I met Mr. Geshen through playing open mics at Outta the Way Cafe. He and I played in a band for several months called Luisa and the Reverbs. Mr. Geshen was house guitarist on open mic night. The host was John Harbison, but Harbison had a band available to back up the various musicians/singers who performed. Mr. Geshen was the house lead guitarist, Gary Garvin was the house bassist, and Andy Conversano was the house drummer.

As a person Mr. Geshen was very peculiar. When I first met him, I wondered if he was mentally challenged because he had that certain look that such unfortunate souls have. But when I talked to him, I realized he was intelligent. Over time I realized he either had a mild form of psychosis or a severe personality disorder. He worked in a Safeway collecting shopping carts. Not exactly a professional, but he was the perfect tool for individuals with ulterior motives.

At the time, Geshen, Garvin, Conversano were members of Luisa and the Reverbs. The band leader was Luisa Rose who was managed by her husband, Ken Sleeman (aka, Ken Carpenter). I never thought of us as a true band in the sense that we were dedicated loyal members. Ken Sleeman always talked like we were a band, and I tried to be as loyal as I could, but I just viewed the band as a vehicle to start playing out more than I was. In fact, I ended up getting the band several gigs. Geshen, Garvin and Conversano were total moochers. They never attempted to get gigs. They just sponged off of the gigs that Luisa and I got, and they whined like babies if things didn't go their way. Of the three, Conversano was the least to complain, and the most reliable, but he never attempted to get gigs, although I felt he had plenty of connections.

Luisa Rose seemed like a decent person. She was blind, and looking back, I guess I assumed she was more talented than she really was, because of her blindness. It's a stereotype that's easy to fall into. Anyway, Luisa was nice on a personal level, but her husband, Ken Sleeman (aka, Ken Carpenter), was quite another story. Mr. Sleeman was what John Lennon once referred to as "Jew/WASP." Lennon obviously had a great deal of contempt for such people because they apparently claimed to be Christians but ignored the teachings of Jesus while following the bigoted racial Old Testament teachings of Deuteronomy, Numbers and Leviticus, which sought the utter destruction of all Gentiles. Ken was a bona fide Communist, and the first real pinko I had ever known on a personal basis. I'd seen them in the past pushing their propaganda literature in the streets of DC, or yelling pinko slogans at anti-war rallies, but I had never known any personally until Ken. It reminded me of the first male homosexual I ever met in real life (when I was 18), who was on acid at the time. In both cases, I thought "Someone is pulling my leg." But in both cases, they were the real deal. (For more information about Ken Sleeman and his Communist leanings, click here.)

(NOTE: I was with a teenage girl, about 17, when I met the gay guy on acid. "He frightens me," she said. I reassured her: "You don't have anything to worry about. I'm the one who should be frightened.")

Anyway, I met Mr. Geshen the first night time when I performed at open mic at Outta the Way Cafe. That place had some real freaks (a born again Christian minister who plays in a rock band, a Communist who manage his blind wife's singing career, a terrible musician who recorded in Nashville, and a guitarist for the house band on open mic night who looked mentally challenged). Mr. Geshen talked to me later and encouraged me to return and feel free to try new material. Within a couple months, Ms. Rose (Luisa) and Mr. Geshen (Scott) approached me and asked if I would play a few gigs with them. I had no other serious offers at the time, so I said yes. Scott was an eccentric, pudgy guy, but a fairly talented guitarist and singer. He had raw talented, and I liked that he could follow relatively complex chord changes. He was similar to myself in that regard. We both had the ability to retain relatively complex chord changes in our heads. Usually if he played the changes once, it was essentially memorized forever. Gary Garvin was quite a bit slower than Scott and I when it came to learning songs with complex chord changes, and it frustrated him that Scott and I were so quick on our feet. (For more information about Gary Garvin, click here.)

Luisa was a reasonably good lead vocalist, particularly on ballads, but she had problems singing harmony. In fact, she had a tendency get way beyond "pitchy" (to use the popular American Idle term). She would sometimes go into Never Never Land when singing a harmony part, so I had to keep her on a short leash on stage. Sometimes I would shout, "Sing unison," and she would sound okay. Mr. Geshen, on the other hand, sang great harmony. So in a weird way, we meshed somewhat. I worked with Luisa on harmony, and she improved, but it didn't come to her naturally.

Mr. Geshen and I were somewhat friendly, although he had a tendency to have temper tantrums at the drop of a hat, which made me want to stay away from him. I quickly learned I was dealing with three very strange people: a Communist, an unbalanced guitarist who looked mentally challenged, and a blind girl.