B005S8O7YE EBOK (40 page)

A couple of weeks before the New Hampshire primary, Will and I met with Bill about booking the Warfield Theater in March for another concert for Senator Hart. Though Bill knew nothing
about the candidate, he looked me in the eye and asked, “Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really think he’d make a good president?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. On your say-so, I’ll hold the Warfield Theater.”

This was not a corporate decision made by a committee. This was a personal commitment involving some risk. But Bill Graham wasn’t afraid of risk.

On February 28, 1984, less than a month before the concert at the Warfield was scheduled, Senator Hart roared past the pack of eight Democratic candidates to win the primary in New Hampshire. The next day, Bill Graham called me.

“I don’t know how you knew,” he said, “but I’m glad I trusted my instinct. We’re gonna put on a terrific concert in March, and our guy’s gonna win!”

He was right about the first part. It was a terrific concert. By June my band and I had done a total of twelve concerts that raised more than a million dollars for the Hart campaign. This startling number impelled the journalist Bryant Gumbel to inform me, during a morning interview on national television, that I qualified as a special interest. I told Bryant that I was simply bringing people in to learn more about my candidate.

“Once they hear from Senator Hart,” I said, “the voters will be his to keep or lose.”

Knowing that the Democratic National Convention would be held in San Francisco that year, Bill decided to book another concert for Senator Hart at the Warfield. This show would take place during the week of the convention and would feature multiple artists.

The frustration of the road fight had been temporarily eclipsed by my enthusiasm for the campaign. With both these projects in my life, any hope I had for peace and tranquility in the near future was virtually gone. If I had any brain cells left, the gathering of energy and ambition at the Democratic National Convention that week overpowered them all. Delegates from every state, having vied aggressively at home for the opportunity to attend, showed up with costumes, bells, whistles, flags, hats, balloons, signs, and enough vigor to party for five days and five nights while working every room they were in to collect hearts, minds, names, and ideas.

As I walked from one state delegation to the next on the convention floor to make my case for Senator Hart, I had the opportunity to observe how complicated a convention can be, and that was in the 1980s. It seemed as if every fourth person was a voting delegate, with at least two members of the press for each delegate. The rest were people working the floor on behalf of the competing campaigns, as I was doing. The maneuvering of the minions was as unceasing as the flow of the Sacramento River toward San Francisco Bay. Simply moving through the crowd required the skills of a New Yorker with experience navigating Macy’s the morning of a white sale. Luckily, I still possessed those long-neglected skills.

That week I also got to see for myself how little control we voters have concerning information we receive from the news media. Early in the morning on the first day of the convention, I had just turned the news on at low volume in my hotel room when I saw a video clip that appeared to show demonstrators outside the Moscone Center being beaten with clubs by a team of S.W.A.T. policemen. By the time I got to the TV and turned the volume up, the anchor was introducing the next story.

Oh no, I thought. I hope this doesn’t turn into another 1968.

It wasn’t another 1968, but not for the reason you might think. In 1968 most news programs reported news wherever they found it. By 1984 the news media had become more savvy about selecting what they would and would not report. Editors and producers had learned that showing demonstrations, especially those involving violence, had the potential to encourage others to demonstrate and possibly, God forbid, start a movement. To my knowledge, not one subsequent news program on that or any other station reported the Moscone Center story or showed that clip again. It was as if the demonstration and the beatings had never happened.

A little after noon I was being interviewed about my support for Senator Hart by an anchor at the station on which I’d seen the clip. I said as much about my candidate as I could squeeze into the short time allotted between commercials, then, during a break, I asked the anchor why her station had suppressed the news of the beating of demonstrators by the police. She was obviously aware of it, because she looked extremely uncomfortable. Finally she said, “The producers believe they’re being more responsible by not showing it.”

I said, “It’s news. You need to show it.” She disagreed. When we came back from the commercial, she marshaled all her skills as an interviewer to make sure that she retained control of the conversation until my segment was over. But her vigilance was unnecessary. I wasn’t there to embarrass the news media. I was there to tell people why I thought Senator Hart would be a great president. I had felt compelled to mention the news suppression off air only because I was hoping to appeal to her conscience and possibly get her to air the clip. Ha! Color me naïve.

Senator Hart lost his bid for the 1984 Democratic nomination to Walter Mondale. The former vice president had had years to solidify his intraparty following, which, along with his “Where’s the beef?” commercial, made Mondale’s nomination inevitable. In
hindsight, I doubt that it would have mattered who won the Democratic nomination in 1984. Saint Peter probably couldn’t have defeated the popular Republican incumbent, President Ronald Reagan.

Of course I had known there was a chance Hart might not win, but I had never allowed myself to think about that as a possibility. Gary Hart was going to be inaugurated in 1985. Period. When that hope vanished, I went back to Idaho and vowed to stay out of politics—a vow I didn’t keep. I would be drawn into politics again and again by my joy in finding common purpose with other Americans who loved their country as much as I did, who had come to politics not out of fear, hatred, or greed but because they wanted to make the world better. I did take one thing away from the Hart campaign that no defeat will ever diminish: the friendship of more than a few exceptional people. The time I spent on the campaign trail in 1984 had made me stronger for the battles that lay ahead in Idaho.

I
n spite of the road fight I was thankful to be living at Robinson Bar. In the spring I loved watching the “reveal” as melting snow uncovered new life pushing from every inch of ground and from every branch and bush. In the fall I reveled in the golden glory of the aspens and the orange shimmer of kokanee salmon in the rivers and creeks. I took pleasure in seeing the stars reflected in the pool as twinkles of light that scattered in patterns with every ripple. I was reassured by the rhythm of the seasons that I experienced with all my senses. I felt renewed by all the living things that grew, grazed, flew, swam, and hibernated at different times of the year. When the negativity of the road fight threatened to engulf me, I could always find comfort in some small gift proffered by nature, almost as if in consolation.

After the quiet title decision in our favor, I was eager to get back to a more positive frame of mind. Before the trials I had always believed that people were inherently good. Now that the battle was over, I longed to rediscover my faith in human nature. But Rick seemed unable to let go of his belief that justice had not been sufficiently served. He turned his attention to the Forest Service
official who had encouraged the commissioners to declare our road public. I agreed with his assessment of the man’s wrongdoing, but I was weary of living in an adversarial atmosphere. Wasn’t it enough that we had won? Apparently it wasn’t. Rick obtained a transcript of the official’s testimony and pored over it. Then he called me over, held up the papers triumphantly, and pointed out at least eight instances of what he viewed as perjury. I could see that he was excited about the possibility of retribution, but I didn’t relish the prospect of yet another battle. I was excited about life after litigation. When Rick asked me to go to Challis with him to file charges and request that the new county attorney prosecute the official for perjury, I balked.

“You don’t have to be a party to the case,” Rick said. “The People will be the plaintiff. All you have to do is be a witness.”

He kept after me until I agreed.

“All right,” I said, climbing into his truck. “But this is absolutely the last time I’ll testify in this matter.”

As it turned out, neither of us would testify in this matter. I was about to learn Lesson 4 in my hopefully soon-to-be-ended legal education: prosecutorial discretion can trump justice. You and three witnesses can apprehend a killer standing over a bleeding dead body with a smoking gun in his hand and the bullet holes in the body a perfect ballistic match to the aforementioned gun. If the prosecuting attorney chooses not to prosecute, the killer walks.

The Custer County magistrate went as far as issuing a subpoena for the official to respond to the allegations, but the county prosecutor declared a conflict, and the Idaho attorney general ultimately declined to prosecute.

Hearing that the official had been transferred to another state was good enough for me, but it wasn’t good enough for Rick. He spent a substantial part of each day in his rocking chair staring out the window, tamping and refilling his pipe, and complaining
about the unfairness of prosecutorial discretion. I understood his frustration with the capricious nature of the judicial system, but we had prevailed in that very judicial system. Why couldn’t he be happy with our victory and move on?

I didn’t know enough at the time to diagnose it, but it’s possible that Rick was suffering from depression, and that my attempts to be cheerful and encourage him to move on at my pace made him feel even more frustrated. What I did know was that Rick’s state of mind was casting a pall over everything I had loved and appreciated about him. I began to turn in the direction of seeing my children more often, songwriting, recording, and other activities that I hoped would restore peace and joy to the forefront of my life.

I
n the early eighties, alternately isolated from the world and in the thick of it, I bridged the gap by listening to news reports. As the eighties rolled out, I found myself more in the thick of it than not. To recap:

On January 21, 1981, while Ronald Reagan was rolling up his newly inaugurated presidential sleeves to deal with a variety of responsibilities affecting humankind around the world, I was deciding such things as when to haul water from the creek and what wax to put on the children’s skis.

President Reagan’s responsibilities would include freeing hostages in Iran; ending a strike by air traffic controllers; invading a tiny Caribbean island called Grenada; bonding with the United Kingdom’s prime minister, Margaret Thatcher; recovering from an attempt on his life; deregulating the financial market; promoting trickle-down economics; and reducing government spending except for “Star Wars,” the Strategic Defense Initiative that he told us would prevent nuclear obliteration of the United States by the Soviet Union.

I turned forty on February 9, 1982. That same year I recorded my
One to One
album, performed in concert, and filmed a performance and interviews in Austin for a video I released that year, also titled
One to One
. I traversed the continent between California and New York to spend time with my children, act on the stage, and appear on TV. I traveled to Boise to meet Rick for court appearances and lawyer meetings. Back at home I strategized with my husband, composed letters seeking congressional help, and wrote songs.

The quiet title trial alone might have filled 1985, but when producers Laura Ziskin and Sally Field asked me to score and write songs for
Murphy’s Romance
, and the director, Martin Ritt, offered me a small role in the film, how could I say no? The score featured my piano, a string quartet, and the saxophone of David Sanborn. David Campbell did the orchestration. Lou Adler produced the soundtrack album for
Murphy’s Romance
, which as of this writing has yet to be released. The score and songs took quite a bit of time to create; the acting role, considerably less. Don’t blink or you’ll miss my moment as Tillie. Later that year director Rick Rosenthal cast me in
Russkies
as the mother of a twelve-year-old boy played by Joaquin Phoenix, then called Leaf Phoenix. My mother played my character’s mother. The film was scheduled to be shot in Key West, Florida. When I went on location the children stayed in L.A. with Charlie. Rick remained in Idaho.

In 1986 Charlie became involved in a project that required him to be in Florida for an extended period of time. To keep the children from having to change schools, he asked if I’d take over as the resident parent in L.A. during the 1986–87 school year. Rick had never made any secret of his loathing for L.A. and declined to join me, but he did agree to the arrangement and promised to travel back and forth for what he referred to as conjugal visits.

The intricate travel dance in which my husband, my ex-husband, and I were engaged did nothing to ameliorate the problems developing between Rick and me. The range of the dance
increased in 1986 when Sherry asked me to come to New York as much as possible during the last months of a difficult pregnancy in which she was confined to bed. Traveling back and forth between New York, L.A., Idaho, and London—where Louise was living—I racked up thousands of frequent flyer miles. I was forty-four when I became a grandmother on October 24, 1986.

When I held my grandson for the first time I nuzzled his little face, counted his fingers and toes—ten, twenty, yes, all there!—and pronounced him, with no bias whatsoever, the handsomest baby in the world. I held him long enough to mutually imprint that we were family, then I reluctantly gave him back to his mother. Sherry settled the baby in a comfortable position for both and then posed a question with so much tact that I would have recommended her for a position in the State Department had she not just taken on an eighteen-year commitment.