Newsom Clemency
You want to know what happened. These two pieces of s**t went on a crime spree. Robbed people all night at gunpoint. Jim had just finished a gig, was loading equipment and these two guys come up and rob them at gunpoint. After they take the money, they go to pistol whipping the other guy, Jim says we already gave you all our money, asks them to stop beating up his friend. They laughed and shot him dead.
Jim was a friend of mine. I had not seen him for a long time after having moved to Texas in 1993 where I did my residency. In 1995 I was in Sacto visiting the folks, and was at my cousins place, getting some clothes that he had become too fat to wear anymore. We were sitting around on the porch of his current domicile, a nice, restored 75 year old duplex in mid-town, had a Murphy bed in living room. My friend of over 10 years, Jim Pantages, who I had not seen in about a year and a half, walked up. Asked how he was, where he was going, on his way home. Turns out he lived right next door to my cousin in the other half of the duplex, and he was very proud of this new tattoo he had. Treble clef surrounded by a whole note, he was a musician after all. It was pretty cool, nice color greenish blue in it. I said it was cool, but I would not get a tattoo. What is there that I would want to wear the rest of my life, right?
About a week later, after returning to Texas, I got a call from my mom, she tells me to sit down, then tells me Jim had been shot and killed by a couple of criminals out robbing people the previous night. Jim had just finished a gig, and was killed while he and Spider were loading equipment. Was a big group of us that hung out together, and I got to talking about it with my brother a day or two after he was murdered. I said I had never had any interest in getting a tattoo, but I wanted to get that one that Jim got right before he was killed. They caught the perps when they used Jim's credit card where one of the guy's girlfriends worked, lucky they were stupid. Turns out, several people had the same idea, and at the end of summer in 1995, went to the same tattoo artist and about a dozen of us got that tat. Well, not exactly, I got a mirror image of it, as Jim had it less than a week and died, so I figured I did not want the same thing exactly. Over that labor day weekend, there were a few benefit concerts, he did know most of the musicians in town after all, and now there is a Jim Pantages Scholarship Fund at El Camino HS in Sacramento. That is how I ended up with a tattoo.
Since that time, I met a couple who were robbed at an ATM, by the same guys that night. They were forced to take the max out, $300 or whatever it is. Guy had the good sense to throw the money one way and run the other, the murderers in question shot at them and luckily missed. We had a mutual friend, Doug Hanna. They told me about it when we met going out for drinks a few years after it happened. Neither of them knew Jim.
I happened to have a guy who worked at channel 13 with Jim for years come in as a patient, probably around 2006. I notice he works at the TV station when looking at his paperwork, mentioned I knew a guy who used to work there. I said Jim Pantages and the guys eyes get big and he says, "He was my best friend." Turns out he and Jim were both into music. TV station gives you access to a lot of equipment that for a musician is apparently like the proverbial kid in the candy store. Talked to him for hours, lucky he was last one, coming in after work. Small world.
I was talking to a patient at the hospital in 2017, she remembered that deal with Jim well enough that she remembered his name, last name anyway.
Jim was a goofy, charming, handsome young man. He was the most gregarious person I have ever known in my life. He was a musician, playing somewhere around the area often. As a consequence of this, he knew a LOT of people, it sort of seemed like he knew everyone sometimes. I am quite confident you could not find a single person that knew him and did not like him, and you would find a fair number that would tell you Jim was their best friend. I still cry about it sometimes, now for example. My mother was crying when we talked about Crater being granted clemency. This guy was offered a plea deal at the time of the trial by the DA that was similar to what he is being given now and turned it down. He was convicted of murder with special circumstances. He shot at the people at the ATM and missed. He does not deserve clemency.
You can bet I will be writing letters to the parole board and Gavin Nuisance about this. That horrible excuse for a human being is going to be running for President of the United States before too long. God help us all if he manages to win.
