This is the first of what I propose to be a lengthy missive concerning my spirituality...
I'm writing this whatever-it-is in an attempt to be honest about the spirituality I've embraced throughout the course of my life. I've vacillated back and forth from one set of teachings to another, most of which claim to be "the only way". I've blamed this on my bipolar disorder, and I do think that is a very large factor in the way I become so obsessed with one or the other. Then I have justified my lack of commitment by claiming to more or less extract useful "wisdom" from whatever tradition I happen to be caught up it in an attempt to put it all together. I hoped that the sum total of all the parts would give me a way to live in a unique way. And yes, I still kind of think that's what I mostly do. I just don't know how much of it sticks or whether my ability to discern what is actually "wisdom" from crap that just sounds good to me.
I was not brought up in a religious home. I remember going to church a few times as a very young child. I think it was because my grandfather was a deacon or maybe even a pastor of a church (freewill baptist, if I recall correctly...which I may not). I remember playing "ring around the rosies" with my cousins and brothers in the front yard or wherever by the church. But most of all I hold dear the memory of singing "In the Garden" on the 'stage' with the other kids from the Sunday school classes. Who knows but that I discovered my love for performing in front of an audience while singing that song for the congregation. To this day it's one of my favorite hymns.
Those church visits were few and far between, if memory serves. The time between my young childhood and early adolescence was spent without any acknowledged religion at all. I say "acknowledged", what I mean is that my mother and father never talked about it. Not in front of us and, knowing them, not by themselves. It was understood that they believed in God. They both came from families that were very rooted in religion. Aunts on my mother's side were involved with the Holiness church...crazy church. I'm glad they didn't drag me along to that nonsense. As for dad's family, I never did know that. But grandmother Casey, who alternately lived with her many children, always carried a bible with her and read it daily. She was the most saintly person I ever knew. Granted a child typically sees nothing but the good in a grandparent, but I can't for the life me think of anything about her that would offend anyone. On the contrary, she seemed to embody the Christian teaching of love they neighbor as you love yourself. But what do I know, right?
I didn't think twice about it until a friend of mine started talking to me about going to Falls Creek Baptist camp with him. He didn't have any proseltysing motive for wanting me to come...it was just a fun place. Sure you had to listen to three really long sermons a day, but on the other hand there were a lot of really hot girls he would be there and the "streets" were packed with them after the evening service. You had a couple of hours to prowl around and leer before you had to return to your cabin.
Anyway you kind of had to be involved with the Baptist church to go there. I'm not sure if that's correct, but you do have to be sponsored by someone if you can't pay your own way (which I couldn't...hell, I didn't even know this was the case until much, much later). Whatever, I decided to sing in the youth choir with my friend. Nothing special about that. Certainly didn't make me want to convert.
Camp was fun, as expected. I didn't mind all the sermons...in fact, I kind of enjoyed them. Don't ask me why. I still have a soft spot for a good sermon. But the deal with all that was how they would extend an invitation to "accept Christ" towards the end of every evening service. By the second night you'd already start to have people coming to the front "becoming Christians". It was like the domino effect because every night afterwards there would be more and more people coming to the front. Which gave me the distinct impression that a good chunk of them (most of them?) weren't finding the Lord all of a sudden. They were going up there because it was "the thing to do". Maybe I was cynical but I figured that's why so many of them sort of abandoned the "Christian life" or gave up trying to "act like a Christian" as they had done so effortlessly during the first several days of their "life with Christ".
I went up front eventually...I think it was on the Friday before we were to go home. Might have been Thursday, I don't know. I've always been haunted by WHY I might have done it. I don't think I was one of the people who were just going with the flow...but that might just be selective memory because I don't want to think that it was or could be the reason. I really did feel compelled. I wasn't thinking of one reason, or that I needed forgiveness for any one particular thing. Was it that I wanted to? Or that I felt like I needed to? I don't think it's the latter...it was more like I HAD to. I don't know if I can explain that. Not that I "had" to because I needed to make a commitment. Like I said, I simply felt compelled to walk to the aisle and down to the pulpit.
Maybe the fact that I BELIEVE this was how it went down makes it the same as if it had been that way...so if such is the case, yes, I believe that I was "saved" by Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit lives in me and that my life must be dedicated to serving God to the best of my abilities. I've looked at this as "my anchor". Sometimes I've gone so far out on a limb that I've practically denied those things, that I've considered myself an atheist altogether, or maybe I've just become so absorbed in another "religion" or philosophy that I lost sight of it. It's my bipolar, I'm sure, because I always come back to "the anchor". I feel like a hypocrite and a compulsive apostate sometimes. I'll come back to Jesus, get back into the bible, all the while knowing that sooner or later I'll stray again. So why bother, right? I feel like I've abandoned something or someone that is very real to me...
But wait...maybe it hasn't seemed real to me? I've wanted it to be real.
Anyway, I attended the Baptist church for awhile after that. Usually just sitting in the back pews with the other teenagers but I always thought I got more out of the sermons than most of them did. This isn't being boastful. It's just that it was obvious the other kids weren't all into it like I was. Only one other person, Mark White, was into it deeper than me.
At some point I met my fiance-to-be, Barbara, and started attending the Methodist church, where she was a member. It wasn't just that I wanted to be where she was, though I did. The Baptist pastor, a man named Roy Brown who I liked very much, had a nervous breakdown right in front of the congregation during a Sunday evening service. I was never sure as to the reasons why but alway presumed they had something to do with deacons and elders and whatever it is that those sorts get involved in.Whatever it was, Brother Brown wound up leaving and was replaced by a huge & boisterous man named Scotty Newton. He was the dictionary definition of conservative right wing preacher...I don't even know if those terms were used way back then but that's what he was. I much preferred the laid back style of the Methodist minister, Larry Jacobson. Larry was one of the most Godly people I have ever known.
Somehow I wound up going to Falls Creek again, but this time it was with Barbara in tow so I remember absolutely nothing more than our puppy love hand holding yadda yadda yadda. We went to Methodist camp, too, sometime around then. I wasn't real crazy about it. It was a lot "livelier" than Falls Creek and that kind of stuff never appealed to me.
So from then until Barbara and I got married and on until she left me I was a devout Methodist. I listened to a lot of Christian rock music..did I already talk about that? Well I did. And I read Cornerstone as often as I could get my hands on a copy. A big fan of Keith Green's I kept up with his ministry via the Last Days Newsletter. At one point we even gave serious consideration to moving to Texas and becoming part of the ministry. I thought I was pretty solid as a Christian but there was always one sticking point with me and that was my lack of faith in prayer. I didn't feel like God was listening and I certainly didn't think it would do any good to ask for anything. I always felt guilty for this.
One evening we were at the mall, browsing in the bookstore, and I found a copy of a book by Elizabeth Claire Prophet. It was in the Metaphysical section, which would now be called the New Age section. I'd read just a little bit about new age some time before and thought it was interesting. I bought the book, but only on the strength of how unusual it was and, believe it or not, the cover art. I'm sure I never read it in it's entirety, and maybe not even past the first chapter. But from that point on I knew I wanted to be associated in some way or another with the new age movement.
In the meantime Barbara and I were going to concerts by contemporary Christian artists every couple of weeks. We saw some real legends: Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill... Those were a lot of fun. I actually "stole"/"borrowed" lots of books from the Methodist church library. Lots of deep stuff. Scholarly and all. I'd put them on my bookshelf though I never read any of them. It's not that I wanted people to think I was a great Christian or anything. I just wanted to feel like I was more of a Christian than I probably was, if that makes sense (and it probably doesn't). All of this just to say that I definitely viewed myself as a Christian during those years. I was more interested in bible commentary than the bible itself but whatever. At least I knew there was something wrong with that.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
sjc band trip and some other stuff from eighty three
Perhaps the one thing I'll most remember about 1983 is the Seminole Jr. College Lab Band's trip to El Paso, Texas. What an insane couple of days those were.
The reason for the trip was ostensibly to play at the "whatever-football-bowl-game-there-is-in-El Paso" Parade. I don't know how we got that gig because we sure didn't have much of a marching band. Granted we did take along a decent sized flag corp but there's no way that could have made up for the incompetence of the band in general. I didn't even know the music to the songs we played...I just made stuff up on the spot as we marched.
It was a fun ride down to El Paso, which is saying a lot because that's a long, long ways from Seminole. I had to leave my wife behind because she wasn't involved in any of the band stuff (I guess that's obvious). I recall buying a bottle of wine to drink during the trip. Unfortunately I had no previous experience with wine and their many varieties so I wound up buying chabli, which I can now tell you is NOT the kind of wine one gets drunk on. I maybe should have found some Boone's Farm or even a quart of Thunderbird would have been a lot better and gotten the job done. Mad Dog 20/20 (is that what it's called?). Chablis is a dry wine and to my vino-virgin tastes it was pretty awful.
I brought a "ghetto blaster" along with a lot of batteries with which I became the sole musical entertainment on the bus. I guarantee I was playing music from bands most of them had never heard of. That was my claim to fame. I was always "hip" to new and upcoming groups.
Apparently the guitarist in the band had beaten his girlfriend on the night just prior to the trip. She was the singer and also a member of the flag corps so there were a good number of people on that bus who were justifiably pissed off at him. I'm not sure how that all turned out. He seemed to appear chastised so who knows.
His name was Shawn Macelhaney (sic) and I knew him better than most because I had gone in 50/50 to rent a house with the guy. A chinsy little one bedroom place, it nevertheless served the purpose of being within a reasonable distance of the campus. We divided it in what I think I recall was an amicable manner in which he chose the actual bedroom while I put a twin bed, my meager belongings and an old "den-style" stereo into the front room area. Which was all good except that I was forced to have to walk through his bedroom to get to the bathroom or the kitchen.
I'll never forget the time him and his girlfriend were having sex, knowing full well I was in the next room and could hear everything going on. I don't why this bothered me so much but it did. I had to do something...so I took my copy of George Crumb's "Ancient Voices of Children" and put it on the stereo, playing it at a decent volume. This record was probably the strangest I'd ever heard up until that time (I had not been introduced to Peter Maxwell Davies' "Eight Songs for a Mad King" as of then). My intent was fulfilled. It freaked them out.
I was working at a convenience store at the time, Doyle's Quick Stop. It was an easy job but gave me way too many opportunities to descend into the kleptomaniacal behavior I had a real problem with. I stole so much from that store it was a real wonder no one figured me out. Not content to drink sodas from the fountain, which were free, I always drank cans and bottles. I ate microwave sandwiches for dinner practically every night I worked. On slow nights I even stepped out long enough to fill my car up with gas. I took beer by the case. But the thing I always remember about all that was all the "dirty magazines" I stole...
Doyle's sold those kinds of periodicals and he sold a lot of them. His selection was HUGE. You would not have believed it. Only at an adult bookstore could you find more. The guy who supplied them came once every two weeks at which point Doyle's wife, as well as the manager, would fill up a paper sack with all the new titles and take them home to their husbands who, one must assume, had HUGE collections of this stuff. What they didn't know is that I was taking my own sack full of porno magazines home with me. I may have been a little pickier in the titles I kiked but there were still enough that only a fool could fail to notice the shrinkage of inventory.
When I left Doyle's it had nothing at all do do with my theft. It was because I chose to play a basketball game with the college band instead of coming in to work one night. The band thing was, if memory serves, mandatory, but I could be wrong about that. I do know that I had called the management at Doyle's and told them that I had this commitment. They gave me the choice of doing the basketball game or losing a job. I've never been too smart about all this, so I opted to stay in the good graces of the band...
The reason for the trip was ostensibly to play at the "whatever-football-bowl-game-there-is-in-El Paso" Parade. I don't know how we got that gig because we sure didn't have much of a marching band. Granted we did take along a decent sized flag corp but there's no way that could have made up for the incompetence of the band in general. I didn't even know the music to the songs we played...I just made stuff up on the spot as we marched.
It was a fun ride down to El Paso, which is saying a lot because that's a long, long ways from Seminole. I had to leave my wife behind because she wasn't involved in any of the band stuff (I guess that's obvious). I recall buying a bottle of wine to drink during the trip. Unfortunately I had no previous experience with wine and their many varieties so I wound up buying chabli, which I can now tell you is NOT the kind of wine one gets drunk on. I maybe should have found some Boone's Farm or even a quart of Thunderbird would have been a lot better and gotten the job done. Mad Dog 20/20 (is that what it's called?). Chablis is a dry wine and to my vino-virgin tastes it was pretty awful.
I brought a "ghetto blaster" along with a lot of batteries with which I became the sole musical entertainment on the bus. I guarantee I was playing music from bands most of them had never heard of. That was my claim to fame. I was always "hip" to new and upcoming groups.
Apparently the guitarist in the band had beaten his girlfriend on the night just prior to the trip. She was the singer and also a member of the flag corps so there were a good number of people on that bus who were justifiably pissed off at him. I'm not sure how that all turned out. He seemed to appear chastised so who knows.
His name was Shawn Macelhaney (sic) and I knew him better than most because I had gone in 50/50 to rent a house with the guy. A chinsy little one bedroom place, it nevertheless served the purpose of being within a reasonable distance of the campus. We divided it in what I think I recall was an amicable manner in which he chose the actual bedroom while I put a twin bed, my meager belongings and an old "den-style" stereo into the front room area. Which was all good except that I was forced to have to walk through his bedroom to get to the bathroom or the kitchen.
I'll never forget the time him and his girlfriend were having sex, knowing full well I was in the next room and could hear everything going on. I don't why this bothered me so much but it did. I had to do something...so I took my copy of George Crumb's "Ancient Voices of Children" and put it on the stereo, playing it at a decent volume. This record was probably the strangest I'd ever heard up until that time (I had not been introduced to Peter Maxwell Davies' "Eight Songs for a Mad King" as of then). My intent was fulfilled. It freaked them out.
I was working at a convenience store at the time, Doyle's Quick Stop. It was an easy job but gave me way too many opportunities to descend into the kleptomaniacal behavior I had a real problem with. I stole so much from that store it was a real wonder no one figured me out. Not content to drink sodas from the fountain, which were free, I always drank cans and bottles. I ate microwave sandwiches for dinner practically every night I worked. On slow nights I even stepped out long enough to fill my car up with gas. I took beer by the case. But the thing I always remember about all that was all the "dirty magazines" I stole...
Doyle's sold those kinds of periodicals and he sold a lot of them. His selection was HUGE. You would not have believed it. Only at an adult bookstore could you find more. The guy who supplied them came once every two weeks at which point Doyle's wife, as well as the manager, would fill up a paper sack with all the new titles and take them home to their husbands who, one must assume, had HUGE collections of this stuff. What they didn't know is that I was taking my own sack full of porno magazines home with me. I may have been a little pickier in the titles I kiked but there were still enough that only a fool could fail to notice the shrinkage of inventory.
When I left Doyle's it had nothing at all do do with my theft. It was because I chose to play a basketball game with the college band instead of coming in to work one night. The band thing was, if memory serves, mandatory, but I could be wrong about that. I do know that I had called the management at Doyle's and told them that I had this commitment. They gave me the choice of doing the basketball game or losing a job. I've never been too smart about all this, so I opted to stay in the good graces of the band...
Monday, July 8, 2013
A true account of the time I wasted with a guy named Champ
I met Champ in the early 90s…1990 or 1991. Me, my brother and a friend had a band going and we were playing at a jam session. He was a guitarist and was planning on doing a solo type thing. When he saw us he changed the plan and asked if we would back him on some simple blues stuff. We were happy to do it, as we enjoyed being on stage any time.
He was pleased with how it turned out and we were, too. We talked about the possibility of putting a band together with him (though my brother couldn’t do it because he lived too far from us…we knew another drummer who was looking for a gig). The end result was that we DID form a band. I still remember sitting in a booth at Mazzio’s Pizza brainstorming ideas for a band name.
Champ worked at Taco Mayo, and had only been there for a short time, having had some problems with the franchise in the town where he was from. You see, he turned out to be a recovering alcoholic. Doing pretty well, at that, until he met up with us. His parents were totally against him hooking up with a band; they knew that if he got back into playing music on a regular basis he would start drinking again, because alcohol and music were too closely associated in his mind. But Champ was in his late 20s, maybe even early 30s, so they had no real control over him. He was only with them because the shit had hit the fan on some previous occassion and had landed him into their charity.
As soon as we had a band name and he knew we were serious he moved out of his parents house into a motel in the town we were from. Not a high dollar affair, to be sure, but certainly no cheap fleabag joint. What I’m getting at is that he wasn’t pulling in the kind of money that would support a lengthy stay in ANY motel room. And top that off, he spent his entire savings on a cheap Fender Squire Telecaster and a pathetic small amplifier.
I think it was our drummer who took pity on him. He had a girlfriend who knew someone who had just bought an old run-down duplex that she was planning on giving to the Salvation Army. That deal was still sometime in the future, so they talked the owner into letting Champ stay there, rent-free, untiil such time as the Army took it over.
What a lucky break for the guy. All he was responsible for was the utilities. I don’t remember the details of how it happened but about a week after he moved in I became his roommate. No doubt he was happy to have someone there who would pay half of the bills.
By this time we had already begun rehearsing, playing in the garage of a friend’s girlfriend’s house. She would invite a few people over to listen to us and they were always very encouraging. I still have cassette tape recordings of some of those practice sessions and we were pretty damned good. We didn’t have any shows lined up at that time, but it was looking like we would have some gigs booked before too long.
I decided, one night, that we really needed to clock in some experience at a “real venue”, and I had an idea. There was this little shit kicker bar in a neighbouring town…I suggested that we load up all our shit into the van and go there. We would go inside and ask them if they’d like a free band for the afternoon. They didn’t usually book bands, but hey, it was free. That kind of offer doesn’t come along often.
The bartender thought it was a cool idea. We told her that if she liked us, maybe she could book us for a “real show” at a later date. She was open to the suggestion. We sat up and played all of our stuff, and the people who were there (maybe 10 or 15) loved us. We actually got a booking for the next month. That was a lot more than we expected, so things were looking up.
Then Champ quit his job. Fucking idiot. Apperantly he was so sure that this band was going to bring in a financial windfall that he decided he didn’t need to hold down a real job (like the rest of us were doing, btw). Moreover, he had begun drinking again (no surprise there, we always knew his parents were right). I don’t know where the hell he got the money to buy the cheap-ass Schlitz beer he claimed to like, but the refrigerator seemed to always have a six-pack in it (even as it had very little food).
We did get one show around that time. We were supposed to open for some friends that we had known for a long time. I think we were supposed to be second on a three band bill, but our buddies had to cancel, so we got pushed up into the headlining slot. We were all happy about how it turned out, but Champ seemed euphoric. We played for about an hour, everything we knew and all the songs we had written (we had a knack for composing songs quickly and there were probably five or six in the set, including a couple that Champ had written before he hooked up with us). The audience seemed to really appreciate what we were doing and we got an excellent response. We weren’t the kind of alternative band that these people had become used to in this place. We had a slight alternative feel, to be sure, but our sound was much more influenced by classic rock, the blues, and the kind of free-form jamming most often associated with the Grateful Dead.
Champ was indeed a Dead Head. He practically worshipped Jerry Garcia. His playing style was like a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughn and Garcia, with the main emphasis on Captain Trips. He was actually quite good with those styles, mixing a strong blues sensibility with looping scale runs. He was very familiar with all of the Dead’s songs and albums, but somewhere along the line in his booze haunted life he had lost all of his records. I had practically every Grateful Dead album released by that time on CD, so I recorded some of the better albums onto some cassette tapes and gave them to him.
Then things began to get weird. I woke up one morning to the sound of someone breaking in to the window of our apartment. I was freaked out and not a little bit frightened. I may have retrieved an implement of self-defense, but my memory is vague about that. It turned out to be Champ, who was trying to get in by the window, having locked himself out the night before. I let him in, totally clueless as to where he’d been and what he’d been doing all night. He was pretty fucked up. I don’t know if he’d just found some hard liquor (as opposed to the weak Schlitz he’s been drinking) or if he’d turned on to some drug or another (I don’t think it would have taken much more than a joint or two to send him into the stratosphere at that time).
He wanted to talk. We sat down in the living room floor (which also doubled as his bedroom…he slept on a blanket in the floor…where the only furniture was the chinsy Squire guitar and the cheap-ass amp). He always had a lot of “road trip” stories. Some of them were plausible. Others were obvious bullshit. I wasn’t too sure which side of the scale the story he told me then leaned to.
The only thing I remember about the whole tale was that he had been hooked on heroin for a while in his life. This kind of freaked me out, because I have never known anyone who has so much as TRIED heroin. I had already seen how easily he regressed back into alcoholism and the way it had fucked up his world even in the short time I knew him. I had good reason to believe he would have no qualms about hopping back in the saddle and riding the horse for a few years. After all, as far as he was concerned, that was just another thing that “musicians do”.
We got another gig, though it wasn’t exactly a real show like the earlier one. The girl whose house we practiced at asked us to play for an annual party that was coming up. I want to say it was a 4th of July party, but I’m not sure what the occassion was (or if there even WAS an occassion…the occasion was most likely “Drunken, Stoned Revelry Day”). It was the kind of affair where you were paid in beer instead of cash.
Which turned out to be not so good a thing for Champ. Surely the rest of us realized that the whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen.
And it wasn’t too long before disaster stopped waiting and reared it’s ugly head. Lots of people showed up, it looked like it might be a good night. We played a set, then Champ disappeared during the break. No biggy. He came back on time for the second set, though he was reeking of beer at that point. After the second set was over he disappeared again. I went into the house and he was sitting in the floor with a few fellow revellers, drinking, and ~GASP~ passing a doobie around. I seem to remember saying something to him, some kind of plea for him to take it easy, and if memory serves, he got a little miffed at me, basically saying he was a big boy and could take care of himself, thank you.
Only I knew better. I knew that he was one crazy mother fucker when he drank. And I also knew that it didn’t take too much too get him sloshed, since his tolerance level had gone down during his last valiant effort to walk the 12 Steps.
Third set came around and Champ did not show. He wanted the thing to turn into a jam session so that he could hear what the other musicians at the show sounded like…which was so much bullshit. He just wanted to stay with his newfound disciples and continue the boozing and the toking.
So we did just that. The thing turned into a cluster fuck of a jam session. Players, both blessed with talent and cursed with incompetance, came into the fold and played to their heart’s desire, as we had turned into nothing but a back-up band. My brother happened to be there, and our drummer was cool with him playing a few songs (he was eager to take a trip to the fields behind the house with our host’s daughter…who turned out to be quite a firecracker).
My brother played several songs, as he knew a lot of them that we did. Our own drummer seemed to have given up on the party, having more important things to concentrate on at the moment. We figured Champ had decided to ditch the gig, and it was getting late. We decided to call it a night and pack it in.
We were halfway through tearing down our shit when Champ came out, incredulous that we were quitting. I guess he’d finally imbibed enough to get inspired. He really wanted to play. But not as much as we wanted to get the hell out of there. It had been a shitty affair and he was the main reason for it.
He got beligerant and began to rail on my brother because he was packing our drummer’s gear. Our drummer would not have minded (indeed, he surely appreciated it), but for some reason it really got under Champ’s skin.
I don’t know what he said, but he did say something that was the straw that broke this camel’s back. I have never before in my life, and never since, got into a man’s face and wailed like I did with him that night. I frightened myself, I was so intense, hate-filled, determined to bust the fuck out of this prick if he didn’t shut up with his goddamned complaining and get the hell out.
I saw the look of fear in his eyes. I saw him cower. I saw the buzz he had been tying on crumble into confusion. And, most satisfying, I saw him back down. They had to pull me away from him and our drummer, still frolicking in the fields quite a ways away, later told me that he could hear me scream from where he was, that it scared even him.
I decided there and then that I was moving out of the apartment THAT NIGHT. My girlfriend lived in an apartment complex in the same city and I was welcomed there. Always had been, I was just a fool who wanted to be closer to what had become the band’s headquarters. I don’t know if I was afraid of him…Let’s just say that I wouldn’t have had any problems facing him man-to-man, but that I had my suspicions that he just might do something bad behind my back, maybe while I was asleep, sounds absurd, sounds extreme, but I would not put it past that son of a bitch. So I bolted with the implicit understanding that I was through with Champ and any band (or anything at all) he was involved with. Which also meant that the band was, for all intents and purposes, broken up…I know the other guys were not too keen to move ahead with this psycho.
But here’s the deal. Do you remember the gig we booked for the rat hole dive bar? It was still scheduled, and it was like a week after the big blow-up. We had even promoted it, which is really pathetic, printing up flyers for a show at a place this small and nasty. As far as I was concerned the show was OFF. I think I already stated that I wanted nothing more to do with this dead-beat.
But Champ had talked to the other guys and of course he was all hopped up about playing the date. I think part of it was because he wanted the money (which wasn’t going to be much, but hey, it would buy a case or two of Schlitz). He pointed out to them that we “had a responsibility to the club owner” to fulfill our obligation. I had a feeling that it had a lot more to do with realizing that he’d fucked up, and he wanted to set things right, hopefully the band would get back together.
So the guys spoke with me, and even though they were basically on the same page as I was about not wanting to play with Champ anymore, it looked like they had bought the “obligation” BS (they probably wanted some easy money, too, no doubt). Against my better judgement, and after taking a good while to think it over, I decided to do it UNDER ONE CONDITION: This was going to be IT. No more. I didn’t want Champ begging me to get back on board. I wouldn’t do it, so he might as well save his breath.
We played the show, there were a few people there, it went over pretty good, and, of course, Champ implored me to get the band back together. I knew he would, but we were almost finished for the night when and it was easy to ignore by the time he got around to begging.
And I never played with him again.
He was pleased with how it turned out and we were, too. We talked about the possibility of putting a band together with him (though my brother couldn’t do it because he lived too far from us…we knew another drummer who was looking for a gig). The end result was that we DID form a band. I still remember sitting in a booth at Mazzio’s Pizza brainstorming ideas for a band name.
Champ worked at Taco Mayo, and had only been there for a short time, having had some problems with the franchise in the town where he was from. You see, he turned out to be a recovering alcoholic. Doing pretty well, at that, until he met up with us. His parents were totally against him hooking up with a band; they knew that if he got back into playing music on a regular basis he would start drinking again, because alcohol and music were too closely associated in his mind. But Champ was in his late 20s, maybe even early 30s, so they had no real control over him. He was only with them because the shit had hit the fan on some previous occassion and had landed him into their charity.
As soon as we had a band name and he knew we were serious he moved out of his parents house into a motel in the town we were from. Not a high dollar affair, to be sure, but certainly no cheap fleabag joint. What I’m getting at is that he wasn’t pulling in the kind of money that would support a lengthy stay in ANY motel room. And top that off, he spent his entire savings on a cheap Fender Squire Telecaster and a pathetic small amplifier.
I think it was our drummer who took pity on him. He had a girlfriend who knew someone who had just bought an old run-down duplex that she was planning on giving to the Salvation Army. That deal was still sometime in the future, so they talked the owner into letting Champ stay there, rent-free, untiil such time as the Army took it over.
What a lucky break for the guy. All he was responsible for was the utilities. I don’t remember the details of how it happened but about a week after he moved in I became his roommate. No doubt he was happy to have someone there who would pay half of the bills.
By this time we had already begun rehearsing, playing in the garage of a friend’s girlfriend’s house. She would invite a few people over to listen to us and they were always very encouraging. I still have cassette tape recordings of some of those practice sessions and we were pretty damned good. We didn’t have any shows lined up at that time, but it was looking like we would have some gigs booked before too long.
I decided, one night, that we really needed to clock in some experience at a “real venue”, and I had an idea. There was this little shit kicker bar in a neighbouring town…I suggested that we load up all our shit into the van and go there. We would go inside and ask them if they’d like a free band for the afternoon. They didn’t usually book bands, but hey, it was free. That kind of offer doesn’t come along often.
The bartender thought it was a cool idea. We told her that if she liked us, maybe she could book us for a “real show” at a later date. She was open to the suggestion. We sat up and played all of our stuff, and the people who were there (maybe 10 or 15) loved us. We actually got a booking for the next month. That was a lot more than we expected, so things were looking up.
Then Champ quit his job. Fucking idiot. Apperantly he was so sure that this band was going to bring in a financial windfall that he decided he didn’t need to hold down a real job (like the rest of us were doing, btw). Moreover, he had begun drinking again (no surprise there, we always knew his parents were right). I don’t know where the hell he got the money to buy the cheap-ass Schlitz beer he claimed to like, but the refrigerator seemed to always have a six-pack in it (even as it had very little food).
We did get one show around that time. We were supposed to open for some friends that we had known for a long time. I think we were supposed to be second on a three band bill, but our buddies had to cancel, so we got pushed up into the headlining slot. We were all happy about how it turned out, but Champ seemed euphoric. We played for about an hour, everything we knew and all the songs we had written (we had a knack for composing songs quickly and there were probably five or six in the set, including a couple that Champ had written before he hooked up with us). The audience seemed to really appreciate what we were doing and we got an excellent response. We weren’t the kind of alternative band that these people had become used to in this place. We had a slight alternative feel, to be sure, but our sound was much more influenced by classic rock, the blues, and the kind of free-form jamming most often associated with the Grateful Dead.
Champ was indeed a Dead Head. He practically worshipped Jerry Garcia. His playing style was like a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughn and Garcia, with the main emphasis on Captain Trips. He was actually quite good with those styles, mixing a strong blues sensibility with looping scale runs. He was very familiar with all of the Dead’s songs and albums, but somewhere along the line in his booze haunted life he had lost all of his records. I had practically every Grateful Dead album released by that time on CD, so I recorded some of the better albums onto some cassette tapes and gave them to him.
Then things began to get weird. I woke up one morning to the sound of someone breaking in to the window of our apartment. I was freaked out and not a little bit frightened. I may have retrieved an implement of self-defense, but my memory is vague about that. It turned out to be Champ, who was trying to get in by the window, having locked himself out the night before. I let him in, totally clueless as to where he’d been and what he’d been doing all night. He was pretty fucked up. I don’t know if he’d just found some hard liquor (as opposed to the weak Schlitz he’s been drinking) or if he’d turned on to some drug or another (I don’t think it would have taken much more than a joint or two to send him into the stratosphere at that time).
He wanted to talk. We sat down in the living room floor (which also doubled as his bedroom…he slept on a blanket in the floor…where the only furniture was the chinsy Squire guitar and the cheap-ass amp). He always had a lot of “road trip” stories. Some of them were plausible. Others were obvious bullshit. I wasn’t too sure which side of the scale the story he told me then leaned to.
The only thing I remember about the whole tale was that he had been hooked on heroin for a while in his life. This kind of freaked me out, because I have never known anyone who has so much as TRIED heroin. I had already seen how easily he regressed back into alcoholism and the way it had fucked up his world even in the short time I knew him. I had good reason to believe he would have no qualms about hopping back in the saddle and riding the horse for a few years. After all, as far as he was concerned, that was just another thing that “musicians do”.
We got another gig, though it wasn’t exactly a real show like the earlier one. The girl whose house we practiced at asked us to play for an annual party that was coming up. I want to say it was a 4th of July party, but I’m not sure what the occassion was (or if there even WAS an occassion…the occasion was most likely “Drunken, Stoned Revelry Day”). It was the kind of affair where you were paid in beer instead of cash.
Which turned out to be not so good a thing for Champ. Surely the rest of us realized that the whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen.
And it wasn’t too long before disaster stopped waiting and reared it’s ugly head. Lots of people showed up, it looked like it might be a good night. We played a set, then Champ disappeared during the break. No biggy. He came back on time for the second set, though he was reeking of beer at that point. After the second set was over he disappeared again. I went into the house and he was sitting in the floor with a few fellow revellers, drinking, and ~GASP~ passing a doobie around. I seem to remember saying something to him, some kind of plea for him to take it easy, and if memory serves, he got a little miffed at me, basically saying he was a big boy and could take care of himself, thank you.
Only I knew better. I knew that he was one crazy mother fucker when he drank. And I also knew that it didn’t take too much too get him sloshed, since his tolerance level had gone down during his last valiant effort to walk the 12 Steps.
Third set came around and Champ did not show. He wanted the thing to turn into a jam session so that he could hear what the other musicians at the show sounded like…which was so much bullshit. He just wanted to stay with his newfound disciples and continue the boozing and the toking.
So we did just that. The thing turned into a cluster fuck of a jam session. Players, both blessed with talent and cursed with incompetance, came into the fold and played to their heart’s desire, as we had turned into nothing but a back-up band. My brother happened to be there, and our drummer was cool with him playing a few songs (he was eager to take a trip to the fields behind the house with our host’s daughter…who turned out to be quite a firecracker).
My brother played several songs, as he knew a lot of them that we did. Our own drummer seemed to have given up on the party, having more important things to concentrate on at the moment. We figured Champ had decided to ditch the gig, and it was getting late. We decided to call it a night and pack it in.
We were halfway through tearing down our shit when Champ came out, incredulous that we were quitting. I guess he’d finally imbibed enough to get inspired. He really wanted to play. But not as much as we wanted to get the hell out of there. It had been a shitty affair and he was the main reason for it.
He got beligerant and began to rail on my brother because he was packing our drummer’s gear. Our drummer would not have minded (indeed, he surely appreciated it), but for some reason it really got under Champ’s skin.
I don’t know what he said, but he did say something that was the straw that broke this camel’s back. I have never before in my life, and never since, got into a man’s face and wailed like I did with him that night. I frightened myself, I was so intense, hate-filled, determined to bust the fuck out of this prick if he didn’t shut up with his goddamned complaining and get the hell out.
I saw the look of fear in his eyes. I saw him cower. I saw the buzz he had been tying on crumble into confusion. And, most satisfying, I saw him back down. They had to pull me away from him and our drummer, still frolicking in the fields quite a ways away, later told me that he could hear me scream from where he was, that it scared even him.
I decided there and then that I was moving out of the apartment THAT NIGHT. My girlfriend lived in an apartment complex in the same city and I was welcomed there. Always had been, I was just a fool who wanted to be closer to what had become the band’s headquarters. I don’t know if I was afraid of him…Let’s just say that I wouldn’t have had any problems facing him man-to-man, but that I had my suspicions that he just might do something bad behind my back, maybe while I was asleep, sounds absurd, sounds extreme, but I would not put it past that son of a bitch. So I bolted with the implicit understanding that I was through with Champ and any band (or anything at all) he was involved with. Which also meant that the band was, for all intents and purposes, broken up…I know the other guys were not too keen to move ahead with this psycho.
But here’s the deal. Do you remember the gig we booked for the rat hole dive bar? It was still scheduled, and it was like a week after the big blow-up. We had even promoted it, which is really pathetic, printing up flyers for a show at a place this small and nasty. As far as I was concerned the show was OFF. I think I already stated that I wanted nothing more to do with this dead-beat.
But Champ had talked to the other guys and of course he was all hopped up about playing the date. I think part of it was because he wanted the money (which wasn’t going to be much, but hey, it would buy a case or two of Schlitz). He pointed out to them that we “had a responsibility to the club owner” to fulfill our obligation. I had a feeling that it had a lot more to do with realizing that he’d fucked up, and he wanted to set things right, hopefully the band would get back together.
So the guys spoke with me, and even though they were basically on the same page as I was about not wanting to play with Champ anymore, it looked like they had bought the “obligation” BS (they probably wanted some easy money, too, no doubt). Against my better judgement, and after taking a good while to think it over, I decided to do it UNDER ONE CONDITION: This was going to be IT. No more. I didn’t want Champ begging me to get back on board. I wouldn’t do it, so he might as well save his breath.
We played the show, there were a few people there, it went over pretty good, and, of course, Champ implored me to get the band back together. I knew he would, but we were almost finished for the night when and it was easy to ignore by the time he got around to begging.
And I never played with him again.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
U2...June 13, 1983: I WAS THERE!!!
One month before I saw them
The celebration of MTV's 30th birthday is in full swing, with highlights galore airing on the VH1 Classic channel. It's a continuous loop of programming that is a painful reminder of just how great the network used to be compared to what it is now. But I suppose all good things must come to an end. When the money train looked like it was gonna run on inane reality shows and other non-musical crap it could only be expected that the MTV CEOs, hungry for the bottom line, would follow it into the dark tunnel it has remained in for so many years.
But I didn't come here to whine and moan about the downfall of MTV.
I just happened to catch the "MTV30" segment that featured U2's performance at LiveAid and it got me to thinking about the only time I ever got to see them in concert. It was very early in their career...June 10, 1983, when "War" was the album they were promoting. It was so early, in fact, that they were still playing songs from their debut, "Boy" (and even one from their first single, "11 O'Clock Tick Tock", which was never released in America). Bono was still wearing leather jeans and had his hair all done up in true new wave style. He was still hoisting that huge white flag into the audience during "Surrender". All in all it was a great time to see them, in a venue that was very small compared to the other venues they played (not even mentioning the arena tours). The Lloyd Noble Center, on the OU campus, hosted a lot of big concerts back then and it was where the June 10th U2 show happened. It was the building where all the OU Sooners home basketball games were played. For this show, however, they had set it up with what was called "theater seating", which basically meant that only half of the seats were going to be used. I always thought it was a very bad reflection on the collective musical taste of Oklahomans that U2 didn't even sell out the place. But I figured it wasn't their fault that the band had received almost zero promotion, on the radio or anywhere else.
That said, there WAS a bit of radio promotion, if not much. Had there not been I would never have obtained tickets to the show. The KATT (100.5 FM) were giving them away in contests and stuff. You'd think that a "free" ticket, won from a radio station, would be for a crappy seat, but these weren't half bad.
I didn't win one, though. I knew someone who DID. The details of how I obtained one have been erased from my memory, other than the fact that someone gave one to me. Why? Maybe the person couldn't make it...maybe they had no interest in attending but entered the contest on a lark. None of that mattered to me. I'm sure I was appropriately grateful but apparently not enough to have remembered reasons for the good gesture.
I remember wearing this corny bootleg U2 shirt...corny because it wasn't official merchandise but was very obviously designed to appear as it it were...that I thought was just about the coolest thing in the world. And I brought a "ghetto blaster" (as we called them back then) with me to play U2 tapes while standing in line at the door. I was there by myself (alas, my benefactor only had one winning ticket) and I thought I was the MAN! The people seemed to enjoy the music and were friendly so I didn't mind being alone at all.
My first stroke of luck at the concert was all due to my brother's generosity. He had come with a friend who had...get this...FRONT ROW TICKETS! And the guy had probably never even heard a U2 song in his life. His uncle was a vendor for the ticket companies and he would get free front row tickets for any band he cared to see. I knew him pretty well, too, and the genesis of my tinnitus can likely be traced to the front row spots he got me for Blue Oyster Cult and Rainbow. I couldn't tell you how "into" the band my brother was, but I'm sure he'd seen them on MTV and no doubt he recognized their talent and potential.
So, I've got tickets about halfway up into the stands and my brother has front row seats (actually I think they were 2nd row seats, but in a floor situation like that there is really no difference). I don't know whose idea it was or who suggested it, but we decided I should get through security and down to the floor. So we both bought t-shirts and I let him take mine with him. Then, a few minutes later, he met me where the sections were divided and I said, "Hey! Did you get me that shirt I asked for?" To which he replied, "Yeah, got it right here," and handed it to me...with the front row ticket stub neatly tucked within. I waited a few more minutes, then went to the security guy, showed him my ticket stub and waa-lah! I found myself directly in front of the stage! Genius!
The support group on this particular concert was The Alarm. They were an unremarkable band who went on to score a couple of minor hits (the best being "Rain in the Summertime"). They came out onto the stage sporting nothing but acoustic guitars and a drum kit. I figured it was their gimmick, but they weren't doing themselves any favors if it was, as the sound quality was pretty dismal. They started their set and everyone got up out of the folding metal chairs to rush the stage, but the security people weren't having any of that. They made us sit back down. The singer from The Alarm wasn't having any of that, though. He chastised security and exhorted everyone to, in these exact words, "GET UP AND DANCE!" Though their music wasn't exactly the kind you could dance to, we were more than happy to get back up.
When U2 hit the stage I was ecstatic. I was a HUGE fan. I worked in a record store at the time and you'd hear "Boy" on the stereo at least once every day during my shift. They'd played at an extremely small venue in Norman when they first toured and I kicked myself every time I think about how I wasn't able to go to that one. So I don't need to tell you how excited I was when the band came out and the first notes were played.
At the front of the stage there was this extension, I don't know exactly what they're called, but it gave Bono a chance to come out a little farther into the audience (or at least into the first few rows). It was right next to this whatchamacallit that I stood for the duration of the show, one of the absolute best views in the house.
This is kind of weird, maybe, but I had this really cool crucifix on a chain that my mother had bought me and while everyone else was raising their fist to the music (as pumped up audience's are wont to do), I held up this crucifix. There's no way, no way whatsoever, that Bono didn't see it. I don't know exactly WHY I did it...only that I'd heard that Bono was a Christian and I was, too. Later on I would wonder what Bono thought of that, on several different levels. I mean, first, the obvious: What is this guy waving that crucifix in front of my face? A reasonable question that, as I said, I couldn't have answered myself. But also, this was a time when tensions were running pretty high between the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland. I'm not too sure but I would guess that Bono Vox is NOT Catholic, so what could he have been thinking? It's all SO strange, the things I'm possessed to do. But I laugh when I imagine some fantastical in-depth interview where Bono says, "Something I'll never forget, Jann...that guy in Oklahoma with his crucifix!" Because, hey! Even with a full life such as his, that's something you may well remember for it's enigmatic quality alone!
There was a girl standing next to me...a quite attractive young girl, if I may say...and during one of the songs Bono took her by the hand and brought her onstage, where he did a little dance with her. Which was cool, but not so much as when he took the hat from "front row ticket" guy, set it on the ground, and did some kind of war dance around the thing. It was a camouflage hunting hat, and if I know "front row ticket" guy (and I do), the rest of his gear was camouflage as well. He thought this was cool as hell and left that place a U2 fan. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
The highlight of the night was when Bono reached his hand out from the stage extension and I grabbed hold of it. He gave it a squeeze and that was that. Rock concert story of a lifetime: I shook Bono's hand! Okay, well maybe there are much better rock stories out there, but this was about as close as I'll probably ever get to one that I'll tell my grandchildren.
Perhaps obviously I don't remember anything after that...just like I don't remember any of the performance highlights...I mean, jeez, this is 28 years ago! All I need to remember is that this was one great show...the first REALLY great show I'd ever seen, and along with Sigur Ros & Bruce Springsteen it ranks as one of the top 3 concerts I've ever been to.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
in which I say goodbye to R.E.M. making use of several biographical sentiments
This is an article I wrote about the break-up of R.E.M., who played a huge role in my life during the early '80s. I'm re-posting it here because it contains quite a bit of biographical content. The video is from what is probably my favorite song of theirs.
In 1985 I found myself locked behind the walls of the Naval Hospital’s 4th floor psych ward in Orlando, FL. I wound up spending almost 6 months there, waiting for a bipolar disorder diagnosis. A tragic situation on many levels. One of the worst experiences of my life, made all the worse for the wonderful things happening on the outside that I should have been a part of. Mainly the birth of my first child, a daughter who I was not able to see until over a month after her arrival. Many were the times when I felt like giving up, but knowing I’d soon be with her kept me going.
There was something else that kept me going, though it certainly was not of the same magnitude as seeing my daughter. It might not make sense to a lot of people, but that thing was a record album. Namely Fables of the Reconstruction by R.E.M., a band that I had decided, a couple of years before, was the best American rock band of all time. Music being my passion, I’m not sure that I could describe just how much this group affected me, from the first bars of Chronic Town, their debut EP, to the last chords of “Little America” from their second full-length offering, Reckoning.
I was in a band myself at the time. Ask the other guys how infatuated with R.E.M. I was…They’ll probably tell you that I wanted to turn it into an R.E.M. tribute band, and who knows but maybe there is some truth in that. I would gladly have worked up their entire catalog up to that point if I thought they would let me. Luckily my excitement was contagious and they both wound up being R.E.M. fans eventually.
I wanted to do everything the way they did. Their “ethos” seemed so right to me. Uncompromising originality, doing it their way, never letting the new record sound too much like the last one, working their fan base from the ground up, going out in teams of two to promote themselves…they seemed honest and genuine. I admired everything about them musically, from Peter Buck’s jangling guitar to Mike Mills’ chordal bass playing to Bill Berry’s rock solid drumming…and okay, I will confess, it was Michael Stipe’s voice, style and slurring that really sold me on them. Even so, it was the package deal that kept me interested.
Do you want to know how obsessed I was with R.E.M. in 1984? I owned a SWEET MusicMan Stingray bass guitar…one of the best basses made at the time. I loved it. Then, one evening as I watched the band’s appearance on some forgotten MTV “Rock Legends” program I saw Mike Mills’ Rickenbacker and decided, then and there, that I had to have one, too. If that was part of what made up the R.E.M. sound, well I needed that. To make a long story short, I traded in my MusicMan and a hundred bucks for a piece of crap stereo Rickenbacker that sounded awful and was difficult to play.
One of the big disappointments of my life up to that point (inexperienced youth that I was) was missing the band touring for the Reckoning album when they played at a renovated church in Norman, Oklahoma called The Bowery (the legendary Bowery, as far as I was concerned). I’d heard they were going to perform there but when I called to get details I was told they’d already been there…the night before! So I asked if they knew where the band was scheduled to play next. It was at some bowling alley in Dallas on that evening. The next show was in St. Louis, Missouri and I seriously thought about doing whatever I had to do to get there. I think it was Southern Methodist University (I could be wrong). They informed me that students had first dibs on the tickets and I knew right then that it was hopeless. I did eventually see them, during the Life’s Rich Pagaent tour. It wasn’t Fables-centric, but they did most of my favorite songs (“Sitting Still” & “Shaking Through” are the ones I remember the best). Mike Mills even said something about how the first time they’d played in Oklahoma was at “some church”. I think they played Oklahoma one more time after that, for the Green album. I missed that one, but it was okay by me. I wasn't real happy with the direction their music was going at the time they signed with Warner Bros.. I was just happy I’d been able to see them before then.
So, what does all this have to do with getting through a 6 month stint in observation? Just this: I’d heard that the band’s 3rd album was going to be released in mid-to-late ’85 and I could not wait! Oh, but I had to. Because it came out about two months after I took up residence on the 4th floor psych ward! Such bad timing! One day I’m listening to the stereo in the lounge when, I couldn't believe it myself, “Can’t Get There From Here” comes on. It sounds almost nothing like R.E.M.. I wanted to hear it again and a few more times to get a handle on the direction they were heading. I thought it was pretty good on first hearing, but I couldn't be sure just how much I might like it without a couple more decent listens. To make matters worse I got a copy of Rolling Stone and wouldn't you know it? The feature review was of Fables of the Reconstruction. It was a very positive review. I remember seeing all the song titles, wondering what the songs themselves might sound like. I proselytized R.E.M. to any and all of the psych techs who cared to listen and no doubt more than one realized that getting to hear that record was one of the things that kept my chin up. Re-united with wife and daughter was most important, obviously, but getting my own copy of Fables was a powerful incentive to hang on as well.
I know I haven’t gone into detail about what I went through there. Or how or why or whatever, none of it really needs to be related other than to point out that those days, weeks, months WERE difficult for me. I don’t think I can over-emphasize how these things, big and small, pulled me through, or to describe exactly what it was they actually did pull me through. Suffice to say that I will be thankful for them until the day I die.
It should come as no surprise that one of the first things I did when I was discharged was go straight to Sound Warehouse to buy a copy of Fables of the Reconstruction…or Reconstruction of the Fables depending on which side of the jacket you were looking at. The wheels were set in motion. The grooves in the record would be worn out only weeks later.The music, in the grand R.E.M. tradition, shared little in common with what came before. Just enough to remind you of who you were listening to and why you loved them. Yes, I had my favorites. “Life and How to Live It”, “Feeling Gravity’s Pull”…and there were a couple I wasn't all that crazy about, “Old Man Kinsey”, “Maps and Legends”. But as a whole I couldn't think of too many albums that were so consistently excellent.
Maybe my reverence for Fables of the Reconstruction is tinged with sentimental attachment. So it is. Still I have no problem coming out and saying that it is one of the few truly great records of the 80s. Unlike the music of so many dime-a-dozen MTV-friendly music video pimping bands of that decade, R.E.M.’s mid 80s output will be remembered for a long time to come.
I confess, I’m not much of an R.E.M. fan these days. I don’t like having to say that, but it’s true. They have released excellent music since I fell off the bandwagon, but it’s not for me. No doubt that is the curse of any band who doggedly insists on not repeating themselves. At some point you’re going to lose the people who aren’t willing to follow your muse. Maybe the word “willing” is not what I mean to say. I’m “willing” to go with them, but it’s useless because the music doesn't appeal to me anymore. The last song I truly loved by R.E.M. was “New Test Leper” from the last album they recorded with Bill Berry on the drums, New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Even that was after generally losing interest, as I mentioned earlier, after they signed with major label, Warner Brothers. They got more popular, with the success of “Losing My Religion” and later “Everybody Hurts”, an anthem so universal it was bound to resonate with everyone. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame not too long afterward. They had made it, they’d done it their way, and whether or not the old school fans wanted to admit it or not, they’d come out on the other side with dignity and integrity intact, doing what THEY wanted to do, still releasing music that draws in new fans, at least two for every one lost, it seems. So the oversight is mine, for sure.
As of yesterday, September 21, 2011, that’s all history. R.E.M. has broken up and it’s almost surreal to me. Even though I may never have gotten back into them again I still have a very difficult time believing that it’s over. It’s just a band. Yet so much more to me. Why? I don’t know myself. Their music was very much a soundtrack to some good times in my life. They were down to earth and never let rock stardom turn them into assholes. I’ll never forget writing to their fan club and getting a personal note from Mike Mills, who informed me that he had family here in Oklahoma. Of course this was in the early stages of their career, so they had more time to be so available to their fans. But I have always got the impression that R.E.M. have always treated their fans not only with respect but as fellow travelers on their journey.
Me? I will always consider them to be one of my favorite groups in the history of modern music. Come to think of it, maybe it was a good thing that I didn't follow them after Bill Berry’s departure. There are three entire R.E.M. albums that I have never heard…I’m sure I’ll come around to where they left me someday. I’ll have what I might as well consider “new music” from the band. New to me. That will make it somewhat easier to deal with the fact that the three remaining members will no longer be creating more as a unit. Though that be the case, the reality is that R.E.M.’s body of work will stand up to repeated listening for years to come. Long after the idea of “alternative music” has died, the name “R.E.M.” will be remembered and their legacy will be, among other things, the proof that music can transcend labels. That it can rise above categorizations.
Mr. Berry…Mr. Buck…Mr. Mills…Mr. Stipe…God bless you. Thank you. Thank you so much and may you each be successful in whatever endeavors you choose to pursue at this point in your lives. You've touched a lot of people. Your music genuinely moved us. Your originality has amazed us. Your integrity has inspired us. You have not let us down, in the past or with this decision to call it a day. We trust you well enough to give you the benefit of the doubt and if you say the time has come, then it’s for certain the time has come. But you will be missed…and it is with no small degree of sadness that I have to say…
Goodbye
September 22, 2011
In 1985 I found myself locked behind the walls of the Naval Hospital’s 4th floor psych ward in Orlando, FL. I wound up spending almost 6 months there, waiting for a bipolar disorder diagnosis. A tragic situation on many levels. One of the worst experiences of my life, made all the worse for the wonderful things happening on the outside that I should have been a part of. Mainly the birth of my first child, a daughter who I was not able to see until over a month after her arrival. Many were the times when I felt like giving up, but knowing I’d soon be with her kept me going.
There was something else that kept me going, though it certainly was not of the same magnitude as seeing my daughter. It might not make sense to a lot of people, but that thing was a record album. Namely Fables of the Reconstruction by R.E.M., a band that I had decided, a couple of years before, was the best American rock band of all time. Music being my passion, I’m not sure that I could describe just how much this group affected me, from the first bars of Chronic Town, their debut EP, to the last chords of “Little America” from their second full-length offering, Reckoning.
I was in a band myself at the time. Ask the other guys how infatuated with R.E.M. I was…They’ll probably tell you that I wanted to turn it into an R.E.M. tribute band, and who knows but maybe there is some truth in that. I would gladly have worked up their entire catalog up to that point if I thought they would let me. Luckily my excitement was contagious and they both wound up being R.E.M. fans eventually.
I wanted to do everything the way they did. Their “ethos” seemed so right to me. Uncompromising originality, doing it their way, never letting the new record sound too much like the last one, working their fan base from the ground up, going out in teams of two to promote themselves…they seemed honest and genuine. I admired everything about them musically, from Peter Buck’s jangling guitar to Mike Mills’ chordal bass playing to Bill Berry’s rock solid drumming…and okay, I will confess, it was Michael Stipe’s voice, style and slurring that really sold me on them. Even so, it was the package deal that kept me interested.
Do you want to know how obsessed I was with R.E.M. in 1984? I owned a SWEET MusicMan Stingray bass guitar…one of the best basses made at the time. I loved it. Then, one evening as I watched the band’s appearance on some forgotten MTV “Rock Legends” program I saw Mike Mills’ Rickenbacker and decided, then and there, that I had to have one, too. If that was part of what made up the R.E.M. sound, well I needed that. To make a long story short, I traded in my MusicMan and a hundred bucks for a piece of crap stereo Rickenbacker that sounded awful and was difficult to play.
One of the big disappointments of my life up to that point (inexperienced youth that I was) was missing the band touring for the Reckoning album when they played at a renovated church in Norman, Oklahoma called The Bowery (the legendary Bowery, as far as I was concerned). I’d heard they were going to perform there but when I called to get details I was told they’d already been there…the night before! So I asked if they knew where the band was scheduled to play next. It was at some bowling alley in Dallas on that evening. The next show was in St. Louis, Missouri and I seriously thought about doing whatever I had to do to get there. I think it was Southern Methodist University (I could be wrong). They informed me that students had first dibs on the tickets and I knew right then that it was hopeless. I did eventually see them, during the Life’s Rich Pagaent tour. It wasn’t Fables-centric, but they did most of my favorite songs (“Sitting Still” & “Shaking Through” are the ones I remember the best). Mike Mills even said something about how the first time they’d played in Oklahoma was at “some church”. I think they played Oklahoma one more time after that, for the Green album. I missed that one, but it was okay by me. I wasn't real happy with the direction their music was going at the time they signed with Warner Bros.. I was just happy I’d been able to see them before then.
So, what does all this have to do with getting through a 6 month stint in observation? Just this: I’d heard that the band’s 3rd album was going to be released in mid-to-late ’85 and I could not wait! Oh, but I had to. Because it came out about two months after I took up residence on the 4th floor psych ward! Such bad timing! One day I’m listening to the stereo in the lounge when, I couldn't believe it myself, “Can’t Get There From Here” comes on. It sounds almost nothing like R.E.M.. I wanted to hear it again and a few more times to get a handle on the direction they were heading. I thought it was pretty good on first hearing, but I couldn't be sure just how much I might like it without a couple more decent listens. To make matters worse I got a copy of Rolling Stone and wouldn't you know it? The feature review was of Fables of the Reconstruction. It was a very positive review. I remember seeing all the song titles, wondering what the songs themselves might sound like. I proselytized R.E.M. to any and all of the psych techs who cared to listen and no doubt more than one realized that getting to hear that record was one of the things that kept my chin up. Re-united with wife and daughter was most important, obviously, but getting my own copy of Fables was a powerful incentive to hang on as well.
I know I haven’t gone into detail about what I went through there. Or how or why or whatever, none of it really needs to be related other than to point out that those days, weeks, months WERE difficult for me. I don’t think I can over-emphasize how these things, big and small, pulled me through, or to describe exactly what it was they actually did pull me through. Suffice to say that I will be thankful for them until the day I die.
It should come as no surprise that one of the first things I did when I was discharged was go straight to Sound Warehouse to buy a copy of Fables of the Reconstruction…or Reconstruction of the Fables depending on which side of the jacket you were looking at. The wheels were set in motion. The grooves in the record would be worn out only weeks later.The music, in the grand R.E.M. tradition, shared little in common with what came before. Just enough to remind you of who you were listening to and why you loved them. Yes, I had my favorites. “Life and How to Live It”, “Feeling Gravity’s Pull”…and there were a couple I wasn't all that crazy about, “Old Man Kinsey”, “Maps and Legends”. But as a whole I couldn't think of too many albums that were so consistently excellent.
Maybe my reverence for Fables of the Reconstruction is tinged with sentimental attachment. So it is. Still I have no problem coming out and saying that it is one of the few truly great records of the 80s. Unlike the music of so many dime-a-dozen MTV-friendly music video pimping bands of that decade, R.E.M.’s mid 80s output will be remembered for a long time to come.
I confess, I’m not much of an R.E.M. fan these days. I don’t like having to say that, but it’s true. They have released excellent music since I fell off the bandwagon, but it’s not for me. No doubt that is the curse of any band who doggedly insists on not repeating themselves. At some point you’re going to lose the people who aren’t willing to follow your muse. Maybe the word “willing” is not what I mean to say. I’m “willing” to go with them, but it’s useless because the music doesn't appeal to me anymore. The last song I truly loved by R.E.M. was “New Test Leper” from the last album they recorded with Bill Berry on the drums, New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Even that was after generally losing interest, as I mentioned earlier, after they signed with major label, Warner Brothers. They got more popular, with the success of “Losing My Religion” and later “Everybody Hurts”, an anthem so universal it was bound to resonate with everyone. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame not too long afterward. They had made it, they’d done it their way, and whether or not the old school fans wanted to admit it or not, they’d come out on the other side with dignity and integrity intact, doing what THEY wanted to do, still releasing music that draws in new fans, at least two for every one lost, it seems. So the oversight is mine, for sure.
As of yesterday, September 21, 2011, that’s all history. R.E.M. has broken up and it’s almost surreal to me. Even though I may never have gotten back into them again I still have a very difficult time believing that it’s over. It’s just a band. Yet so much more to me. Why? I don’t know myself. Their music was very much a soundtrack to some good times in my life. They were down to earth and never let rock stardom turn them into assholes. I’ll never forget writing to their fan club and getting a personal note from Mike Mills, who informed me that he had family here in Oklahoma. Of course this was in the early stages of their career, so they had more time to be so available to their fans. But I have always got the impression that R.E.M. have always treated their fans not only with respect but as fellow travelers on their journey.
Me? I will always consider them to be one of my favorite groups in the history of modern music. Come to think of it, maybe it was a good thing that I didn't follow them after Bill Berry’s departure. There are three entire R.E.M. albums that I have never heard…I’m sure I’ll come around to where they left me someday. I’ll have what I might as well consider “new music” from the band. New to me. That will make it somewhat easier to deal with the fact that the three remaining members will no longer be creating more as a unit. Though that be the case, the reality is that R.E.M.’s body of work will stand up to repeated listening for years to come. Long after the idea of “alternative music” has died, the name “R.E.M.” will be remembered and their legacy will be, among other things, the proof that music can transcend labels. That it can rise above categorizations.
Mr. Berry…Mr. Buck…Mr. Mills…Mr. Stipe…God bless you. Thank you. Thank you so much and may you each be successful in whatever endeavors you choose to pursue at this point in your lives. You've touched a lot of people. Your music genuinely moved us. Your originality has amazed us. Your integrity has inspired us. You have not let us down, in the past or with this decision to call it a day. We trust you well enough to give you the benefit of the doubt and if you say the time has come, then it’s for certain the time has come. But you will be missed…and it is with no small degree of sadness that I have to say…
Goodbye
September 22, 2011
life with the ex, the first year
Barbra and I would go spend the weekends at my dad's house just to get away from the awfulness that was always going down in the apartment. One afternoon we returned to find that the record store where I was employed had burned to the ground. I don't know if I mentioned it but our apartment was directly across the street south of the store. The owner/manager, Stan B. lived across the street to the east of us, so he wasn't too far from the store, either. I remember going to his house to ask what had happened. He said he didn't know what had started the fire. Maybe electrical wires or something. It wasn't hard to believe, in the months and years to come, that he had deliberately started the fire. First off, the building we were in used to be a grocery store and there was far more room than we needed. Second, his brother was a record distributor and Stan got all his product from him, likely at a deep discount. Third, when the insurance money came through he was able to build a new shop that was perfect for what he needed it to be. I guess that's only natural, but to go from an old grocery store to a spare section of a lot in a bad location to a record store to be envied by all was a little suspicious. I don't know, though. That's what a lot of people thought happened. He was always pretty nice to me. Not that he was a very personable, "nice" kind of fella, but he seemed to like me. He was a Vietnam veteran with a wife and a young son. He had a daughter on the way before I was "fired". That's another story, I'm sure I'll get to it later.
Anyway, the store burned down and within a couple of weeks we had moved operations to another location across the city. Which kind of sucked because I kind of liked only having to walk about 100 feet to get to work. No matter...we had to get out of that apartment. Through some string pulling by the Methodist church minister we were able to get a house sort of out in the country. Way too much land, there was no way I could have kept it mowed and maintained. The house itself was too big. There were at least a couple of whole rooms that were empty because we had nothing to put in them. There are really only two things I remember about living in that huge house...one, I won't forget walking into the living room and seeing the news on television, saying the Keith Green and two of his four children had been killed in an airplane crash. Keith Green was a contemporary Christian artist/performer who I looked up to. Not that he was just a musician...he had organized a ministry in Texas that we kept up with...would have given money if we'd ever had enough than more to eat on...We had even discussed the possibility of moving to Texas and becoming involved on a full time basis. It really shook me up to learn of his death.
The second permanent memory of that big house is of making love to Barbra on a blanket spread outside behind the house. Never before, never again.
Anyway, the store burned down and within a couple of weeks we had moved operations to another location across the city. Which kind of sucked because I kind of liked only having to walk about 100 feet to get to work. No matter...we had to get out of that apartment. Through some string pulling by the Methodist church minister we were able to get a house sort of out in the country. Way too much land, there was no way I could have kept it mowed and maintained. The house itself was too big. There were at least a couple of whole rooms that were empty because we had nothing to put in them. There are really only two things I remember about living in that huge house...one, I won't forget walking into the living room and seeing the news on television, saying the Keith Green and two of his four children had been killed in an airplane crash. Keith Green was a contemporary Christian artist/performer who I looked up to. Not that he was just a musician...he had organized a ministry in Texas that we kept up with...would have given money if we'd ever had enough than more to eat on...We had even discussed the possibility of moving to Texas and becoming involved on a full time basis. It really shook me up to learn of his death.
The second permanent memory of that big house is of making love to Barbra on a blanket spread outside behind the house. Never before, never again.
Friday, July 5, 2013
in which I meet and eventually marry my first wife
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| My first wife, Barbra 1979 |
I first began a relationship with Barbra in October 1980. Truth be told I was interested in her older sister and hadn't even noticed her until the day we got together. I had been enlisted to work in the Methodist Church's fundraising haunted house. I don't think I was a member of the church at that time but it sounded like fun so I did it. I played the role of a vampire killer. It was big fun. My co-star would lie on his back, playing dead, until the people got into the room and at some point he rose from the table. Which would be kind of lame and nobody would have been the slightest bit frightened, but I was behind the door that opened into the next room. Just as they thought they were done and ready to move on, I would very loudly jump out from behind the door and engage in a fierce struggle with the vampire as they were ushered into the next room.
Standing behind the door gave me a lot of time to spend in the next room, where Barbara played the role of the headless man. She was locked in a "cage", as it were, a suit coat fastened too high on her body to give the appearance of one beheaded. We flirted like crazy back there, which was something new to me. I was awkward as a teenager and didn't really have any girlfriends until then (unless you counted a one-sided obsession with a girl who had no intention of becoming anything more to me than good friends). I liked her immediately and thought she was a pretty girl. Tall, like me.
Somehow or another I wound up giving her a little kiss...at least I think it was me who gave that first little peck. For sure there wasn't anything to it. I think I said something goofy along the lines of "that was nice, let's do it again" and then she really let me have it. Definitely the most passionate kiss I'd ever experience. Actually I had made out with the "good friends" girl one time but her kisses weren't nearly as exciting. To her, for sure. They were just fine for me until Barbra kissed me that first time and I knew they weren't worth a damn.
Barbra and I began "going together" that night, even though it was an unspoken fact. It was just too obvious. Looking back I can see just how much it was "puppy love", complete with all the hand-holding, french kissing, blah blah blah. It turned into sex pretty soon afterwards. We were both very sexual...I mean, all teenagers are, right? We'd meet at the swimming pool two or three times a week and sneak off to my house where we'd make love and then return to the pool, with no parent being any the wiser. During school hours we would sacrifice lunch hour to go to the house (which was not too far from the school) and do it again. My dad's second wife would be in the front room when we'd show up. We'd go straight down the hall to my room without saying a word to her. Then when we were done we'd walk straight on out, once again not saying a word. I can only imagine now how this made her feel, knowing that she couldn't do anything about it. I can't imagine that she didn't say anything to my dad about it. But he never mentioned it to me if she did. And I'm sure knowing that he didn't seem to care (whether he actually did or not) probably made her all the more livid.
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| Prom night, 1980 |
She chewed Doublemint gum. I won't forget that. I even wrote a poem about it a couple of years ago.
We were both in the high school band (she played flute, me baritone saxophone). On the way home from "away" football games we'd do all kinds of stuff in the darkness of the bus. Stuff you wouldn't think we'd get away with. The band took their yearly trip to Six Flags over Texas and of course we were all over each other up there and back. She used to have this sheer white shirt with little holes in it (they're called something but I don't know what)....It was practically see-through. I dared her to go without a bra during the Six Flags trip. She took the dare. I can't remember if that surprised me at the time. Probably did. There's no way people didn't notice her. Especially after the log ride, soaking wet. She looked good to me.
We got married in February, 1984. Moved into a 4 section duplex across the street from the record store I was working at. The accommodations left much to be desired. Add to that, all I had was a little twin size bed. But do you know what? We didn't mind at all. I never thought twice about it. Unfortunately the people who lived in the section adjacent to ours were a rough lot. The guy used to beat his wife and you could hear it all, including their kids crying in the corner. It was terrible. I know we should have called the law on them...it's not as if we would have been the only ones, cops had been there before without our intervention...We were afraid. This guy was evil. He was a big reason why we eventually left. I'm ashamed now that I didn't do the right thing. But I didn't.
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| Barbra, circa 1982 |
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