Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 375] Freedom Quest: Cult Escape, Rock Dreams, and Redemption with Debora Masterson

Transcript

[EP 375] Freedom Quest: Cult Escape, Rock Dreams, and Redemption with Debora Masterson · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Craig ran away twice from the cult. The first time
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: he got him back by telling him that one of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the ladies in the cult who was pregnant it was
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: his baby, and he was like, Okay, I have to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: go back and I have to be there for my child.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: It wasn't his baby.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: We're totally rock and roll.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'll leave you.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: You're reading little hands this. It's time to rock and roll,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: roll out a totally booked Welcome back to Booked on Rock,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: the podcast for those about to read and rock. Americ
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: senach before we get started. If you want to support
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the podcast and get episodes commercial free, sign up for
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the Backstage Pass from Patreon for just five dollars a month.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: The link in the show notes where he can go
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: to Booked on Rock dot com. Onto our guests now
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Deborah Masterson. She is the author of Freedom Quest, a
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: love story. Welcome to the podcast, Deborah.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Eric, thank you so much for having me.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Where we get to the book. You've got quite a
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: background I want to ask you about. So you're a writer,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: you're an educator, a producer, a musician, and a francophone
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: for those not familiar with that word. Present Company included
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: until I looked it up. What is a Francophone.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: A Francophone is a person who speaks a language. Phone
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: means the language, so Franco file. If you say, like
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: a Spanish file, you know, it would mean a person
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: who likes the culture. But a phone francophone or anything
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: that has that ending is a person that actually speaks
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the language.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Wow, why did you get into that? Have you been
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: like a professional interpreter for No?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: No, I actually wanted to be, but being from the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: United States, I went over to Paris and I was studying.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I started studying French when I was twelve, so I
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: was very lucky to start early. My father started learning
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: French during World War Two in New Caledonia, which is
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: still part of France. You can see a book back
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: there it says nouved cal Oh, Yeah, from World War two.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And so I fell in love with the language and
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: really wanted to become fluent. So I went over there
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: when I was twenty and studied over there for a while,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to be an interpreter, you know, when
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I went to this school for interpretation and you know,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: or translation, but everybody else there was European and they
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: all were starting on their third or fourth language. They
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: were so multi lingual. I thought this is never going
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to happen. So I stuck with French. And I, you know,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I'm bilingual, so which I love. It's great to be
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: bilingual as an American. So there you go.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I worked for the court system during the day,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: and we have interpreters, you know, so I'm familiar with that,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: you know, And do you have people to help with that?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: And I did take French in like seventh grade and
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: eighth grade, but boy, I think beyond like Xissui and
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: to and I really education. Yeah, I can't get My
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: teachers would be very disappointed. You're a Los Angeles native
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: currently living in Chicago. Yes, okay, yes.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I've been here for just about three years now. I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: moved in on May thirtieth of twenty twenty three. Okay,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: three years on May thirtieth. Yeah.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So your career in the arts began in your
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: youth as a singer and dancer. You were recruited by
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Sammy Davis Junior as a dancer and background singer, performing
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: in major cities throughout the USA. What do you remember
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: most about that experience?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Well, it was a show. We toured for four months
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: with Sammy. It was called Sammy Stops the World in
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, and it was a great, you know,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a great tour. It was amazing. He's was you know,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: he's one of the best performers I think ever ever
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: ever called a triple threat right and singer, dancer, actor,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: just an incredible performer. So it was it was such
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: an honor to work by his side. There were only
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: eleven of us the cast, and you know, it was
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a very heavy experience, I'll tell you. So we toured
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, New York City.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I got a chance to dance at Lincoln Center.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Do you still play the electric bass and sing?
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Well? I started playing electric bass very late, only fourteen
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: years ago. I started playing bass. I had always been
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a singer and a dancer, so I was primarily a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: dancer singer, and I've always sang, and I've sang in
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: bands on my whole life, my brother's bands, Craig Ingram,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: who were going to talk about tonight, and other bands
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I've always sang. But I didn't pick up the bass
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: until about fourteen years ago, and I played a little
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: guitar in high school, but I never really knew what
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I was doing. And then I picked up the bass
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and I went, oh, my god, this is my instrument.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I was so happy. I just fell in love with
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the bass and I started learning music theory from that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: So and it really took the place of dancing for
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: me because I can't really dance anymore, but I have
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: that rhythm in me and I can count anything. So
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the bass now, I think the bass is a combination
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of rhythm and melody, and the rhythm, you know, the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: dancing is coming out in my fingers now instead of
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: in my body because I really can't do that anymore.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Do you write music as well?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: No, I don't. Okay, I've never written a song. I've
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: never written any music.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: No, because I was curious to see if that affected
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: your writing, you know, writing a story.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I write. You know, I've written academic papers.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I went ahead and finished the master's in French, so
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I've written academic papers. I've written poetry, but
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: this is my first long form foray into book writing.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: So my debut novel, you know, on a true story.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I've read that. Yeah, what inspired you to write this
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: book and write a book in general. Was it always
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: part of your plan or did it emerge later in life.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: No, I never thought I would write a book. Now
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: in retrospect, I can see, you know, it's not a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: total stretch. I mean, I've always been an academic. They
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: love to read. I love books. I worked at the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: library when I was going to college, so it's not
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a stretch. But honestly, I never thought I would write
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a book. And I think part of that was I
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: put authors on a pedestal, you know. I never thought
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I could do that.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And here that's why I have this show. I love
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: having them on because I'm amazed at what they do.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: What you do, you know, And honestly, I also say,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know how anybody writes a long form novel,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: you know, if they're raising kids and working full time.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But they do, and more power to them. It took me,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you know, retiring and having time on my hands. I
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: actually wrote this, the first draft of this book during COVID,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and the inspiration, you know, was my partner, Craig Ingram.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: It's his story, It's our love story, but it's really
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: his story. He passed away in twenty twenty just three
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: days before the COVID shut down and when everything stopped,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't COVID related, but you know, that inspired
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: me because he had such an unconventional and adventurous life.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And I'm not the only one that wanted to write
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: his story. He wanted to write his story, and a
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: professional writer friend of his actually started writing his story
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and I ended up writing it. So it definitely was
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a story too good to pass up, you know, the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: kind of story you just had to write. So I
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: was inspired by that.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Let's get to that story, just to share with the
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: listeners viewers what it's about and the storyline. And there
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: is a real life story behind it.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: There is, Yeah, I would say probably eighty five percent
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: or so of it is true. But I'm glad I
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: changed all the names and I'm calling it a novel
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: based on a true story because for several reasons. I
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you know, people can't come back at me and go, well,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that's not the way it happened. You know, what are
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: you talking about. That's not the way it happened. Well,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: everybody has their own perception of what happened in the past,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and plus it was a long time ago, and there
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: were a lot of stories that were told to me secondhand,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you know, by musician friends that I interviewed, et cetera.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: So you know, I'm not sure that everything in there
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is exactly one hundred percent true either. So I'm glad
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I changed all the names, you know, And yeah, what
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: is it about? You know, it's about two young kids
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that fell in love. I was only fifteen when I
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: met Craig Ingram. He's Michael in the book, and I'm Grace,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and we went together for seven years. But the craziness
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of the times, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: in the Vietnam War, we lost track of each other
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: and I broke up with him, you know, at a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: very pivotal point in the story where he's We're in
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the band, you know, Freedom Quest together in nineteen seventy three,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and he's trying to get a record deal. So we're
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: recording the songs, and you know, the seven songs are recorded.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You can stream them on Spotify from that band, that
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: original nineteen seventy three band. And he ran out of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: money and he was looking for more money to finish
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the album so he could get a record deal. And
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: one of his roadies said, hey, I know how we
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: can make some quick money. I've got a connection. We
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: can sell a couple of kilos of pot cannabis, and
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you know, you've got all the money you need to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: finish the album. And so he bit he did it,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and apparently the roadie was working for the FEDS. The
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: roadie was on probation, and he set him up and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: he got arrested, spent three horrible nights in jail, and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: luckily the judge said to him, I can see you're
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: not a hardened criminal. I'm going to give you six
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: weeks in honor camp and I don't want to see
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you here back again. And so he ended up going
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: to honor camp. But what happened was the band broke
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: up and I left him, and he you know, the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: record deal was over. Everything, everything fell apart for him,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and I went on to marry and have two beautiful sons.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: And he spiraled downwards into a really really bad place,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: really scary place. He tried. He went back up to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: LA with this percussionist. The only person who stuck with
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: him was his percussionist and good friend, Sodi Arcia, who
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: by the way, just passed away February first. Yeah, very
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: very sad. He had helped me with the book, you know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with stories from that period, and because I wasn't around,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: I.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Got too scared. It was too crazy for me. So
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I broke up with him after he got out of
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: honor camp. And so they went up to La the
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: two of them, and they pounded the pavement, and you know,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of chapters in the book where they're
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: working their butts off trying to get a record deal.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: But the band had fallen apart and nothing, you know,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: nothing was working, and he finally sold all of its
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: equipment and went to Hawaii. And over in Hawaii he
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: met this guy, very enigmatic guy, and ended up being
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: involved in a religious cult. So you know, so there's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: a couple of chapters in the book which are really
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: interesting because contrasting me raising my kids and Craig or
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Michael in the book over you know, being not only
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: mentally abused, but physically abused. He almost lost his hand.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: He was in the hospital for a week with gang
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: green in his in his hand. So yeah, it was
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a terrible, you know situation. I learned all about this
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: when we got back together again, So you know, that's
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: another I'm giving too much of the story away.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Probably, well, we won't give away the ending, won't.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, which is you know, can two starcross lovers
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: soulmates find each other again? Yes we did, and yes
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to give the whole story away. But
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and the way we met the second time was crazy
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: because the way I met him the first time was
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: he he ended up being my brother's guitar teacher. And
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: almost thirty years later, I'm looking for a guitar teacher
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: from my youngest, fifteen year old son and his name
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: comes up.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's how you reconnected. Yeah, okay, so, yeah,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: we wonder if there's if there's higher power, if there's
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: divine intervention, and you hear something like that.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: That's one of the themes of the book. Yeah, you know,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: is there, Sarah? It's serendipitous? Is it? Is it fate?
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: There is an old saying that two people in love
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: will find each other no matter what, because they're connected
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: through the red thread of fate. And I don't know
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: if you noticed, on the back cover of the book
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: there's a Buddha which I have. It was his Buddha.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Do I have it? Because I have the PDF version.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Is it on that. I don't think it is here.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Let me show you.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see it.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: So that red thread was given to Craig or Michael
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: in the book while he was in Hawaii before he
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: joined the cult by the Dhali Lama. So the Dahalai
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Lama said, you know, we're all connected, and he handed
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: this was, as Craig used to say, before the Dahalai
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Lama became a rock star. There were only thirty people
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: in this classroom at the University of Hawaii, and he
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: handed each person that attended a red thread and said,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: this is a symbol of our connection, the red thread
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that connects all of our heart. We are all one.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And he held onto that thread his whole life. And
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I've got it now.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, you've got it now. I mean,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: it's amazing. In the story itself, it almost sounds like fiction,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: but it's true. And I thought of Charles Manson. You know,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I thought of Dennis Wilson meeting Charles Manson. You know
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: when you get to that part in Hawaii when he
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: meets this cult leader.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Oh right, I forgot about that, that's right. Yeah, And
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: you know I have to say so. Yeah, the cult
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: part was true. And when I started what's called beta readers.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Beta readers are professional writers that we share each other's work,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and I was getting the response from some of these
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: readers of the manuscript. I don't believe it. I don't
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: believe that Michael would join a cult. He's incredibly talented,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: extremely intelligent. I don't believe it. And you know, they
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: say that truth is stranger than fiction. So I had
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: to figure out a way to make the reader believe
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: that what was true was actually true, that the reader
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: would believe it.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, I read it. I thought, well, this is
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: maybe added for dramatic reasons. I honestly didn't. But he
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: was in a very vulnerable place in his life. That's
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: when they that's when they're really zeroing in on you.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: This person really needs somebody, Yeah, exactly.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And luckily the cult leader it required him to keep
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a journal. So I have some journals from that period.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It was probably about three years of his life, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I was able to go back into the journals and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: that helped trying to understand, you know, where his head
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: was at at that point. I mean, truly, these he
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: sounded like he was absolutely mad, absolutely crazy, and I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: thought for sure that must have been psychedelics going on
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: or drugs, heavy drugs or whatever. And I interviewed some
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of the other cult members and everybody told me that
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: there were no drugs. It was you know, no drugs.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's surprising, as usually that's the tool, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: going back to Manson, that was his tool LSD.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, but he was using sleep deprivation and yeah,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: he was. He was a real, real character. So that
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: was Craig Michael in the book had to escape. He
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: literally ran away and had to change his name, and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: he hid out in Sasolito, California, outside of San Francisco
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: for a couple of years under an alias. So some
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of the recordings that he did he recorded his whole life.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: He started recording his own music at the age of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: fourteen in his bedroom with a real to reel and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: some of the recordings I have, you know, I've got
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: all of his masters, reel to reel, which some have
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: been digitized now by Sound City in Los Angeles. I
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: don't know who. You're familiar with them?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Oh sure, yeah, yeah, you said there's songs on Spotify
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: that you can listen to if you want to send
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: me the link, I can share it with the listeners
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: and the viewers in the show notes.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Sure for sure. Yeah.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Are they his songs?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Yes? All right, Yeah, so Freedom Quest there's seven songs.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: You know, never never made an album, never got that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: far because of the butt drug bust, you know, the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: marijuana drug bust. But he recorded his whole life, so
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of music. There's not only the Freedom
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Quest album streaming, but there's also three other albums streaming
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of music after that. So you've got seventies, late seventies, eighties, nineties,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: all the way through the two thousands until he passed away.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of music there. And I was
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: singing on the band, singing background on Freedom Quest. And
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: then of course we were separated for almost thirty years.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: But when I got back together with him again, we
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: were singing again, and he was continuing to write. I
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: always wondered, you know, when we got back together again,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: if maybe that would maybe slow down his creative juices.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe he you know, how you fall in
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: love and you kind of go, ah, what else do
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I need? You know? But no, he continued to write,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and all the way until you know, very very short
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: period before he died. His last song was called Grateful,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: you know. So, yeah, so I think he wrote and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: recorded probably close to two hundred songs, So there's a lot,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of material.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: You do. Describe that final scene. It's powerful and that's
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: you write so well. I mean, the way this is written,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: it's it looked like the opening I want to ask
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: you about that you opened with. It's like a cinematic
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: type of scene. A concert in nineteen seventy three and
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: he's about to hit the stage his singles number twenty seven.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: The crowd, the stage, the energy, the whole thing. It
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: feels very visual and that feeling that something big is
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: about to happen. How important was it for you to
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: hook the reader emotionally right away with that?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: That scene came very late, interestingly, and it was a
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: note that I kept getting. One of the notes I
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: kept getting was that, okay, so that scene. The book
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: always started prior after that scene, So when Michael was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: getting ready to go to work and then he meets
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Grace's brother and you know, so it's kind of started
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: chronologically at the beginning, and the flash forward scene about
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the concert and all of that happened very low. I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: kept getting this note that readers were concerned about Grace
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: being too young. She was fifteen and Michael being eighteen,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and that was a red flag for a lot of readers.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, back then we're talking nineteen
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: sixty five, well sixty eight, excuse me, nineteen sixty eight
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: is when we first met. Back then, that wasn't such
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a big deal. But now with a me too movement
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and all of this coming out, you know, and you
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: know now you could go to jail right if you were,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you know, without lack of consent. So it's a different
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: world now. And I kept getting this note about I'm
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: afraid for Grace. What's going to happen to her? Is
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Michael a good person? And all of that having started
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: at the beginning, you know, So I'm already with the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: publisher and I'm in developmental editing with my publisher Atmosphere Press,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and she we're having this meeting and she said, you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I'm just concerned, and all of a sudden, boom, it
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: popped into my head. I know what I can do,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and the scene came to me, I know what I
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: can do, and it solved that issue. Because then you
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of the book, you see Grace and
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Michael in a good, healthy relationship, working together, great synergy,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: great energy. She they're older, so that difference in age
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: isn't a big thing anymore, and you know that, you know,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Grace and Michael are doing okay, right.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So it fit perfectly.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Solved so many issues. Yeah, but it didn't come until
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: she's I mean, it took me five years to write
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: this book. I've been working on it for five years.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: But it also works, like I said, it creates that
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: suspense as to you know, how is this going to
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: play out? Because you're thinking everything is going really well
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: right now, so you know, you know that there's a
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: story here, so something's about to happen. Deborah Masterson, the
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: author of Freedom Quest, a Love Story. So Michael's on
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the verge of rock stardom. How much of his journey
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: reflects the real stories from that era? It sounds like really,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: like you say, most of it is. I mean, were
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: there specific artists or bands that influenced his character as well?
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Though?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Are you thinking about that?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: No? Not really electrically him, Yeah, it's all him. He
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: was such an amazing person. I mean, there was enough
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: just right there. You know, I sometimes alike in his
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: personality to kind of a Jack Black, you know, school
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of rock kind of person. He was electric. I mean,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: he could do impersonations. He was the life of the party.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: We used to call him mister jukebox. He had I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: think I finally looked it up. It's called hypophonesia. So
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: he had this gift of being able to remember just
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: about anything he heard. So it was audio. You know
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: how some people have photographic memories. He had audio memory.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So I remember asking him when we first were together
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the first time, how do you remember all the words
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: to the songs? And I think, you know, this is
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a scene in the book, and he goes, well, you know,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I started listening to the transistor radio up against my
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: ear at night to try to go to sleep, because
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: he said the music was driving me crazy. The music
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: going through my head, he said, drive me crazy. So
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: he started listening to the top forty on the radio
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: on the transistor, and he found out in the morning
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: he knew all the words to all the songs he
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: had listened to. Yeah, so, and not only that, but
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: he could remember the arrangements. I mean, he would go, oh,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: this song. It starts with the drums and remember then
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the guitar comes in, and then that is.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Amazing because yeah, I mean even the greats like Keith
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Richards had the record. He would hit the record button
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and the if something hit him in the middle of
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: the night, he would play it, but then by the
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: morning he'd forget.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, he had something quite quite unique in that,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: you know. And then he you know, if he came
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: if he went to a party and he pulled out
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: his guitar, I mean he could go for three hours.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Craig play this one. Oh do you remember that? Yeah,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: he all the way through, no problem. So we called
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: him mister Jukebox.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: How did the Vietnam War shape the emotional core of
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: this story because that plays a big role, especially later
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: in the story. We kind of revisit the because there's
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: a song that he wrote, I believe during the Vietnam
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: era that kind of comes back and takes on a
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: home new meeting.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: That's right. Yes, So there is a documentary that we
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: we made. I produced it and Greg Michael in the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: book directed it about a high school friend, Bill Perkins,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: and he had written several songs and he had this
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: dream of making this documentary. And luckily when we got
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: back together again, I actually was working in the business
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I had with my husband, had a talent agency and
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: we were representing post production and key crew positions. So
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I was in a position to be able to help
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: him make the documentary. But I told him, I said,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you don't know what you're getting into. You know, it's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: so expensive. Who's going to pay for this? And you're
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: not a filmmaker, you're a musician. But he made an
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: incredibly beautiful documentary, or we made I produced it. It
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: was his vision though, and the songs, you know, several
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of the songs are in there that he wrote one
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: of them another place, another time runs over the end
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: credits of the documentary, and there's a there's a chapter
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: in the book about the documentary, and as you said,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: it does come in earlier because Bill Perkins was a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: high school friend of his. But right about graduation time,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: they got in a fight over a girl. Yeah, and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: it was a fistfight. It was a bad fight. And
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: then Bill left for boot camp down to San Diego camp.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Pendleton and Craig never saw him again and Bill, you know,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: never spoke to him again, and Craig never got a
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: chance to say he was sorry. He didn't know that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Bill had strong feelings for this young lady and it
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: ate him up. So when I got back together with him,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: he said, I want to make this documentary about Bill.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I think part of it was, you know, his his
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: his desire to try to make it right and part
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of his redemption, you know process. And I remember, you know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I kept saying, you know, this is this is a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: big deal. You don't understand making a movie. Yeah, And
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: he was. He had written, you know, back in the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: day there was no Internet. He had found all of
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Bill Perkins. So he was Bill Perkins was a combat
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: photographer and he's the only combat photographer in our nation's
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: history to receive the Medal of Honor. This was our
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: high school friend, you know, graduated from my alma mater
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. And so Craig found all of his footage.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: He was only in country three months, but he found
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: all of the footage through letter writing and phone calls,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and you know, he had done all this research and everything.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: And I said, but you know, Craig, I just don't
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: want to know. I don't want to think about war.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I just want to think about peace. And I remember
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: he said to me, you can't know peace if you
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: don't know war. And I went, okay, all right, I'm in.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And that was the moment I said, okay, let's do it.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And so we reached out to the company c First
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: of the First Marines, where Bill Perkins was stationed in
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: this terrible battle and you know where Bill died. He
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: jumped on a hand grenade to save the lives of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the guys.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Around him and a true hero.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, and he had only been with him for
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: three days. He didn't even know them. So we interviewed
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: all the guys. It's an amazing documentary. It's only thirty
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: minutes long. And then usually what I do when I
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: show it is I'll have a Q and A with
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: veterans afterwards, you know, after the film, we do a
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Q and A with local veterans or sometimes I've zoomed
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: in some of the veterans from the film and all
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: So that's amazing. Is that documentary still available to see?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's actually was picked up, believe it or not.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: We made the documentary in two thousand and seven and
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: it just got picked up last year for distribution. So
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: it's on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Right now, Yes, I have Amazon Prime.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you can watch it. It's called Above and Beyond,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the story of Corporal William T. Perkins, So I can
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: get you that information too. So, yeah, you know, that's
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a big part of the story because really, you know, Craig,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: he was a short haired, good Catholic boy. He was
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: an altar boy. At fourteen, he went into the seminary.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: He wanted to be a Catholic priest. He was a
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: good Catholic boy. And then Bill Perkins died and all
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, his hair was down below his shoulders
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and he was angry. He was an angry man that
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Bill had died, his best friend, who you know, he
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: had always hoped he could make amends with and changing
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: it radically.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And neither of them got the girl, I'm assuming, So.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know what, she's still around. Yeah, and
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I don't you know, I don't want to go there
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: because you know, it's it's her, it's private.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: But yeah, in the book, you talk about the character
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Michael Griffin, he's on the verge of rock and roll stardom.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: How close are we talking to to really making it big.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, there was talk of a record deal
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and certainly the band. The music is insane. I mean
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: it's still it stood the test of time. The lyrics
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: are are so relevant to what's happening now with perpetual
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: war and you know, activism, and they were very close
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and then you know, the drug bust happened and it
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: all fell apart.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the bookd on Rock podcast.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for your support, and make sure
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: you tell a friend, a family member, share on social
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: media and let people know about Booked on Rock. And
• 32:27
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• 32:29
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• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Booked on Rock podcast, We're on Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: tune in in on YouTube music. You can check out
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: to the show. I want to read an excerpt from
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: this book because this part here hit home for me
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: because I've been in his shoes Michael's shoes. So I'm
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: going to read it and then I want to ask
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: you about it. But this is the reveal of Grace,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: the character Grace through a newspaper clipping, and you write.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: The envelope held a note and a newspaper clipping that
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: fell out, face down on the table, dear son. The
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: note read, I know this will be hard, but I
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: thought you needed to see it. Please call me later
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: and please think about coming home. Michael turned over the
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: clipping and saw a photo of Grace smiling broadly next
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: to a guy who looked successful, cool and confident, upstanding
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: in every way. The headline read aspiring actress dancer Mary's
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: aspiring director. He slumped to the chair and the clipping
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: fell to the floor. Grace married a building manager from
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: New York. Grace is described as smiling and confident and happy,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: you know, and I think many, I'm sure many have
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: been in these shoes, but I've been in those shoes,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: and it is it's a devastating moment when you realize
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: they've moved on, you know, but did Race fully move on? Honestly? Yeah? Okay, yeah?
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And you know, luckily I went through a divorce and
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Luckily my former husband and his wife and my kids
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: are all okay. We're all okay. And you know, it
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: was rocky for a couple of years there. It was.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: It was tough, understandably, you know, divorce is never never easy,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think. But yeah, what was your question?
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, yeah, I was just saying that, you know,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the question was did you move on? Because oh, yeah,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: it appears as if this person has moved on, they
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: got a happy marriage, everything seems great.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, that was such a complicated question because
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: you know, in the back of my mind, like for example,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you know, we had gotten engaged for a brief period
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: of time and then I told him, I said, you
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: know what, I can't settle down yet. I got to
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: go to Paris and study my French and get get
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: fluent in French. And so I took off the engagement
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: ring and I took off and spent nine months over there,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: and you know, so I held onto that engagement ring.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: It was when we got back together again I was
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: able to pull out that ring and say, remember this,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I drove by his house. I thought about him often,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: you know, where is he what's he doing? But I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: was married and I tried to put it out of
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: my mind, and then I got pregnant with my first baby,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and I was just happy as could be. I retired
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: from dancing and I was just one hundred percent into
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: my raising my children, and I, you know, pretty much
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: forgot about it at that point. You know, I was
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: was you know, I was okay. I was having a good,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: good life. I mean, my you know, we there's a
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: saying that if you're in a happy marriage, you can
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: see an old boyfriend or girlfriend and it won't it
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: won't do anything, you know. But unfortunately, our marriage did
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: start to get pretty rocky, and so we were having problems,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: and you know, so when Craig walked back into my life, uh,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I you know, it was I was not in a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: good place in my marriage, so that did help also.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: But honestly, we're soulmates. I mean we're he's still like
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: with me. I don't know how else to explain it.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And there's a couple of places in the book where
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I try to describe that feeling. You know, it's like
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: early on and when he takes her hand for the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: first time, when they're at the ice cream store, and
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: it feels like he's there's like a spark. You know,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: it feels like he's held that hand for millennia, you know,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: through this all space and time, these types of feeling,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: and not everybody gets an opportunity to have that.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: No, it's you know rare. Yeah.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I guess yeah, because I talked to you know, a
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: lot of people and they're going, man, I wish I
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: could have experienced that. I don't think I'll ever experience that.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, but it's also extremely intense. There's a
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: there's a discussion that Michael and Grace have when they
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: get back together again. It's like, man, you know, how
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: does this happen? How do we get back together again?
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, we're try to be grateful for what
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: we have and never get get you know, go down
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: that spiral, that bad spiral that happened in my marriage,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you know, berating each other and fighting and all of that,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and we promised each other that wouldn't happen. But you know,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we were just so grateful to be back together again.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: It's like, how how does this happen? Is it fade?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I mean one in a million thing?
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: One in a million. Yeah, And and that's another reason why,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I was. I would tell people my story
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: and they go, oh my god, this sounds like a book.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: You gotta write this, Like okay, how finally I.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Did find the bookdown rock website at booked on Rock
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: of the show, the latest episode in video and audio,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: links to all of the platforms where you can listen
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: to the podcast, plus all the social media platforms were
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and x. Also check
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: out the Booked on Rock blog, find your local independent bookstore,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: find out all the latest hot rock book releases, and
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: before you go, check out the booked on Rock online store,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: pick up some Booked on Rock merch. It's all at
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: booked on Rock dot com. You will be in the chapters.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: I think all the chapters you open with a really
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: interesting quote. But I know chapter fourteen opens with one
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: that I thought was really cool. It's from a philosopher
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: and social critic Air Coffer, and it's faith in a
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: the lost faith in ourselves. And I'm curious as to
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: what drew you to that specific quote.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't even remember where I found it.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: But when I read it, I was like, oh, this
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: has got to be at the beginning of the cult period,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: because that's exactly what happened. You know. He had lost
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: all faith, all hope in his music, he quit playing,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: gained a lot of weight, just an absolute mess, you know.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: And so when I saw when I saw that quote,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I thought, oh, man, you know this this really hit home.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: And they took his money too. It was a theft ring, right, yeah.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he took a lot of money from you know,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: from Craig's parents and the other cult members. Some of
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: them were business people, and he, you know, absconded with
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: money from them too. And they built this incredible a state,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: seven bedroom, five bath estate on Kawai in Princeville, which
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: is some of the most valuable real estate in the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: world overlooking Hyena Point. I forget the name of the bay,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: but anyway, so you know, this incredible estate. And but
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: once again, luckily he was able to make amends with
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: his parents and he got that money back. And that's
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: true that you know, it's in the book where he
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: was able to The cult leader made a fatal error.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: He never put anything in his own name, and he
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: made a mistake. And the way Michael in the book
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: finds out is another crazy thing. He got a phone
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: call from a stranger one day who was helping his
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: friends try to figure out what happened to their daughter
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: who had been murdered. And he was not a private
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: investigator or a cop or anything. He was just a
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: friend trying to figure out how this young girl had
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: been murdered. And in doing his research, he had learned
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: that this young girl had met the cult leader. Now
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the cult leader didn't have anything to do with this murder,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: but he asked Craig, He said, I saw your name,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and you know, could you help me out here? What
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: do you know about this cult? And Craig was like, yeah, sure,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And so they've spent a couple of hours on the phone,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and during one of those phone conversations, the guy on
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: the phone said, oh, yeah, he's back in Hawaii. He
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and his new wife own a couple of properties on Oahu.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: And he went, wait a minute, it's in his name
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and he said yes, co ownership in his name, and
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: he went bingo, I consume him.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Now got him?
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: And he had a promissory note. He had a promissory
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: note from the cult leader. Because the cult leader Craig
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: ran away twice from the cult. The first time, he
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: got him back by telling him that one of the
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: ladies in the cult who was pregnant it was his
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: baby and he was going to.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Be a father, and his manipulation.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: And he was like, Okay, I have to go back.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I have to do the right thing and I have
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: to be there for my child. Well it wasn't. It
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't his baby, so DNA proved later on it wasn't.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: That was just to get him back there. Well, when
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: he got back, one of the other things the cult
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: leader did to try to keep him there because see,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: he was one of the he was one of the
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: magnets for the cult because he was so talented with
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: his music and his charisma. He was more charismatic than
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the cult leader. And the cult leader knew that and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: he needed he needed Michael, and so one of the
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: things he did was he wrote him a promisory note
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and it was handwritten, and he held onto it and
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: once he found out that the cult leader had put
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: some very expensive property in his name, he sued him
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: and within nine months he got the reward.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Again this is true. Again, this is just so crazy.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: It's like this can't really be true, but it is.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: And then the cult leader. Did you read the part
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: about how the cult leader died?
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, shot, Yes, that's true. Thankfully he's gone and
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: he can't he can't cause any more trouble.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he he He ended up going from Hawaii
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: to Canada and did the same thing in Canada, Canada
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: to Thailand, and in Thailand one of the cult members
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: who had the only one who had stayed with him
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: for thirty years shot him.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Unreal, unreal. The scene that song World on Fire, there's
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: that scene where Michael's song is played during the protest,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: but it takes place during the Iraq War and the
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: people they love the song. It was originally written during
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: the Vietnam War. But I wondered if that does that
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: redefine what it meant for Michael to make it in music.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: You know, it's no longer about the fame and money anymore.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Well, that was made up.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: That was made up.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Let me let me say we we did march in
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: the March in San Francisco with you know, we went
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: up to San Francisco and met with Joe in the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: in the book, But his real name is Rob and
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: we did meet and we did march, but the song
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: was not played.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: But the message of that scene is essentially that.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Essentially that and the World on Fire song was actually
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: written at that time, at the time of the Second
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Iraq War of George W. Bush's Shock and Awe invasion
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: of Iraq, So that World on Fire song is later,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: much later, right, I don't remember is that it was
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: after right after the nine to eleven, so that was
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: two thousand and two, two two thousand and three, so
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: that that's when that song was written.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the ending is very emotional. We don't want to
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: give away too much, but without giving too much away,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: there is a shooting star moment that will really move
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: the reader. And it was interesting that you chose something
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: as fleeting as a shooting star to kind of anchor
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: this lasting emotional connection. And I'm wondering, now, did that
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: really happen? If not that idea, did it come to
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: you right away or that really happened? Happened?
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Gosh? All right, Yeah, that that's all true. That that
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: moment is absolutely true.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: It's a powerful, powerful moment, and it will We'll leave
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: We'll leave it there because people need to read.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: You know, I'll tell you something. I wrote that last
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: scene and burst into tears.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not surprised. Yeah, yeah, not surprised. Well, I guess
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the final question would be, this is kind of philosophical here,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: but is this a story about two people finding each
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: other again or about becoming the people capable of finding
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: each other again? In other words, did all that stuff
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: have to happen in order for it to end the
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: way it did?
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I think so. I think, you know, both of us
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: talked about, oh, what would it have been like if
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: we stayed together? And and there's a scene during the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: last part of the book where I talk about, you know,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: how I found his writings afterwards, and how he had
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: expressed in his writings several times how he wanted, he
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: had wanted, he had wished he had had children with me.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: He never said that to me. He was always terribly
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: respectful of my children and my former husband, and he
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: never expressed that to me, but in his writing he
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: expressed it. And I, you know, we talked about that,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: and honestly, I don't think it would have worked. We
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: both needed to grow up, you know. Our our love
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: was more of a idolization of each other. I idolized him.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was three years older than me, so
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: talented as a musician. I idolized him. And it took
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: me growing up, and it took him certainly, learning and
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: growing up through all of those crazy experiences that he had.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: But when I met him again, when I saw him
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: again in two thousand, I could see in his eyes
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: that he had grown up and he was stable, and
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: you know, we could be together again. So I think
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of both, right, you know, but
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: we certainly I don't think. I don't know if it
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: would have worked, we'd stayed together.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Am I seeing a picture of him behind you there?
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I see it? Yeah, okay, up top there.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I put that up here.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Yet recently I honestly got I was, like I said,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Jim Morrison at first when I looked at it, just
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: see look.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, that's one of the pictures. I really love him. Well, yeah,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I miss him. I still miss him so much. It's
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: been six years already, but you know, I still I
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: really miss him.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. I lost my dad four summers ago,
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: and it's like he's there every day. He's there with
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: me every day, and some of the things you mentioned,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: I think you're alluding to. But there are times when
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I think, Wow, hey, Dad, what's up? You know? Because
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: he was he loved cardinals, and anytime if I'm going
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: through a rough period or something like, all these interesting
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: things happen and then you're thinking, is that And then inevitably,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: as I'm driving, a cardinal will fly by my vehicle. Yeah,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: and I'd be like, what's up to? How you do?
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: You know? Because we were very close, so you just
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: don't forget about them, and you wonder, you know, is that.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: They call it the veil, the veil, you know, this
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: fine veil between this reality and whatever it is on
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: the other side. It's a thin veil, and sometimes there's
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: a slight break in that.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: The book Down Rock podcast is part of the Boneless
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Podcasting Network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: dot app. Over twenty great shows there that's Boneless dot
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: lovable dot app. Or just go to booked down Rock
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: dot com the Boneless podcasting network. It is what you
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: want to be listen with confidence. So Freedom Quests the
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Love Story out April twenty first. So this episode will
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: run just before I think that date, so people can
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: pre order it though if they go to Amazon.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or bookshop dot org. They can get it anywhere.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it okay, great, And where can people find
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: you online, Debora.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I'll go to my website Deborah Masterson dot com and
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Debra is without an H D, E, B O R A.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Masterson dot com. And there's a lot of events coming up.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: The first event is going to be in San Diego
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: on April twenty fifth, so I'm so excited it's gonna
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: there's some of the band members, the original band members
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: are going to be there, and then I'm in I'm
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: in La after that, and then back to Chicago for
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: a couple events here.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: And yeah, very exciting.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: So everything's on my website. That's the best place to
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: go to.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Ye, I am looking at it here right now. You
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: also have a YouTube channel I see as well.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, all the music you know, you can find
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the Spotify link on my website.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Oh perfect, and it's right there.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: I'll just link people up to the website and the documentary.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: The documentary links up there too.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: So that's great. Deva, thank you so much for coming
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: on and sharing this amazing story. You're giving us all hope.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Ah, thank you. Well, we need it right now, don't we.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: We do APP sure, Pisa, thank you. That's it. It's
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: in the books.