. That led to a visit to see the band by the UK A & R, often nicknamed um and r.
Anyway, I had no clue what to say to a boss who had just listened to a cassette I'd sent him a year previously! I plucked up courage and called him and said that they'd signed to Polygram a year ago. Well, he responded, what about their publishing?!!! Sadly, the band's unique vocal quality was a&r'd out of their debut album, and they did nothing.
But the Cranberries, have to be one of the worst lack of foresight by a label head. At Imago, Michael Murphy (often wonder where he is) originally heard of the band and then involved Lauren Bromley (from One Little Indian, another great small label and I often wonder where she and Eric - who also worked for Imago - are too) and then me, then Kate. We traveled to Ireland to see them perform so many times. And eventually managed to get TCE to agree to fly them over to London for him to see them perform at a club in the UK. He just couldn't get it. Thought that the songwriting was brilliant, but that Dolores wasn't a star! How he could miss her unique frail quality, and that she was surrounded by light is beyond me. But she wasn't flashy and coming from a small Irish town didn't dress like Madonna. I found myself reminiscing how when I watched them, I also frequently found myself mesmerized by Fergal's drumming, he so loved playing them and that was obvious.
Fortunately, they signed with Denny Cordell, who to me was a legendary record man (Shelter Records - Leon Russell, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) and also one who treated women equally. As Imago didn't really function that well, to say the least!
And I'll end with what I still find a funny anecdote. Certain of the Imago A & R staff and I were flying into Dublin to see The Devlins perform. But fog descended, and we were informed that we would probably get diverted to Shannon. Now the man, who sat next to me on the plane happened to buy and sell airplanes and as is my habit, I got talking with him. Learning of our dilemna, he offered to fly us in his private jet at Shannon to get to Dublin, but that still wouldn't get us to the show in time. Well, he "knew people in places", and I saw him disappear into the captain's cabin and the next announcement was that the pilot was going to seek a hole in the fog to try and land at Dublin. First and only time I've ever heard the air staff announce precise safety instructions for a landing. (Fortunately, I am not afraid of flying, once you're in a plane, you're no longer in control and that's just that!). Well we landed, with great sighs of relief from many passengers to an almost empty Dublin airport and made the Devlins' show, joined by the airplane seller and buyer. Us, Imago A& R didn't manage to sign them to Imago either! Ina Meibach was their lawyer, and she's an excellent one, and all for the artist and not the politics of being a lawyer in the music business as quite a few are. Don Passman is another, whose only concern is what's best for his client, not his relationship with labels.
Enough of could haves, didn't do, failed to and I'll end with Chrysalis US passing on The Knack with "My Sharona"!