Abbey Road

A lot of people I know, believe in random acts. That the universe, it’s galaxies, stars, our planet and even us as individuals are all here as the result of a chance explosion and the perfect storm of events that created our existence and all that we experience. I don’t agree. I don’t agree solely based on my experiences in life that I cannot define as random.

My chance meetings with icons I have been a fan of, or even worked with fall into this category. 

My childhood was filled with a good amount of joy and a lot of pain. I was a rather shy and insecure child. For the sake of this story, I only mention my upbringing to give the whole story a bit of context. 

At the age of six I fell in love with taking photos. This story starts when I was twelve. My Mom and I lived in a one bedroom flat at 65 Neville Court, on Abbey Road, in the St. John’s Wood portion of London. We were in the seven-story red brick building prominently featured in the infamous Beatles Abbey Road album cover. In fact the top right window, in the album cover belonged to an apartment on the floor I lived on. 

Our building sat directly opposite the EMI Recording Studios. A place where so many great hits had been made. For my birthday that year, I was gifted The Beatles blue and red albums and had no idea that our building and street were so famously displace on another album. 

What I did know, was who Paul McCartney was and that he still recorded at EMI. On occasion, coming back from school, I would spot him, just as he walked out of the Studios, with his collar turned up, walking quickly, as if not wanting to be seen. 

I would normally follow him all the way to his house on Cavendish Ave. I’d wait until he entered and closed him rainbow colored door and then I’d be off on my way.

Years later I directed a Yoko Ono video, which was her spoken word version of “Give Peace A Chance” https://vimeo.com/308645174. 

After a successful shoot, Yoko and her EP Steve invited me to dinner at Le Dome in LA. After a few drinks, I shared with Yoko my story of Abbey Road, to which she responded, “Gobi when they took that picture, I was hiding behind a tree.”

We then talked about how Stella McCartney had supplied clothes for Yoko’s video shoot. After which Yoko said, “Stella my little girl, I’m her aunty Yoko, but her father Paul, he’s a bastard”. Being one degree away from John and The Beatles felt surreal. 

There’s more. Years later I was a top selling real estate agent in Newport Beach and Irvine. In fact, in 1993 I sold the most expensive home in OC history. I didn’t really enjoy selling home, as I could safely say being a salesman wasn’t a passion for me. Making money was nice, but ultimately left me feeling empty. In that same year, I met an aspiring filmmaker who was a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn. She was also one of David Lynch’s ex-girlfriends. She would voice her frustration that ‘David’ hadn’t helped her producer any of her screenplays, to which I would tell her “no one is going to do anything for you, you have to do it yourself”. 

We had some musician friends who were very talented. I suggested we produce a spec music video for them and that I would pay for it on my credit cards. She agreed, as did they. I put 10k on my Amex, she directed, I produced and for the first time in my life, I found my passion. I wanted to become a filmmaker. I had grown up being a fan of movie greats like Spencer Tracey and Burt Lancaster. 

The music video we created turned out great, and since we gave the group an image, they got a development deal from David Massey at Sony.

I was over the moon. I suggested to my wife that I should quit selling real estate and that we should become a directing/producing team and that we would take over Hollywood, to which she said “No, there can only be one artist in our family and that’s me. I’m not going to let you step on my coat tails. You sell real estate and I’ll continue writing and directing”. 

Three months later I asked her and her mother for a divorce. Yes, I ask her Mother for a divorce as well. She was so neck deep into our relationship, I needed an escape from both. 

Dejected, I moved back to Orange County, thinking that my brush with my passion was over. 

A few months later, at a wine tasting at the Orange County Fairgrounds, I met an African American young lady who was a rap music video producer. We hit it off and started dating. Within a couple of months, I quit real estate and moved up to LA to live with her and started to work on every video she produced. 

I initially started off as a production assistant and within months, became a full-fledged producer. We ended up creating videos for Bone Thugs, Queen Latifah, Erykah Badu, Snoop, Dre, Ice Cube and eventually Tupac. 

I met Tupac through that same girl. He was something very special and completely different to any other artist I had worked with.  I like to say that he had a very strong spark of divinity running through his veins. 

He actually saw something in me that I don’t think anyone else had ever before. I ended up producing a bunch of his videos and directed a few as well. I convinced Tupac to start a production company with us and eventually he was able to get us a verbal three picture deal with New Line and Paramount. But then he was shot…. 

I was one of the first people at the hospital when he got shot and ended up sitting watch for 6 nights from 12 to 8am, amongst death threats, undercover FBI informants and a police force that didn’t want to offer him any protection. On the 7thday, he passed away. Losing Tupac had a hugely negative effect on me. 

For years after Tupac’s passing I continued working with some of music’s greatest talents; Baby-face, Monica, Brandy, Marj J, Eve, Missy, Jadakiss, the list goes on. I actually shot a video for Baby-face, in the Capital building studios where Frank Sinatra and Paul McCartney had recorded. Again, another non-random event. 

Some years later a somewhat loose-cannon of a yoga instructor I knew, was Rick Ruben’s girlfriend’s private instructor.  Miss yoga instructor called me up one day and said “hey Gobi I know you have family in the south of France. I’m going to go with Amanda, while Rick works with some artists and I was wondering if you’d like to come and shoot some yoga videos for me”. It’s true my sis and Aunt lived in Antibes, which was close to where they would be staying, so I couldn’t pass up the gig. The whole time she refused to tell me who the artist was. I didn’t make a stink of it. 

We flew out to Nice and ended up at a compound in a gorgeous little village called Ez Sur Mer (Ez on the ocean). I’m not sure why she didn’t tell me who the artist was that Rick was working with, but once we got there, lo and behold, it was Bono’s house. Rick was there to record U2’s newest album. For a week, I was a fly on the wall and in between going elsewhere and filming cray cray yoga instructor, I was gawking at Bono, the edge and the rest of them doing their thing. 

On one particular day, the yoga instructor wanted to go visit a church in the hills that was known to have a basement filled with hundreds of crutches and wheel chairs previously belonging to cripples who had been healed. 

On this particular day Bono was chilling on a lounge chair overlooking the Mediterranean.  The young lady and I walked up to him to ask directions. He pulled out a sketch pad and in a very Dali-esque manner,  drew miss yoga and myself and then doodled directions for us. He then ripped out the sheet and handed it to us. 

I couldn’t resist speaking with Bono, so I asked ‘Bono what made you buy this property”. He looked up and smiled. He then pointed to one of the structures at the far end of the property and in that great Irish accent of his said, “You see that patio outside that building”. We looked over. “When Ghandi defeated the British, he came here for 6 weeks and did yoga on that patio. That’s why I bought this place”. I was blown away. Perhaps at this point I should also mention that my current mother in law used to be The Edge’s wife’s friend and used to visit them at that same property. Oh and that I met my current (and hopefully last) wife at a New Year’s party in the South of France. My latest serendipitous life event? Sitting on Quincy Jones’ couch a few weeks ago and him speaking Farsi to me. I know my story isn’t over, but I do know that there seems to be a very non-random thread through the whole thing. Happy New Year.