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Heartbroken Scaggs Family Speaks Out Against Heroin
Musician calls drug that killed son `S.F. plague' Sitting in his South of Market recording studio, veteran rocker Boz Scaggs occasionally pauses to wipe tears from his eyes as he talks about his son, Oscar. ``This is a parent's worst nightmare. It's as though there were an explosion and everything was blown to smithereens. There is nothing left of the world as I knew it.'' Scaggs' voice is calm, but his face is drawn and haggard. Twelve days ago, on New Year's Eve, Oscar, 21, died of a heroin overdose in the Mission District's decrepit Hotel Royan. In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle, Scaggs, 54, broke his silence for the first time since Oscar's death to convey a father's feelings of loss, frustration and anger. He also wants to use his celebrity to warn about what he calls ``the plague of heroin threatening San Francisco.'' Being the son of a famous rock musician was no insulation against heroin abuse for Oscar Scaggs, his father says. ``He went to some of the better schools in some of the better neighborhoods, so in that way he was privileged,'' Scaggs concedes. ``But he was a San Francisco kid. He lived his life all over this town. He hung out in the park, he was a skateboarder, he played PAL league baseball and basketball. It would be a mistake to view Oscar as a kid who grew up spoiled and wayward because he didn't have grounded values.'' Boz and Carmella Scaggs were married in 1971. They divorced in 1980 and were awarded joint custody of their children. Oscar and his younger brother, Austin, split their time between their parents' San Francisco homes. Though stable, the Scaggses' lives as part of the city's music and nightclub scene were a far cry from the squeaky-clean American ideal. And there were strains in the family's life. Though popular, Oscar never excelled in school. At an early age, he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, and he often had trouble reading and processing oral information. He changed schools several times and never found his niche -- but neither, his mother said yesterday in a telephone interview, did he ever give up. Asked if his own experience with drugs might have affected his ability to raise his children, Scaggs responds that his only drug since 1967 has been alcohol. ``At the most successful point of my career, I could have been termed an alcoholic because I used hard liquor every day, and at times it took control over me,'' he acknowledges. ``And Carmella and I were among a generation of people who used drugs and alcohol socially. That was in the '60s. It was part of the culture. As far as its being around in the presence of the boys, I would say emphatically no. There was no exposure on their part to any abuses at all on my part or Carmella's.'' Although the reports of Oscar Scaggs' death have focused on his famous father, Carmella Scaggs is suffering a mother's grief -- and anger as well. In a hushed, shaking voice, she called heroin abuse ``an epidemic that could happen to any mother's kid. When I was Oscar's age, it was the ultimate -- something you only read about. Nowadays, kids are sniffing it as easily as they're smoking marijuana.'' The fact that heroin is no longer ``the ultimate'' is one of the reasons for increased overdoses among young people today, says Millicent Buxton, a counselor at the Haight- Ashbury Free Clinic who tried to help Oscar Scaggs. It's seldom the hard-core addicts who die by overdose, but rather sporadic users and those trying to kick the habit whose lower resistance to the opiate pushes them into respiratory arrest. Oscar, who never used enough to suffer from physical withdrawal, belonged to the latter category, his father says. How did Oscar discover heroin? His father doesn't know. His mother, with whom Oscar was living at the time, initially sounded the alarm. Recalls Carmella Scaggs quietly, ``Oscar came to me in January of '98 and told me that he had tried heroin and was afraid he would have a problem with it. I was shocked. The next day we talked to Millicent Buxton, whom Oscar had been seeing since he was caught smoking marijuana in school. He was willing to do anything he could to get away from it.'' The next day, Oscar entered a program in Montana called Wilderness Treatment, where his mother and brother spent a week with him as part of his two months of rehabilitation. From there, Oscar spent time in a Louisiana drug treatment program, then asked to come back to San Francisco, where for three months he continued his treatment at the Sequoia Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Center on the Peninsula. Oscar emerged from his months of treatment, his father says, ``an alert, vital young man who was beginning to put together a reality of himself that he was pleased with and proud of. He was beginning to see a world that he could manage. But success is measured a day at a time. To get through a week is immense; to get through a month -- I've got a coin in my pocket that he gave me commemorating his first two months. It was a big celebration.'' But there were relapses, too, four to six during the course of the year. ``Oscar was working hard,'' his mother says. ``But there was always that urge, that tremendous call to try it again.'' Still, by the time autumn rolled around, the Scaggses were feeling that everything was going to be OK. Oscar seemed strong. He had a new girlfriend and a great job. Life was good. Then came the unmistakable signs of another relapse. His father remembers the last time he saw Oscar, two days before Christmas. ``He was in a bad mood, tired and depressed,'' Scaggs recalls, tears welling up in his eyes. ``All he wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch television. He said he just wanted to go to sleep because he had to work early the next morning. We later realized that he had been out all the night before using heroin and had probably had some earlier in the day.'' A week later, Austin called to tell his father that Oscar was dead. In the shell-shocked aftermath of Oscar's death, Scaggs says he has resolved to use his celebrity to warn kids and parents about the heroin epidemic. ``These dealers are selling death,'' Scaggs says, his eyes flashing with anger and grief. ``Kids need to be given the means to defend themselves. They've got to know that they're under attack so they can take care of each other. ``I know there are only so many public resources, but there are priorities, and perhaps it's time to rearrange those priorities. The city of San Francisco that we love and call our own is getting a very dirty reputation. My son is like many other sons, and there are going to be more deaths until we respond as a community. Heroin is far more seductive and lethal than other addictions. It's the most dangerous, unpredictable and volatile drug of all.'' The huge tragedy has carried a small silver lining: Boz and Carmella Scaggs have made peace after years of estrangement. ``Carmella has been very supportive and helpful to me, and I've tried to support her in every way I can,'' Scaggs says. ``No mother could have loved her sons more. No mother could have given them the unqualified support that she did. She gave them her entire love.'' The Monday before he died, Oscar and Carmella won a trivia contest at a bar in North Beach. The weekly contest was one of their favorite shared activities, and Oscar was elated by the victory. ``He felt great. The day that he died, he left the house smiling and happy,'' she says. ``I'll always remember watching him walking out the door, looking like a million dollars. `I love you, Mom,' he said. `I'll see you later.' We'll never really know what happened.'' She pauses, the words catching in her throat. ``The Monday after he died, we went back to win the trivia contest for him a second time. We're going again tonight, me and about 10 of his friends. And next Monday, too.'' If anything positive comes out of his family's loss, Boz Scaggs says, it will be the opportunity to reach out to other kids with addiction problems. It's the most fitting memorial he can think of for a young man who was always looking out for his friends. He was the kind of guy who'd spend his lunch break from his job at the Diesel clothing store on Union Street helping out a stranger with a stalled car, his friends remember. ``Oscar was quite a rich little character, quite a piece of work,'' Scaggs whispers sadly. ``He was unique. As we all are.''Contributed by: Neva Chonin
Contributor organisation: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Bread & Roses rules the Regency
If there's such a thing as the cholesterol of existence, it's thickening March's arteries with social events. Take last week. Thursday alone, there were two key fund-raisers. In the evening, Bread and Roses, the Larkspur-based nonprofit founded by the late Mimi Farina and dedicated to the healing powers of art, held their first major supper-club-style benefit at the Renaissance-inspired Regency Building in San Francisco. Headliner Boz Scaggs donated his talent for the evening. He shared the bill with jazz singer Clairedee, Dick Bright and his orchestra and magician Frank Olivier. This engagingly mixed bill of musical fare delighted the 250 guests - a sold-out house. "I think the impact of the Bread and Roses is significant," said the organization's board president Mark Nelson of Novato (attending with his wife Stacy). "It's a blessing to have people like this donating talent to allow us to raise significant revenues." Nelson said he hoped the take would be "something north of a couple hundred thousand, that will allow us to continue to run our programs. We produce 530 shows a year, with thousands of volunteers." Event chair Suzanne Badenhoop of Mill Valley, with her husband Guy Lampard, was also delighted with the turnout. "I think it it's an incredible combination of people," she said. "You've got the wonderful old-timers here who have been supporting the organization since the beginning. And there are a lot of new people who joined committees and helped make this a success." During his laid-back set of jazz standards and hits from his albums, Scaggs sang "How Long Has This Been Going On." And, as far as the history of Bread & Roses is concerned, he should know as well as anyone just how long that is. He's been involved from the beginning, performing at B&R's first major event, a star-studded show for San Quentin State Prison inmates on New Year's Day 1975. For 30 years, Scaggs has been a steady and selfless celebrity supporter. He was on the bills of Bread & Roses benefits at Berkeley's Greek Theater and performed at the B&R "Show of Stars" at San Quentin in 1993. In one of the most moving and memorable moments for the organization, he sang "My Funny Valentine" at Farina's memorial service in 2001 at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Scaggs told the crowd that Bread & Roses has been an artistic inspiration to him, sparking an interest in jazz standards that led to his 2003 album "But Beautiful." When Mimi asked him to play acoustically at B&R's 25th anniversary show at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco in 2000, he assembled a jazz combo led by pianist Paul Nagle, a departure from his usual electric band. "That was the beginning of a very pleasant tangent in my career," he said, noting that Nagle and his group, featuring saxophonist Eric Crystal, a B&R volunteer, also accompanied him at last Thursday night's 30th anniversary show. Jazz singer Clairdee opened for Scaggs and joined him for his encore. She's a new volunteer performer, playing her first B&R institutional show at a senior citizens center earlier this year. "There's nothing like it to see the smiles on the faces of those beautiful people," she said. Beautiful people included: Mark Buell of Bolinas, who was the evening's auctioneer; Doug McConnell, a Corte Madera resident and host of "Bay Area Backroads" (attending with his wife Kathleen Taft); Skipper Henderson and Susan and Dennis Gilardi, all of Larkspur; Doug and Mary Anne Ferguson, Mimi and Peter Buckley, Kristi Denton Cohen and Tom Cohen, Nancy and Richard Robbins, Jan Yanehiro and Robert Yves, all of Mill Valley; Sue and George Bull of Kentfield; Lana Severn and Scott Carter, and Mike and Randy Groza, all of Fairfax; Marty Rubino, president and publisher of the Marin IJ, and his wife Gayle Peterson, of Novato; Ernie Rizzuti, and Melissa Prandi and Jack Damato, all of San Rafael; Robin Hudnut of Tiburon; and Kathryn Norris and David Lusterman of San Anselmo.Contributed by: By Leslie Harlib, IJ columnist
Contributor organisation: Marin Independent Journal
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