On a Mission: Suffering From Tunnel Vision

As the process of recording and mixing "Going For Broke" went on...the weeks turned into months...and the only thing I was really thinking about was just finishing the album. It was as though I was in a trance...operating on "automatic pilot" ...and I was doing whatever was necessary to accomplish that mission. I had always been very careful about how I conducted my business...and about who I allowed into my inner circle, and especially, who I had business relationships with...but I was so tired of the whole dealing thing, and I so desperately wanted to change my focus back to the one area of my life that I thought would provide me the opportunity to leave the drug business behind forever...my music...that I think for the first time in my life, I just wasn't paying attention to the changes that were happening all around me. I had been dealing for nearly twelve years by this time, and the business I had set up over all those years seemed to almost run by itself...like a well-oiled machine. In many ways, it had become a routine and a comfort-zone that had become very dangerous to me, because although my method of doing business hadn't really changed in years because it had always been so efficient and had kept me safe from consequences...the world I lived in HAD changed...and had I been paying more attention to those changes, instead of being so focused on the album...I would have recognized the need for me to make adjustments in many areas in order to remain safe. It was as if there were times when I totally forgot that what I was doing was against the law. With all the changes that were happening to the political climate in this country at that period...and the disintegration of the Counterculture mentality that had made everything in my life seem so natural and comfortable for so long...I really should have been paying more attention to what I was doing...not less. Complacency and arrogance had steadily crept into my business and my attitude...and my judgment began to suffer because I was always high, too. I failed to see the clear truth that my business was becoming more dangerous...and more difficult to maintain. For years, I had enjoyed a very steady and reliable group of customers who had never strayed...because our relationship was based on friendship and trust...as well as on the fact that I had consistently had the quality of product that they wanted...and those factors had always kept my market very secure. But as cocaine flooded the streets of America, and became the new drug of choice for many of my customers, I was suddenly faced with competition from many different places, and from many different people...including many of my old customers...who were now suddenly dealing on a much larger scale themselves...motivated by addiction and greed to cash in on the huge profits that were being generated by the explosion of cocaine's popularity. And most of my friends and customers knew each other...over many years they had met at parties I had thrown, or gigs that I had played. In the past, that had never been a problem...they had always respected my boundaries...but the changes in the marketplace...and their new addictions...had changed all of that. I started to lose my market as my customers started to deal with each other...bypassing me entirely as they all tried to increase their own profit margins. That had always been a totally unacceptable business practice...and something all of my people knew I wouldn't tolerate from them...and as long as I had been an exclusive source of quality product for them...it was a line that had never been crossed. Now that high-quality product was  available to most of my customers from many different sources...customer loyalty seemed to take a backseat to expediency. Price, and a willingness to extend credit had suddenly become the two most important factors to most of my customers...and the vast amounts of cocaine that were showing up everywhere meant that dealers seemed to be coming out of the woodwork...and were able to offer products to my customers at prices that even I couldn't compete with...even though I was much more established in the business than many of my new competitors. Extending credit became a necessity to staying in business, and extending credit for cocaine was a totally different game than it had been when marijuana had been the big seller. Somebody could easily find themselves unable to pay thousands of dollars that they owed for cocaine...because it was easy to blow thousands of dollars worth of cocaine with one bad business decision, or one party that got out of control. It often became a lot easier for people to find a new connection...than it was for them to pay off an unexpected drug debt that they were responsible for creating...and it wasn't long before the large amounts of money that were at stake began affecting close friendships and working relationships I had with people that I had known for years. I found myself under pressure to pay my suppliers for product I had fronted to very good friends and customers...but who had suddenly become unreliable...or who found themselves with serious drug problems and unable to pay...and that required me to exert real pressure on friends who weren't used to pressure...and who didn't like it very much. And I didn't like exerting it very much either...it had never been necessary in the past...and it felt very foreign to me. It quickly became apparent to me that with thousands of dollars at stake...people who had always been trustworthy and who had always kept their promises and their word...were suddenly strangers I couldn't count on to honor their promises anymore...and who had become experts at becoming unavailable when payments were due. Years of  friendship and cooperation turned to shit in the wake of full blown drug addiction. And shit always runs downhill. Many of my sources became less tolerant with me...because my tardiness began to affect their credibility, their credit lines, and their opportunities. It seemed to me that in a very short period of time...everything had changed...and the whole business was suddenly about the money. My payment schedules got much stricter, my credit lines got smaller, my opportunities diminished, and my market began to shrink...and what had once been a fairly routine exercise started to become really tedious, dangerous, and unpleasant work. And while all this was happening...my need for funding for the album was requiring me to maintain, if not increase, my earnings. As my obsession to finish the album started to get in the way of my better judgment, I found myself extending credit to people who I shouldn't have, and dealing with new people to make up for the old reliable customers who were no longer functioning with the integrity and efficiency I had come to expect from them. I was ignoring my own rules...and changing my own standards. I believed that I would only have to do that for a short period of time...because the album was almost finished. And in the process, I guess I forgot the fact that I had always been a prime target for the police...and that I had frustrated the authorities for years with my strict rules and operating procedures. Now, I was failing to pay attention to those very rules. People that at one time, I would have  chosen to not bring into my inner circle, because they operated with a different set of rules and standards than I did...standards which I considered unsafe and unacceptable...were now becoming necessary to my economic survival, and the album's completion. And I failed to notice the political climate in the country changing, too. I failed to notice the Nancy Reagan "Just Say No" policy was a reflection of a new zero-tolerance attitude about anything drug-related that was happening in America. The laws and standards for "probable cause" for police searches had switched dramatically...from the rights of the individual being paramount...to greater and greater freedom being given to the police to operate with impunity. New surveillance technologies and wiretap capabilities were developed at an unbelievable fast rate...and something was definetely changing in America. I couldn't identify it...but I could feel it. And yet, my own strict rules had relaxed greatly...at a time when they really needed to be tighter, if I was going to avoid legal consequences. I was just totally distracted with the album...and with my own drug problems clouding my judgment... I was also suffering from tunnel-vision...and an obsession to finish the album at all costs. I was about to find out that the cost would be very high...and that just because I had avoided getting arrested in the past...even though much of my life was totally illegal...did not mean that I was immune to that possibility...or that I was above the law.