Jim Colyer

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on December 29, 1945. Famous people with whom I share a birthday are Mary Tyler Moore and Andrew Johnson, the only president besides Bill Clinton to be impeached. I grew up 15 miles east of Louisville in Middletown. School began for me in the fall of 1952. I hated school, everything about it. My first grade teacher grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me because I tried to work a puzzle which was too hard for me without first asking. She was a dominatrix. She had two huge dogs which she prized, and maybe that is why I hate dogs to this day. Anyway, I went through grade school and high school without opening my mouth. I sat and waited for the bell to ring at three o'clock so I could go home and listen to rock & roll records on my small turntable. I bought Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson. Only in my senior year did I find a means of expressing myself publicly. It was 1964, the year of The Beatles. I latched on to them. I looked in the mirror and saw John Lennon. If I had no talent and was too lazy to work, at least I could grow my hair. My hair became my vocation as I sat up half the night trying to write songs. My mother pulled me out of bed each morning by my arm. She was determined that I would graduate from high school. I strolled through commencement like a zombie in that silly cap and gown. The cap crushed my Beatle hairdo. Thank God it was over!

Little did I know, it was only beginning! President John Kennedy was assassinated during my senior year. This set off a tumultuous chain of events which took 15 years to run its course. The Vietnam War, race riots, illegal drugs, religious fanaticism, women's liberation, homosexuality and the political corruption of Watergate piled wave upon wave. I plowed through my 20s. I got an Associate degree from Lindsey Wilson College in central Kentucky in 1967. I was majoring in English. For the first time, I was taking an interest in literature. I was reading novels and grappling with European history. I thirsted for knowledge. I was eligible for the draft and like other young men, confused about Vietnam. The war made no sense. Nor did the draft. We were told we were in Vietnam to contain Communism. I had trouble understanding what a Communist was. No man could look at another and recognize him as a Communist. The isolated geography of Vietnam was a problem. It lay behind the Philippines on the map. It did not jut out like the Korean peninsula. It was hard to get to and hard to defend. The draft was hard to justify. Something in me was saying no man had the right to take another man off the street and put him in a war against his will. Nevertheless, the draft was real. You went when you were called or risked the chance of being sent to prison. After getting a third year of college as an English major, my draft papers came. My education was without direction, and I went into the Army in October, 1969. I took basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. After advanced training in radio school, I received orders for Germany. I recall standing in formation and looking at those orders. What a relief! By 1970, most of America had turned against the war, and Richard Nixon was slowly pulling troops out. Vietnam was becoming something that people wanted to forget. I set out for Germany. I had studied German for two semesters and knew a few words. Once in Frankfurt, I readily found that the prostitutes spoke fluent English. I avoided them. I was thinking of the girl I left behind. I knew it was over but consoled myself with false hope. I did not care for Germany. It was dark and depressing. Buildings were drab. It was like going back to the Middle Ages. I ended up in a nuclear platoon. Over my head! German beer was very potent, and I drank too much. By the time I received my discharge, America had changed. Hippie life had become a norm with young people. A grass roots religious movement was sweeping the country as baby boomers searched for answers in the aftermath of war. They looked to Buddhism and various forms of mysticism. Cults sprang up, and I got involved with Jesus freaks. We attended a Pentecostal church, spoke in tongues and wrote gospel songs. Jesus Paid My Debt came from this period and to this day, I regard the essence of the New Testament as ultimate reality.

In late 1973, I recorded a song called Long Live Rock & Roll. It was a tribute to what was then 20 years of rock & roll. I pressed 1,000 copies in Nashville and mailed them across the country. I would hear from that song in 1981 while working for the State of Tennessee. The people who had the publishing on Long Live Rock & Roll called to say Elvis Presley had recorded my song and that RCA had released it on an 8-record set called Elvis Aron Presley. I was ecstatic! Wasn't this what I had dreamed of? I went to a record shop and bought the vinyl set. I took it home and played it only to be disappointed. It was my title, and I was credited as the writer, but it was not my song. It is hard to say what it was. The band was jamming, and Elvis was groaning in the background. My father said it was my song. I knew it was not. We argued. It makes a funny story now, but it was all secondary to the fact that making a record gave me new hope. I could do things. What next? I decided to finish college with help from the GI Bill. I had a plan. I had the idea of being a librarian since I had read a variety of books by this time and wanted to be around them. It did not occur to me that I did not have the temperament of a librarian. I was a bull in a china closet. But I had to do something. I finished my Bachelor's Degree in English at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky. Nearly all my courses were independent. I wrote papers and took them in. I studied Greek drama, Shakespeare and the British Romantic poets. I was out of my mind but graduated and moved to Nashville to pursue a Master's Degree in Library Science from Peabody College. Peabody is now part of Vanderbilt University, and I am living in an apartment complex at Vanderbilt 34 years later as I edit this bio. It is hard not to believe in full circles. I got the MLS and took a library job at Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, east of Nashville off Interstate 40. It was a high school. For someone who hated school, I could not get enough. I was in my early 30s, and working with teenagers gave me a sense of responsibility. I quit drinking and tried to hold myself as an example for young people. I put on the same uniform I had worn in the Army. It was not easy. I was neither a soldier nor a librarian by nature. These were things I was caught up in from my youth. My second year at Castle Heights, the songwriter in me came out. I put together a band composed of students, and we recorded an album with my friend Bill Davis. I met Bill while attending Peabody. He was a music major with ambitions of writing serious music. He would make quotation signs with his fingers when he talked about "serious music." Our album was centered around a song I wrote called Phoenix. We called the album Rising from the Ashes. I was fascinated with the idea of resurrection, rising from one's ashes. I liked comebacks, and comeback songs became a category within my catalog. I came to suspect that I was knocking myself down so I could have the opportunity of making still another comeback. The album left me closer to the students than to the faculty, and I received a pink slip. I could no longer do the military thing. I was 32. Jimmy Carter was president, and times were good. Disco music was on fire. ABBA was on the radio with Dancing Queen, and The Bee Gees burned with Night Fever. I wanted a girl friend. I wanted to get married. I bought a house in Lebanon and moved in alone. By October, 1978, I had another library job, this one with the State of Tennessee in Nashville. Jesus! I was not cut out to be a librarian!

Fate stepped in! While at Castle Heights, I fell in love with the wife of a faculty member. We paired off every night in the cafeteria. We gazed dreamily into each other's eyes and confided our feelings of alienation. "We are under siege." she said. Her hair was dark, and her eyes were blue. Her skin was seductively pale. She reminded me of Madame Bovary from Gustav Flaubert's novel: the tragic, lonely wife waiting for some mystery lover to whisk her away to a better place. I wanted to. I thought it was going to happen. I contemplated it for two years. There was one huge obstacle. She had two young boys, and it was not in me to take someone else's kids. The spell broke. I bought the house and lay in bed every night for 10 months grieving over this woman. Her husband finally told me she had a boy friend, a disc jockey from Knoxville. There would be a divorce, but she was not moving in with me. The pain cut like a knife. I vowed that if I ever became enamored with another married woman, I would strike like lightning!

It did not take long. I went to work at the Tennessee State Library. My assistant sat at the desk behind me. It was Karen, the future mother of my son. We got to know each other quickly. She was married to a man who worked on another floor of the library. It was the same story, another unhappy wife. She said that the week before, she had loaded her car and driven around the block only to return because she had nowhere to go. Karen wanted a house. Her husband wanted to drink up their money and run to Florida every time he got a chance. She wanted a baby. He did not want one because he had a child by a previous marriage. Karen and I sat side by side, checking in serials. The chemistry was strong. We rubbed our legs together. Other employees noticed. Ten days after I took the job, Karen was in my bed in Lebanon. We set up a pattern of Thursday nights. She told her husband that she was selling Avon when she was driving to Lebanon to be with me. One night, we met on a corner by the library to go to a movie. A fellow worker drove by, and we were sure he saw us. We saw a Woody Allen movie that night called Interiors, possibly his worst. Then things came to a head. I told Karen to leave her husband and move in with me. I had a house and promised her a baby. She was not sure. We lay on the floor in my living room after sex. She cried and said she needed six months to think it over. Her mascara ran. I laughed and told her she looked like Alice Cooper. Six months was too long! I insisted that she move in right away. She said she would do it after Thanksgiving. She spent Thanksgiving with her detested in-laws and later recalled thinking, "This is the last time!" Karen's daddy rented a U-Haul and moved her belongings to my house the next day while her husband was at work. It was Friday, and we fell asleep that night in each other's arms. It would be that way for a while. We did the right thing.

Confrontation with the husband was inevitable. He was waiting for us Monday morning, pacing on the sidewalk outside the library. We clashed over the next few weeks. The climax came in the lobby of the library. It got physical! He was bigger; I was more determined. I had him by the hair with his head down. I was a matador; he was a bull. We inched toward the stairwell. A wrong move, and we might have gone over!

I heard a bellowing voice! "What in the hell is going on here?!" I looked up. It was the head librarian, a crusty, cigarette-smoking dyke. Behind her, library personnel were peeking through the main doors, their necks stretching to see the fight. It was over. Fisticuffs are not expected from library-types, and I was given two-weeks notice. Karen and I left together, and I never used my degree again.

I had been through Las Vegas the previous summer and got the idea of finding work there. Karen and I loaded my Ford Maverick and left for Vegas on Flag Day, June 14, 1979. We drove west on I-40. A couple of nights in motels, and we found ourselves cruising down Las Vegas Boulevard. We rented an apartment and looked for work. It was useless, at least for me. The trip gradually turned into a tour of the American west. After a month in Vegas, we retreated to Nashville. Karen got her divorce although it took a year because her idiot "husband" contested it. He sued me for "alienation of affection." I could not believe a lawyer would take such a ridiculous case. He found one stupid enough. Karen and I were married in April, 1980. I came in one morning from working at the U.S. Post Office, and she informed me that it was time. I was going to wear bluejeans, and she made me change into slacks. We drove to the courthouse in Lebanon. A woman married us, and I tipped her $20. One picture was taken of Karen and me kissing. I felt no different now that we were married than I had when we were living together.

These were years of travel, my 30s. I was fascinated with great places. Suddenly, I was free to go to places I had heard about all my life. My galleries are filled with pictures. Karen took them while I wrote papers. After a while, I had that full circle feeling. I was repeating as prices rose.

Karen and I began watching Dallas in the fall of 1979. It sounds crazy but when J.R. and Sue Ellen became parents on the show, I realized that I was going to be a father. I never thought it possible before. Karen and I knew we would be parents. We also believed we would have the boy she so desired.

I collected books on human sexuality. I had about 20. I studied diagrams of the female reproductive organs. I learned about ovaries, Fallopian tubes and the uterus. I visualized my sperm cell working its way through Karen's tubes to fertilize an egg.

Karen removed her IUD (Intra-Uterine Device) and began trying to get pregnant. Things sometimes go awry, and it takes a couple of tries to get them right. That is how it was. Karen was pregnant by late 1982. In March, 1983, she called me where I was working as a printer for the State. She was at the doctor's office. There had been a miscarriage. I recall walking through the streets of Nashville with tears in my eyes. That night, Karen and I hugged in the kitchen, and I said we would try again. She must have gotten pregnant the second time around June 11. Michael Brandon Colyer was born 9 months later on March 11, 1984. As it turned out, the pregnancies were so close that only one of the babies could be born. It was hard to understand and hard to explain. It had to be God's will! I came to feel that God brought me to Nashville for the purpose of becoming Michael's father. Years later, I felt He brought me back to help Michael after he got older. Karen and I divorced, and I ended up living in my parents' basement in Louisville. But I lived with my son over a year, long enough to establish a permanent relationship. He never forgot me.

I turned 40 in my parents' basement. It seemed like my life was over. I would be in the basement 12 years: 1985-1997. We perceive time differently after 40. It becomes a running facet. Days, months and years slip by with little meaning. We approach 50. We watch ourselves turn gray and feel our strength ebb. We despise the music of the day and have no interest in television. We long for our youth and are envious of the younger generation.

"I must go on!" I wrote that line on New Year's Eve, 1985. Everything since has grown from that seed. Michael came first. I was virtually broke but started going to him when I could afford it. There was no pattern. I drove to Nashville when something in me said the time was right. I would get a motel and do things with my son or bring him to Louisville. My parents sometimes went with me. I would have been on the street without them. It was the same for Karen. Her parents built an apartment onto their house for her and Michael.

The basement years passed! I read books and wrote papers. I watched movies. I revived ABBA. I went to Las Vegas and to Sweden. Bill Clinton was elected president, then reelected. It was 1997, and there was a 70s revival. I had an environmental song called Save The Planet which I advertised in a local music paper. A lady in southern Indiana answered, and I went to her house. We made a tape in her living room. I continued to believe in that song and finally recorded it in Nashville at Direct Image Studio. I sang it. For such a song to gain acceptance, we need to be in a liberal era. A War on Terror is not a favorable climate. Hopefully, we will win the peace.

I ended up back in Nashville in July, 1997, in an apartment on Music Row. I began writing songs like crazy. Girl songs! It was the Shania Twain era. In retrospect, it seemed inevitable. God brought me back to Nashville for my son. He was 13, and it was better to be close so I could go to him when he needed me. We began having meals and seeing movies together. We talked about life, school, girls and the future. We had many conversations riding in the Nissan truck which I bought on Broadway.

I was singing my songs on public access TV in Louisville and recording girl singers with Kenny Royster in Nashville. My biggest challenge was trying not to fall in love with the singers. Songs poured out of me: God Given Talent, Hard Earned Love, I Feel So Country, All Roads Lead To You, Love Me Just A Little, I Looked Twice!, Put Me On The Spot!, A Man Is A Man & The Truth. I was a genius in my own mind as the 20th century faded into the 21st. I did karaoke. I sang the songs of the big four: Elvis, The Beatles, ABBA and Shania. Being older, it did not bother me to get up and sing a Shania song. I was writing for women anyway. I tried not to be affected by 9/11. It was impossible not to be, but I have learned to keep an eye on the future. I took Michael to Florida while he was still in high school. I took him to New York City and to Washington, D.C. in his third year of college. We went to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon in 2007, and to California and back to New York in 2009.

Jim Colyer
Originally written 2005

Michael, Karen and I mean to return to Las Vegas for a Shania Twain concert. Shania signed a 2-year deal with Caesar's Palace. Her shows begin in December, 2012. We will have to get tickets from Ticket Master and make other arrangements. We may make a day trip to Mt. Charleston. This resort is 35 miles northwest of Vegas. John C. Fremont named it for his wife whose hometown was Charleston, South Carolina.


I returned to Las Vegas for three months: March 7 to June 8, 1993, with the intention of adding to the experience I had in 1979. I dug in at the Tropicana Club at the south end of Las Vegas Boulevard. I relied on the strip trolley for transportation. I wanted to hang out. Bill Clinton was America's new president, and we were going through a 70s revival. It was an opportune moment for escaping my parents' basement where I had held up for over seven years, It was a chance to fend for myself, to procure my own food and to wash my own clothes. I flew into McCarran Airport from Minnesota, my first flight in 15 years. Las Vegas was the same in many ways, and in some ways it had changed. The Ali Baba Apartments were gone. The Dunes was coming down, and the old MGM Grand was now Ballys. Las Vegas, or the Meadows, was still the entertainment capital of the world! The Strip is a work of art! Unfortunately, wind, heat, crowds, traffic and noise ensure that it is part heaven, part hell. You pump up the things you like, economize and get the best deals. I finally saw rain.

The castle Excalibur was the attraction. It exploited medieval themes: King Arthur and Robin Hood. I patronized restaurants in the Medieval Village on the second level. A belly dancer did her thing. The Excalibur, Tropicana, Luxor and the MGM Grand formed a new hot corner. The trend was toward family entertainment.

Downtown, the Golden Goose Casino was a topless joint. The sign was still there, an historic fixture on the Glitter Gulch landscape. The sign faces both directions. Above it, the goose revolves on its nest of golden eggs. Cowboy Vegas Vic and cowgirl Sassy Sally patrol adjacent sides of the street.

Caesar's Palace is hard to top. The Forum Shops at Caesar's price themselves into the luxury class. The replica of Michelangelo's David (of David and Goliath) presides over Appian Way as the Italian Renaissance imposes itself on the Roman Empire. I ventured into the pool area behind Caesar's, romantic under the moonlit sky. Next door, the Mirage showed off its erupting volcano. The casinos are awful: men at the tables, women on the machines. Expressionless zombies! One must refrain from drinking and gambling if he is to enjoy Las Vegas.

It was the production shows which interested me: leggy, statuesque showgirls. Ballys' Jubilee! was the hot ticket. It was the biggest show on the Strip and had the best showgirls. I took Jubilee's backstage tour but was disappointed to have a male dancer as a guide. Still, I gained insight. One thing which impressed me was the size of the stage. From the stage, the seating area looked small. Jubilee! is a dinosaur, a glamorous throwback to the musicals of yesterday. It is a composite of Vaudeville, Broadway and classic Hollywood. It boasts of its nightly sinking of the Titanic. But the thrill is seeing all those long, shapely legs assembled in one place. 100 people make up the cast. The show is so lavish, it leaves you dazed. I got revenge for the tour when that same male dancer took a picture of me with one of the girls.

I saw Folies Bergere (Ber-share) at the Tropicana. Karen and I saw this show in 1979. This time, I took the backstage tour which was led by a former showgirl of 20 years. She must have been in the show we saw 14 years before. It was interesting to get behind the scenes, especially into the dressing rooms to see and handle the costumes. Some of them are heavy, and the girls have to be strong. I lingered briefly to talk to my showgirl. I asked if there were a pension plan for those who stayed 20 years. She said no, but they were nice and had given her this job. Folies Bergere was the oldest show in Vegas, going back to 1959.

Bare Essence at the Sands lived up to its billing as a "sexy, sizzling revue." All the shows create a sense of euphoria.

For Crazy Girls, the showroom at the Riviera provided some intimacy. I suppose my feeling of being hustled in and out derived from wanting to take those splendid calves and thighs home with me.

I made it to Arizona Charlie's for the Naughty Ladies review. It was good, old timey fun. High button shoes! For the finale, we paraded to "When The Saints Go Marching In."

The Elvis impersonator at Vegas World put on a complimentary show. He called himself E.P. King. I looked down on the city from the top of the building.

A promo ticket gave me access to Imperial Palace's antique cars.

I was scared of Death Valley in 1979. This time, I took the Silver Star Line tour. I rode shotgun in the van as we made stops at Dante's View and the Devil's Golf Course. The "golf course" is a dried lake with salt three feet deep. I tasted it. Death Valley is on the Nevada-California line.

The borax mined in Death Valley is a mineral used in soap. The 110 elements in chemistry make up the 3,000 minerals in geology. Minerals form three kinds of rocks: sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks, those laid down by water.

In Laughlin I took a ride on the Colorado River, 90 miles southeast of Vegas.

Returning to Louisville in order to rendezvous with Michael, I came east on I-40, the old Route 66: Kingman, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis and Nashville.

The strip is a short-lived thing like the Mall in D.C. I will show it to Michael as part of a western experience.

Click Carmen for SLIDESHOW.

The ladies are ranked #40 to #1. They appear in their prime.

CHICAGO June, 2011
Michael and I drove to Chicago for a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs. The Yankees won 4-3. They have won 3 out of the 5 times we have seen them. We found Wrigley Field on the north side of town after cruising by the Sears tower and along Lake Shore Drive. It was good to get on the road with my son.


CHICAGO November, 1974
I drove to Chicago to see Burton Cummings & The Guess Who. It was funny because the concert was in an auditorium and somewhat formal. I lit a cigar, and an usher came and made me put it out. I saw The Guess Who three times, 1974-75. Their music inspired me to return to school and get my degrees.


CHICAGO June, 1966
Cousin Larry and I were talking after having watched "The Avengers" on TV. We got the idea of driving to Chicago. We took off in the night. In Chicago we drove along Lake Shore Drive and saw State Street. We went to an old time burlesque show. We ran out of ideas and headed home. I had read Theodore Dreiser's novel, Sister Carrie, about a girl who went to Chicago to find work. One must have a mission if he is to travel. Chicago sits by Lake Michigan.

Michael and I returned to Atlanta, June 24, 2009. Michael drove, and we discussed Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and the Civil War on the way down. We headed for Stone Mountain State Park east of the city and rode the Skyride to the top. We saw the Atlanta skyline in the distance as Karen and I had.

We found Turner Field. Michael had been there. It was my first time. The Atlanta Braves were playing the New York Yankees and, of course, we are Yankee fans. We saw a classic game. Baseball at its best! The Yankees won 8-4, and I could not have written a better script. Joba Chamberlain got the win. Mariano Rivera got the save and struck out the side in the 9th inning. A-Rod got a bases loaded single to drive in the lead runs. Manager Joe Giardi's ejection sparked the Yankee rally. I like a manager who fights for his team. Turner Field is a modern, family-friendly ballpark and a tribute to America's #1 sport.


Michael and I drove to Atlanta and back on January 10, 2006. We went straight to the SunTrust Plaza. SunTrust Bank started in Atlanta and has its corporate office there. We went to the top floor of the building. There seemed to be SunTrust branches on every corner as we drove around town. SunTrust is the 9th largest bank in the country. It is in 8 southern states and Washington, D.C. It has 1,100 branches with assets of $88 billion and deposits of $55 billion. Michael and I talked about his job. He was thinking of working full time as a Financial Services Representative while SunTrust paid for his MBA. I wanted this trip to be oriented toward Michael's career. We meant to get a hotel but started going from place to place and realized we could see everything and be back in Nashville that night. We walked through town and spotted the CNN Center. We ate at Arby's inside. A guy in a shop told us Larry King did his show from New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Michael and I talked about Ted Turner. We crossed Centennial Olympic Park to the Georgia Aquarium. This aquarium opened in November and is the largest in the world. We saw thousands and thousands of fish. There were no great whites, but there were whale sharks that get as long as school buses. We drove through the suburb of Buckhead before heading up I-75 and I-24. We had a learning experience.


Karen and I spent Memorial Day weekend, May 28 and 29, 1983, in Atlanta. We took I-24 to Chattanooga and traveled I-75. We stayed two nights at the Red Roof Inn. We began with what was most typically Atlanta: the downtown area. We went to Peachtree Plaza, entered the Hyatt, the Omni and the World Congress Center. These are laden with shops, restaurants and convention halls. Next, we went to the Georgia State Capitol Building. The dome is done is gold leaf. The State Museum inside is strong in natural history. Karen said I would like Stone Mountain. A State Park. The carving in the granite makes it a southern Mt. Rushmore. The figures from left to right are Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. We rode the incline to the top. Sun-bathers were strewn on the rock as if it were a beach. The Atlanta skyline was in the distance. Our second day began with the Atlanta Zoo. Soon as we started along the walk, I felt an urge to take animal notes. Karen got some interesting photos. After some Major League Baseball with the Braves and Cubs, it was back to Nashville.


December, 1977 - Atlanta
Peachtree Street is the main thoroughfare in Atlanta. I visited Emory University and the Hartsfield International Airport. The buildings at Emory are gray and foreboding. The Atlanta airport is the second largest in the country. Nearly everyone changes planes there when flying to or from southern cities. Atlanta is more cosmopolitan than either Louisville or Nashville. I went to Atlanta Underground, a subterranean row of bars and boutiques, early in the morning. Everything was closed.