How did The Monkees become a group? (The TV Monkees, not the IRL group.) I mean, come on- an LA rock and roller, a British stage actor, a Texan country guitarist, and a Connectictut/Greenwich Village blues artist... How do four guys like that eve...
Mike expertly navigated his skateboard through the busy, crowded sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles. As he turned the corner, he dropped some change on a newsstand and picked up a copy of the LA Times, glancing at the date- September 12, 1965. Two years since he'd left San Antonio to try to seek his fame and fortune by trying to get his songs into movies in Hollywood, to no avail. No one took him seriously. Producers would send back his demos with notes saying, "Kid, if we want country, we'll hire Gene Autry!" They didn't understand Mike's experimental musical style, and they didn't want to try. Sure, his music had a country flair to it- he couldn't help it, being born and raised in Texas- but it was really all rock and roll.
So Mike had travelled up and down California, picking up gigs in nightclubs in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Bernardino- just barely surviving, and getting nowhere with his career. He'd finally circled back to give Los Angeles one last shot. This time in LA would be his last. He'd already paid for a week's stay in a hotel in one of the seedier sections of town. All he had left in his pocket was one dime- ten cents he was saving to call home at the end of the week. If, after seven days, he hadn't been able to sell any songs or pick up any singing jobs, he would call his ma and ask her to send him money for gas to drive home.
Mike frowned deeply. Going home was not an attractive prospect right now. It wasn't just the humiliation of returning to his point of origin poorer than when he'd left. But it also meant clerking in the little record store for the next two or more years until he could afford Plan B- going to Nashville and trying again. And if that didn't work out... Well, he was pretty good with fixing up cars...
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Mike took stock of himself and his meager possessions. He was twenty years old, still very young, but nevertheless anxious about how quickly time could slip away when dreams kept being placed on hold. He was six feet and one inch tall, lanky and long-legged. His dark chocolate-colored hair was shorter than Lennon's, but still longer than what was considered socially acceptable, parted on the right, with bangs that he swept across the left side of his forehead. He had very few clothes, all of them torn and faded, mostly blue jeans and long-sleeved cotton shirts or T-shirts. He wore boots, always boots, usually a pair of soft, brown, knee-high buckskin boots with a fringe around the top. He often had his harmonica strapped around his neck. And he topped off every outfit with a knitted, dark green, woolen hat with a fuzzy pom on the top. That hat was another reason no one took him seriously. He'd walk into an agent's office and hear, "Cut your hair and throw out the hat, and then we'll talk." Mike always left, kept his hair and his hat, and never returned to that particular office.
His two most valuable possessions were his blonde six-string guitar and his car. The guitar was how he earned his living. The car was how he went from place to place to earn his living. She was a beauty, a long, red convertible with three rows of seats that he'd bought as a cheap clunker before leaving San Antonio. A good chunk of the money he'd earned had gone into fixing her up, until he had his own customized hot rod. But she was worth every penny- if he could just afford the gasoline.
