Welcome to the upcoming financial collapse of America. When times get tough, I get to listening and playing music just as I've always done. This leads to small memory sparks that are soon zipping and booming like the 4th of July and I find that I've stopped worrying about what might come tomorrow. Hence this piece called Cue The Merle Haggard.
"are the good times really over....."
Just a little lyric snippet from a Merle Haggard tune I usually refer to as SNOWBALL headed to HELL. Actual title is "Are The Good Times Really Over (I Wish A Buck Was Still Silver)". It dates from that brief window right after we moved to the Jimmy C. Newman farm in the spring of 1982. We moved into a tiny ttailer with a kitchen floor tiled like a zebra. My parents bought me some shit kicker boots because the place was supposed to crawling with timber rattlesnakes. It was, but the boots weren't necessary. I wore flip-flops most of the time.
This was the 3rd big dislocation in just as many years and my identity was in complete teenage free fall. I had flourished when we moved to Smyrna for 8th grade. I had floundered after we moved back to Murfreesboro for 9th grade at Oakland High. It's a wonder I didn't kill myself or become a criminal during that year of purgatory. Now we had traveled to the outer reaches of Rutherford County so my father could manage the farm of a Grand Ole Opry star I had never even heard of before. Which meant yet another new school to attend in the Fall. I spent a few days exploring the huge farm and never felt so alone or adrift in my young life. I almost wrecked my bicycle the day I met the accordion player's son by the creek that ran beside the mile long road slash driveway.
He had yelled "hello" as I rode by. I quickly learned that his name was James, he was in 8th grade. his father played accordion in Newman's Cajun Country band, and that he lived just around the corner. Most important, I learned that he also liked to smoke cigarettes so we adjourned under the wooden bridge that ran over the creek right after a hairpin turn which made it easy to almost run big Impalas over the side if you weren't watching what you doing closely enough as I was to find out a few years later, but was also very convenient for sneaking smokes as long as the copperheads cooperated by staying under their rocks. Soon James introduced me to his older sister Paige, and a dude from down the highway named John. They were all Cajuns, but they referred to themselves as coonasses.
It was all so new and even sorta exciting. After just a few weeks around them I began talking like them subconsciously dropping their Cajun accent into my speech. I tried to hang out with them as often as possible, but soon after the novelty factor wore off on both sides it became very apparent that if our lives had been a Sesame Street song; I was the one of those things that didn't belong here. I loved the country, but I wasn't a country boy like James and John. Paige was cute and I thought I'd dig hanging around her, but her personality was ugly with a capital U. So now I was even more lost and adrift than before. The loneliest person isn't sitting by themselves. The loneliest person is always sitting in a room full of people feeling like they are invisible and powerless to change this.
This was how I felt when I was around the Cajun kids. Not only did I lack the requisite country boy skills, but I was an ethnic minority around them. They weren't above throwing in some French patois, pointing at me, and then laughing. If there was any kind of dispute it was always two, or three if Paige was around, against my one small voice. Knowing I would never become the buck knife toting redneck they seemed to aspire to be, I did the one thing I knew might lead to some common ground among us and perhaps lead to that first pleasant novel stage again. I started listening to country music radio only. Which is not as drastic as it appears. I might have preferred Kiss, but I did grow up watching Porter Wagoner and Hee Haw.
This experiment lasted maybe 2 to 3 months. It was a blur of mainly Alabama, Hank Williams Jr,. David Frizzell, and Sylvia at the time. Only two songs really stand out for me now. One was by Janie Fricke where she sings she's gonna love you till the cows come home. The cows never really came home at Jimmy's; they just sort of ambled around the acreage so I guess Janie would have have had her work cut out for her there. The other song was Merle Haggard's "Are The Good Times Really Over (I Wish A Buck Was Still Silver)" which had been released in 1981. I knew Merle from a greatest hits collection my father owned and he stood out from the cosmopolitan country flavors Nashville was shoving down everyone's ears.
It didn't take long to realize that an appreciation for country music wasn't going to make me visible to the Cajuns or to anybody else. It wasn't long till my Cajun friends sold me out to a bully and I would learn that I wasn't so invisible, but now wished I had been. I went back to the heavy metal and punk music I truly loved. I slowly made new friends at Riverdale High. I took advantage of knowing Jimmy C. Newman and attended countless Grand Ole Opry shows and ran around Opryland by myself for free until the park closed. I'd ride the Grizzly River Rampage with a raft full of strangers and somehow it was okay. We were all snowballs headed to hell, right.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
4 Years Of Blogging The Past
4 years of blogging. And this is the best I can do.
The very first post. I figured if DD's brother could do it so could I.
Brushes with greatness, the Phonoluxe years. I used to work at a record store in Nashville. Sometimes I miss it.
It took me 5 posts to tell the story of my first band. We were initially called Dalai Lamai Death Squad, but after I dislocated my thumb we had a new name. If you went to Riverdale in 1989 you probably saw us create some slam dancing mayhem. Our brief fame was Jabbstastic.
The Dislocated part one.
The Dislocated part two.
The Dislocated part three.
The Dislocated part four.
The Dislocated part five.
I obsess over things. Especially R.E.M., the White Animals, Mr. Zero, and The Replacements among many others including R.E.M. yet again.
The Nashville Rock History posts got more notice than anything. DD Blank came along for the ride for those 4 missives.
Rick Champion
Opened
A Hot
Dog Stand.
I did sometimes write about other things. Like peak oil. Seems rather quaint.
I sometimes wrote about awesome things like the birth of my son Liam. He'll be four years before early next year and he just gets cooler by the minute.
He got his first skateboard a few weeks ago. Maybe he'll write about being a skate rat one day. The skating days were truly some of the best days of my life.
Those days culminated in the skate punk of my second band, Michael Landon's Ghost, when we actually played at a skate park. It took me three posts to tell the tale and you can actually hear some old MLG recorded on a boom box if you're really brave.
It all comes back to rock and roll. Which can be traced to my Neanderthal upbringing raised on Elvis P, Coca-Cola, and Hardees.
And then there are those high school days. Maybe it's because I've never attended any of the reunions. Maybe it's because I really hated it until just about the last minute. Maybe it's just because I live on nostalgia - the pure junk food of the soul. Whatever. I've written about the nickname Wally, about the mixtape from HELL, yearbooks, and the glories of parachute pants.
I've written about Toby Holmes at least a couple of times or more and probably will again.
I've paid tribute to the Taylor's living room and Ms. Murks. Mitchell-Neilson Elementary represent!
I've binge drinked and went back to North Mississippi in spirit and for real.
The nicest thing I've ever read about this blog can be found here.
And that's about it. Cue the Little River Band.
The very first post. I figured if DD's brother could do it so could I.
Brushes with greatness, the Phonoluxe years. I used to work at a record store in Nashville. Sometimes I miss it.
It took me 5 posts to tell the story of my first band. We were initially called Dalai Lamai Death Squad, but after I dislocated my thumb we had a new name. If you went to Riverdale in 1989 you probably saw us create some slam dancing mayhem. Our brief fame was Jabbstastic.
The Dislocated part one.
The Dislocated part two.
The Dislocated part three.
The Dislocated part four.
The Dislocated part five.
I obsess over things. Especially R.E.M., the White Animals, Mr. Zero, and The Replacements among many others including R.E.M. yet again.
The Nashville Rock History posts got more notice than anything. DD Blank came along for the ride for those 4 missives.
Rick Champion
Opened
A Hot
Dog Stand.
I did sometimes write about other things. Like peak oil. Seems rather quaint.
I sometimes wrote about awesome things like the birth of my son Liam. He'll be four years before early next year and he just gets cooler by the minute.
He got his first skateboard a few weeks ago. Maybe he'll write about being a skate rat one day. The skating days were truly some of the best days of my life.
Those days culminated in the skate punk of my second band, Michael Landon's Ghost, when we actually played at a skate park. It took me three posts to tell the tale and you can actually hear some old MLG recorded on a boom box if you're really brave.
It all comes back to rock and roll. Which can be traced to my Neanderthal upbringing raised on Elvis P, Coca-Cola, and Hardees.
And then there are those high school days. Maybe it's because I've never attended any of the reunions. Maybe it's because I really hated it until just about the last minute. Maybe it's just because I live on nostalgia - the pure junk food of the soul. Whatever. I've written about the nickname Wally, about the mixtape from HELL, yearbooks, and the glories of parachute pants.
I've written about Toby Holmes at least a couple of times or more and probably will again.
I've paid tribute to the Taylor's living room and Ms. Murks. Mitchell-Neilson Elementary represent!
I've binge drinked and went back to North Mississippi in spirit and for real.
The nicest thing I've ever read about this blog can be found here.
And that's about it. Cue the Little River Band.
Eventide Riots
Vortices, voices, and a general clamoring -
Jackson Heights late night parking lot frisbee club -
Team of '87 and '88.
Hiram and his house of blue lights -
Stamping out litterbugs -
Especially Doug.
Red Mustang love no reaction-
Zulu Detective Agency was put on the case-
Memorial and Clark.
Exhaust, signs, and a Beetle-
Cutlass and run-
Pursuing pursued.
Fistfights, Eventide riots-
Hippie kid swings like a girl-
Street lamp obscure.
Jackson Heights late night parking lot frisbee club -
Team of '87 and '88.
Hiram and his house of blue lights -
Stamping out litterbugs -
Especially Doug.
Red Mustang love no reaction-
Zulu Detective Agency was put on the case-
Memorial and Clark.
Exhaust, signs, and a Beetle-
Cutlass and run-
Pursuing pursued.
Fistfights, Eventide riots-
Hippie kid swings like a girl-
Street lamp obscure.
Monday, August 11, 2008
4th Anniversary
4 years ago I began this blog. I was planning a big retrospective today, but it'll have to wait until later this week. So stay tuned.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Saturday, August 09, 2008
We Were The Kings Of Noise
Found this in a box the other day: a flyer for the first show I ever did with The Dislocated. It would have been either March or April 1989. The Gonz made up the flyer at the last minute since we were a late edition to the gig.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Back To School!
"The teacher preaches class like you're some kind of jerk"
My daughters began another school year yesterday. Emmy is now a 4th grader and Harper Lee began the 1st grade. It's been a school supply scramble the last few days, but everything will be all squared away once Harp's backpack arrives from L.L. Bean. It's only natural for the grown-up's thoughts to go back to their school days during this time. So let's go back. Way back to those troglodyte times during the fall of 1983.
Feast your eyes on one of the heavy metal slash pesky new waver notebooks from my junior year at Riverdale. I believe it was for the basic math course I took that year since the back has the slogan "Michelle DeWitt was here!" emblazoned upon the back. She was a cute little brunette that would flirt and joke around with me during the terminally boring class. But I'm not here to go on about schoolboy crushes. No, we're not doing that Average White Band thing here even if the breakbeat in "Pick Up The Pieces" does take me back. What is of interest is the front of this paper folder with its glorious roll call of band names and logos screaming off the cover who I was circa September 1983.
First, the non-band stuff:
Presidential campaign stickers came later.
San Francisco 49'ers #1
Take off you knob, eh
Eh? Take off! You hoser
5150 - as this predates the Van Hagar era it was either a Mob Rules reference or perhaps I had picked it up from reading about Eddie Van Halen's home studio.
The groups:
Ozzy Osbourne with a tombstone reading RR RIP - Ozzy was just not the same without Randy Rhoads, but he was still one of the top dogs of metal in 1983 - a combo package of goofiness and evil.
Black Sabbath - One look at my devil dude artwork and you could tell that I didn't have a future as an artist.
Twisted Sister logo staples - I always did like cartoons and Twisted Sister were a heavy metal one.
Motley Crue - I took German so I always loved umlaut bands. I'm html challenged so there's none in this post. Maybe I should have paid more attentiion in school instead of writing band names all over my folders.
IRON MAIDEN with the obligatory attempt at drawing their mascot Eddie below - Big and bold. Black ink with a ruler. I made an Eddie button once in high school. I brought in Powerslave my senior year so we could play "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" in English class. I picked disc jockey as my profession for the marriage project in sociology class. When Mr. Van Zant asked me what kind of music I would play I told him heavy metal like Iron Maiden, specifically "22 Acacia Avenue." Somebody snickered so he asked what the song was about and I replied in deadpan, "prostitution." The subject was then closed and I made an A for the project. One last Maiden memory: Kirk Faulkner rode his unicyle during the senior talent show to my favorite Maiden song "Revelations."
VAN HALEN #1 - 'Nuff said.
Ratt sucks - Back then I thought they were a bubblegum metal band. I still think they're bubblegum, but I'd much rather hear them now instead of Twisted Sister.
The Doors with a tombstone reading RIP JDM - James Douglas Morrison, how many children did you corrupt with your liquor, poetry, and doom schtick. Like the "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop" I guess we'll never know.
Boston - Smooth rocking. Too bad I couldn't draw their guitar spaceship logo.
Molly Hatchet - I had outgrown my Flirtin' With Disaster tee shirt by then, but I was still representing.
Michael Schenker Group - Flying V's, cutout bin cassette Assault Attack, Graham Bonnett, Rudolf's brother, former Scorpion, and a cheap tee shirt bought at Port o' Call records. Thus endeth my knowledge of Michael Schenker then and now.
Billy Idol - First of the New Wave interlopers. I mainly liked him for "Eyes Without A Face" and the line "reading murder books and trying to stay hip."
Blue Oyster Cult symbol - I had their first album, Agents Of Fortune, and Fire Of Unknown back then and all were on cassette. Later, my appreciation of the band would grow to "Godzilla" size.
U2 - "Sunday Bloody Sunday" still rocks.
Talking Heads - This one was a head scratcher back then for my friends. U2 and Billy Idol weren't heavy metal, but they did feature guitar as a lead instrument, but the Talking Heads just didn't seem to belong. I begged to differ then and now. "Psycho Killer" is an awesome paranoid masterpiece and the entire Fear Of Music album is heavy in its own sort of way.
Dokken - Rhymes with rockin'!
Y & T - Yesterday & Today are probably the leading candidate for lamest act on this notebook. Now I've ticked off a couple of Y & T fans. Sorry.
Kick Axe - Dead or Canadian?
DIO - Another attempt at a logo. I think if you look at it backwards it will spell gullible. I'm referring to the devil stuff and not the music, because I still like me some DIO. Did you catch Anthony Bourdain rocking the DIO tee shirt on No Reservations the other night?
Manowar - Ridiculous. Over the top. Leather and fur wearing beasts. What's not to like about Manowar.
Motorhead - The greatest umlaut band of them all. Sorry B.O.C., Lemmy and the boys just nip you at the finish line. I would talk myself hoarse back then extolling the praises of the Iron Fist album. Just ask the Gonz.
Thin Lizzy - The only argument about Thin Lizzy was how to pronounce the name. Was it Thin or Tin with the H silent. There was no arguing their greatness.
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - The Gonz and I agreed. We could forgive Stevie Ray for doing that Bowie album.
Saxon - Harry Shearer cam along for their tour in 1981 and the rest is history. Yes, without Saxon their might not have been a Spinal Tap.
White Animals - Nashville homeboys! Might not have been metal, but you could still slamdance to them.
RUSH - They were mutating into something not as heavy at the time and we were mutating right with them. Imagine the "Neil Peart is the best drummer" conversation starters at schools all across America. I bet there were millions every day.
Pink Floyd - I've never gotten off the Floyd. Heavy metal couldn't get me to dislike them and neither did punk. Just accept it. They are a decent group even if the alarm clocks always wake you up after you've nodded off listening to Dark Side Of The Moon.
Tokyo Blade logo - I'll admit I didn't remember this right off. I knew it was something Blade and that they were a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and the mystery is solved. I wish we had the internet when I was 16.
Sweet - I'm actually a little bit surprised that I was into them back then.
Judas Priest - They were riding high back then. As for Halford's orientation - none of us had a clue. Would we have cared? Maybe.
Queen - But then again, we didn't have any doubts about Freddie Mercury and we still liked Queen.
Riot - Sort of obscure back then and I guess they still are, but most will agree that Restless Breed is a classic.
Whitesnake - The pre-Tawny days. All you needed to sell albums was a giant snake entwined around a naked woman on your album cover and a vocalist that sounded like Robert Plant who wasn't Billy Squier or Ann Wilson.
Journey - They were a guilty pleasure even back then. Plus you needed to have a few bands that girls liked on your folder or you'd really be a social zero.
Venom - From dinosaur corporate rock to Satanic thrash in less than an inch of paper. That will make one's head spin.
KISS - Just a few years previously they would have been at the top in gigantic letters. I just hope Gene Simmons doesn't come sniffing around wanting me to pay for the use of their name on the blog.
Black Oak Arkansas - I got into them back then because David Lee Roth had been compared to Jim Dandy, and because the drummer on Ozzy's Diary Of A Madman, Tommy Aldridge, had also played drums for Black Oak Arkansas.
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Play "Freebird!"
Led Zeppelin - I never considered them the pinnacle of the rock universe like so many others. I always preferred Sabbath. Still, anyone who would deny a place on their folder to Led Zep would probably be struck dead by some spell cast by Jimmy Page. Imagine the "John Bonham was the best drummer" conversation starters at schools all across America. I bet there were millions every day.
Sammy Hagar - The Red Rocker. Ain't it funny how pedestrian his solo work is considering he can't drive 55. That first Montrose album is one for the ages though and Sammy seems like he's a decent guy.
Scorpions - We all went ape for the Blackout era Scorps and the great "No One Like You" Alcatrazz prison video.
AC/DC - If it had been 8th or 9th grade Angus and company might have held the top spot, but they were flickering like a faulty wire by this time. They came back though.
Deep Purple - Peer pressure....that's the only explanation. Maybe Blackmore.
Joe Walsh - The "Life's Been Good To Me So Far" Joe Walsh. Not the Eagles Joe Walsh. He was held in high esteem as one of those guitarists that had a sound you could instantly recognize like Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Randy Rhoads, Angus Young, Ace Frehley, Brian May, and Tony Iommi to name but a few,
The WHO - Imagine the "Keith Moon was the best drummer" conversation starters at schools all across America. I bet there were millions every day. Is there a bloody echo in this blog? The Who should have been more prominent on this folder.
Ted Nugent - The Motor City Madman was waning in popularity from mega-star to a mere star in the rock world, but to us he was still mega and is to this day.
Bronz - Another New Wave Of British Heavy Metal entry. If I'd only had Diamond Head on this notebook I would have really been cool.
Jimi Hendrix Experience with a tombstone reading RIP underneath - The rumour was he once played some gigs in Murfreesboro at a place called the Weeping Willow Lounge just off College Street. It should have been made a historical landmark but it was torn down to make way for the Medical Center Parkway.
ZZ Top - Another group who were at the peak of their fame. I'd get to meet Billy Gibbons years later and get his autograph for the Gonz.
Krokus - More Gonz fun. My old Dislocated bandmate's first name is Mark. So when Krokus made it big he swiped their logo and started signing his name as Markus. The refried AC/DC boogie sticks out to me now in a bad way, but back then I didn't care preferring One Vice At A Time over Headhunter.
Queensryche - Man, this last little bit is turning into the Gonz hour. But one does have to give props where it's due. The Gonz lived north of Murfreesboro and on a good night he could tune into Vol State's student radio station which played a steady diet of hesher music. That's where we first heard Dokken and it's also how he found out about Queensryche.
Big Country - Guitars that sounded like bagpipes! Worth a spot on the folder.
Some triangle logo - it might stand for a band and it might just be something I made up.
Notable absences:
Def Leppard - Pyromania came out in January of 1983 and I was one of the millions who bought it. Maybe I was getting sick of them by September.
Cheap Trick - There was a girl in my graphic arts class who thought Cheap Trick were the greatest band in the world. The boy she was dating even looked like Robin Zander. She would always mark up my folders with the Cheap Trick logo, but somehow this math class one escaped her.
So what can be learned from a 25 year old folder. Perhaps it was a way of expressing my identity in an oppressive world of parents, teachers, and all of those other kids that only liked what they heard on Top 40 radio. Mayber it was a way of trying to be visibile in a world in which I felt invisible. Or it was a tiny tremor of rebellion in a sedate setting. It was definitely an attempt to seem cool. Maybe it was a cry for help. I don't know myself since I've lost touch with the 16 year old Wally ages ago.
Most likely, the folder was the product of a bored teenager amusing himself by writing the names of the bands he loved and some he barely knew and some he barely liked on to a yellow thirty cent folder. I'd come home after school and crank up the stereo and my parents would tell me to turn the music down and how could I stand such crap and that Black Sabbath were evil and they lamented over what would become of me.
Well, I've got two daughters ready to start another school year and a son who wishes he was old enough to go and Harp's backpack came during lunch. I hold down a job, been married for 12 years, and I've got a few friends here and there. I coach Junior Pro basketball. I can play guitar and sort of play the drums. I blog. I get to travel every now and then. I think I've turned out fairly decent. And I'll bet those high school kids of today marking up their folders with their favorite bands that make the adults cringe will turn out all right too.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Original Hugs
I was looking for my old baseball cards the other day and while I didn't find them (they must be up in the attic), I did find this handbill that my boy Chad did back in the crazy 90's. I didn't put the backside up since it just tells you that you could see MK2, John Doe, and Chek spinning Hip Hop, Acid Jazz, and Jungle at the Red Geranium on Fridays for $5. It's the art of Hugs that the people want to see.
Ray Underhill RIP
Ray Underhill died a few days ago. He had chordoma which is a rare cancer. Say a prayer for his family and the skateboarding community. Ray might not of attained the fame some of his peers did - remember he was part of the Bones Brigade, but he kept working in the industry his whole life. Last I heard he was Tony Hawk's webmaster.
Ray was always a big deal to us in Middle Tennessee. The only skaters from Tennesse we knew that were professional back in the mid to late 80's were Bill Danforth and Ray Underhill. There was an article in Transworld Skateboarding back in the day with Ray as he took them around to all of the skate spots he liked in Nashville. Thanks to him, us Murfreesboro skaters were able to skate the Knights Of Columbus pool by the airport (and get kicked out by a grouchy KOC member once), and the transition at the base of the Tennessee building downtown. We were proud that Ray was from Tennessee and now we're sad that he's gone.
Ray was always a big deal to us in Middle Tennessee. The only skaters from Tennesse we knew that were professional back in the mid to late 80's were Bill Danforth and Ray Underhill. There was an article in Transworld Skateboarding back in the day with Ray as he took them around to all of the skate spots he liked in Nashville. Thanks to him, us Murfreesboro skaters were able to skate the Knights Of Columbus pool by the airport (and get kicked out by a grouchy KOC member once), and the transition at the base of the Tennessee building downtown. We were proud that Ray was from Tennessee and now we're sad that he's gone.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Ring, Ring Goes The Bell
Subtitled: Clang, Clang go the jail guitar doors.
So I wrote this, like, many months ago. I suppose I was feeling sorry for myself and I figured the following tale would make me feel better. Things could be much worse. The days of smuggling smokes under bridges and skulking through the halls during lunch period weren’t really all that great. Nowadays I don’t smoke and I get to go home on my lunch hour and watch the Adult Swim cartoons I taped the night before. Keep reading and join the pity party below.
It's the beginning of a new age...thus goes a line in one of my favorite Velvet Underground songs and lately I've been feeling like I've entered not a only a new age, but old age as well. I'm losing my hair. My energy is flagging. All those years spent listening to and playing loud music has left me reaching for the closed caption button on the television remote. It could be worse on that front. My cousin Chris, who's only a year older, has to wear a hearing aid due to years working in a machine shop. All the weight I took off two years ago is trying to come back thanks to my love of ice cream and cookies.
I'm not going to let it get to me. I've got to listen to Johnny's advice to Pony Boy in The Outsiders and "stay golden." I watched that film again awhile back. I just got this urge to see it. It was perhaps better than I remember it, but then again when it came out in the spring of my sophomore year I really took to it. I was a writer just like Pony Boy. Maybe I hadn’t been on the run from the law, but I had been busted once. I don’t think I’ve ever really written about that incident so here goes.
It was the fall of 1982. My family moved again so I switched schools for the third year in a row. I actually looked forward to this after a disastrous freshman year at Oakland. Riverdale was to be the place where I would reconnect to long lost friends from Central Middle and forget about all of the bullies across town. Eventually this did happen, but not until my junior year after I grew almost 6 inches in height and finally got into some classes with my old friends. Sophomore year at Riverdale was perhaps even worse than that freshman experience at Oakland. There I had merely been an outcast, but I became something worse at Riverdale: a class skipping criminal.
It began the first day I got on the bus to go to Riverdale. I headed toward the back since that was where all of the cool freak kids sat. This was where I sat when I went to Oakland; not that I was cool but through some circumstance or other the older freaks took a liking at my attempts to smoke cigarettes at the bus stop in the morning. I basically got a pity pass. This was not the case on bus 29 headed to Buchanan School and then on to Riverdale. I sat about 3 rows from the back and the spitballs began to fly.
I threw them back. I may have been a dork, but I didn’t take crap on the bus. This was what led to a ride in the back of a police cruiser one fine autumn morning. One of the spitball throwers was a guy I had known back in 1st grade, let’s call him the Herc. I had even attended a birthday party for him at the Dipper Dan Ice Cream store in Jackson Heights Plaza. I remember this event because it was the first time I had ever eaten bubblegum ice cream. The Herc knew me too (we used to run into each other at Hot Wheels skating rink), but by this time he had developed an attitude and the usual barbaric bully code of: I can throw crap at you and you have to take it, but if you dare to throw stuff back then I have to kick your ass.
So I was told to meet him at the cement slab that afternoon after school. I didn’t do it. I didn’t know where the cement slab was located. It turns out it was on Arnold Road just off of Big Springs Road. Once the Herc drew me a map I was once again told to meet him, which was something I didn’t want to do. If it had been a chance fight on the bus or at school I would have gladly thrown down with the dude, but I wasn’t going to willingly seek out a fight. So I decided to go play basketball instead. (To clarify: if the Herc had thrown punches at me I would have defended myself, but as you’ll soon see he never raised his fists at me.)
I made the mistake of telling two kids who lived down the road that I was going to a little country church to shoot some hoops. I had mistakenly thought they were my friends, but they only wanted to see me get my brains smashed in by the Herc. So when I made it through the woods to the church he was there waiting for me. In fact, he had already kicked out several basement windows of the church and made a mess of the inside (country churches used to leave their doors unlocked) whiled waiting for me.
I wish I could say that I then beat the Herc and my two supposed friends up and then reported them to the cops, but that is not what went down. The Herc said, “You know why I’m here. Let’s fight.”
“Why should we fight,” I replied?
“You know why. You threw spitball at me on the bus.”
I answered, “That’s because you threw them at me first.”
Herc said, “That wasn’t me.”
“I don’t want to fight you,” I said as my eyes began to tear up. This was quickly seized upon by the Herc as a sign of weakness.
“You know I could kick your ass right now,” he chortled.
And that was it. It was a bad scene of humiliation behind tearful eyes on my part and triumph for the malevolent Herc. He stomped off and I was left with the two Judases. They helped me to clean up the inside of the church. I knew I would catch hell for the crying, even if it had been misinterpreted. It was fight or flight. Adrenaline pumping. And I wasn’t running from the Herc.
The next day I sat in the middle of the bus and endured the taunts of the Herc. He made sure everybody knew what a wimp I was and I did nothing to change that opinion. Time dragged and dragged like it does when you’re 15 and bitterly alone among hundreds. I started skipping classes. Man, it was easy to skip at Riverdale back then. You could hang out behind the gym or the industrial studies building and smoke cigarettes and probably what ever else you wanted to smoke and never see a teacher. But the best way to skip was to just hang out in the hall in front of Mr. Herbert’s office. I drew rock band logos on my notebooks filled with fake heavy metal bands and really horrendous lyrics and I dreamed. I dreamed of a day when the current would become the past and all of the people that disliked me got what was coming to them. The Herc was found to be a crybaby when his time came.
It was a gloriously warm fall day. It was a Saturday and my cousin Freddy had spent the night Friday. We went hiking around the woods so we could smoke a cigarette in peace and I decided to take him up to the church and back around. We cut through the forest and found people at the church. We said hello and kept walking. We could hear the whine of a three-wheeler in the distance. There was an old wooden bridge on the gravel road leading back to the trailer where I lived and we decided to take a break there.
After some time had passed we decided we’d had enough lethargy so we got up so I could go show Freddy the old cemetery in Mr. Lowe’s cow pasture. A county cop car pulled up the road. I thought he must be lost or something. So we ran back to the road to see what was up. The next thing I knew we were in the back of the car heading to Murfreesboro. We heard over the radio that they had another car sent to question the kids on the three-wheeler (my so called friends).
The cop recognized Freddy. He had been busted a few months earlier for breaking some kid’s ribs in a fight that had its genesis in a Junior Pro basketball game from the spring. We were told we were being brought in for questioning for vandalizing the church. Freddy certainly had an alibi for that one since he lived in Smyrna. But my goose was cooked even though I didn’t commit the crime. Failure to rat in this case was enough to convict. Even so, I kept my mouth shut. I only told the police that I didn’t do it.
They got the information they wanted from the guys I had once thought were my friends. They were brought into the station just as my mother came to get me and Freddy. Later, I was told, they brought the Herc in crying. I wish I could have seen that, because even as scared as I was I didn’t cry. And the fear I had while riding to Murfreesboro in the police car was nothing like the fear I had of what my father would do to me when he found out.
He did nothing to me. I repeat nothing. Perhaps this is even scarier. There was nothing to do but to face the judge and his punishment. That would be enough. I was a huge disappointment to my parents and I was ashamed. But really, I was less ashamed of the bust than I was of the fact that I should have given the Herc a black eye. I thought perhaps I would attack him during juvenile court.
Once played out in my imagination I let it be and the court proceedings went on without any fistfights. Herc was actually almost contrite, maybe realizing that he was the one to blame for this anyways. Even so he received the same punishment. We all ended up with 8 hours of community service. If we kept our records clean, the incident would be wiped off our record once we turned eighteen. I worked off my debt to society one Saturday at Oaklands Mansion by raking leaves with another young criminal who kept trying to get me to go smoke pot with him. I really didn’t think that was too good an idea.
I didn’t need anymore trouble. I had also decided to start dipping Skoal that day and it was making me so sick I would never do smokeless tobacco again. It was a dispiriting and miserable experience and it didn’t really benefit the community at all. The grounds of the mansion were fine. It was the caretaker’s yard that needed raking. It probably hadn’t been done in decades. We’d rake through the muck while the caretaker would poke his head out of his house every ten minutes or so to scream at us and tell us that if we didn’t work harder and do a better job we wouldn’t get credit for our 8 hours.
He was all talk. He signed my paper and I was done. My debt to society was paid in full. Herc stopped riding the school bus and never troubled me again. The two guys I had thought were my friend both apologized to me, but I didn’t cross paths with them much after sophomore year anyways. My cousin Freddy and I never got into any more trouble with the law. I stopped skipping classes and high school got better. And I’m still golden.
So I wrote this, like, many months ago. I suppose I was feeling sorry for myself and I figured the following tale would make me feel better. Things could be much worse. The days of smuggling smokes under bridges and skulking through the halls during lunch period weren’t really all that great. Nowadays I don’t smoke and I get to go home on my lunch hour and watch the Adult Swim cartoons I taped the night before. Keep reading and join the pity party below.
It's the beginning of a new age...thus goes a line in one of my favorite Velvet Underground songs and lately I've been feeling like I've entered not a only a new age, but old age as well. I'm losing my hair. My energy is flagging. All those years spent listening to and playing loud music has left me reaching for the closed caption button on the television remote. It could be worse on that front. My cousin Chris, who's only a year older, has to wear a hearing aid due to years working in a machine shop. All the weight I took off two years ago is trying to come back thanks to my love of ice cream and cookies.
I'm not going to let it get to me. I've got to listen to Johnny's advice to Pony Boy in The Outsiders and "stay golden." I watched that film again awhile back. I just got this urge to see it. It was perhaps better than I remember it, but then again when it came out in the spring of my sophomore year I really took to it. I was a writer just like Pony Boy. Maybe I hadn’t been on the run from the law, but I had been busted once. I don’t think I’ve ever really written about that incident so here goes.
It was the fall of 1982. My family moved again so I switched schools for the third year in a row. I actually looked forward to this after a disastrous freshman year at Oakland. Riverdale was to be the place where I would reconnect to long lost friends from Central Middle and forget about all of the bullies across town. Eventually this did happen, but not until my junior year after I grew almost 6 inches in height and finally got into some classes with my old friends. Sophomore year at Riverdale was perhaps even worse than that freshman experience at Oakland. There I had merely been an outcast, but I became something worse at Riverdale: a class skipping criminal.
It began the first day I got on the bus to go to Riverdale. I headed toward the back since that was where all of the cool freak kids sat. This was where I sat when I went to Oakland; not that I was cool but through some circumstance or other the older freaks took a liking at my attempts to smoke cigarettes at the bus stop in the morning. I basically got a pity pass. This was not the case on bus 29 headed to Buchanan School and then on to Riverdale. I sat about 3 rows from the back and the spitballs began to fly.
I threw them back. I may have been a dork, but I didn’t take crap on the bus. This was what led to a ride in the back of a police cruiser one fine autumn morning. One of the spitball throwers was a guy I had known back in 1st grade, let’s call him the Herc. I had even attended a birthday party for him at the Dipper Dan Ice Cream store in Jackson Heights Plaza. I remember this event because it was the first time I had ever eaten bubblegum ice cream. The Herc knew me too (we used to run into each other at Hot Wheels skating rink), but by this time he had developed an attitude and the usual barbaric bully code of: I can throw crap at you and you have to take it, but if you dare to throw stuff back then I have to kick your ass.
So I was told to meet him at the cement slab that afternoon after school. I didn’t do it. I didn’t know where the cement slab was located. It turns out it was on Arnold Road just off of Big Springs Road. Once the Herc drew me a map I was once again told to meet him, which was something I didn’t want to do. If it had been a chance fight on the bus or at school I would have gladly thrown down with the dude, but I wasn’t going to willingly seek out a fight. So I decided to go play basketball instead. (To clarify: if the Herc had thrown punches at me I would have defended myself, but as you’ll soon see he never raised his fists at me.)
I made the mistake of telling two kids who lived down the road that I was going to a little country church to shoot some hoops. I had mistakenly thought they were my friends, but they only wanted to see me get my brains smashed in by the Herc. So when I made it through the woods to the church he was there waiting for me. In fact, he had already kicked out several basement windows of the church and made a mess of the inside (country churches used to leave their doors unlocked) whiled waiting for me.
I wish I could say that I then beat the Herc and my two supposed friends up and then reported them to the cops, but that is not what went down. The Herc said, “You know why I’m here. Let’s fight.”
“Why should we fight,” I replied?
“You know why. You threw spitball at me on the bus.”
I answered, “That’s because you threw them at me first.”
Herc said, “That wasn’t me.”
“I don’t want to fight you,” I said as my eyes began to tear up. This was quickly seized upon by the Herc as a sign of weakness.
“You know I could kick your ass right now,” he chortled.
And that was it. It was a bad scene of humiliation behind tearful eyes on my part and triumph for the malevolent Herc. He stomped off and I was left with the two Judases. They helped me to clean up the inside of the church. I knew I would catch hell for the crying, even if it had been misinterpreted. It was fight or flight. Adrenaline pumping. And I wasn’t running from the Herc.
The next day I sat in the middle of the bus and endured the taunts of the Herc. He made sure everybody knew what a wimp I was and I did nothing to change that opinion. Time dragged and dragged like it does when you’re 15 and bitterly alone among hundreds. I started skipping classes. Man, it was easy to skip at Riverdale back then. You could hang out behind the gym or the industrial studies building and smoke cigarettes and probably what ever else you wanted to smoke and never see a teacher. But the best way to skip was to just hang out in the hall in front of Mr. Herbert’s office. I drew rock band logos on my notebooks filled with fake heavy metal bands and really horrendous lyrics and I dreamed. I dreamed of a day when the current would become the past and all of the people that disliked me got what was coming to them. The Herc was found to be a crybaby when his time came.
It was a gloriously warm fall day. It was a Saturday and my cousin Freddy had spent the night Friday. We went hiking around the woods so we could smoke a cigarette in peace and I decided to take him up to the church and back around. We cut through the forest and found people at the church. We said hello and kept walking. We could hear the whine of a three-wheeler in the distance. There was an old wooden bridge on the gravel road leading back to the trailer where I lived and we decided to take a break there.
After some time had passed we decided we’d had enough lethargy so we got up so I could go show Freddy the old cemetery in Mr. Lowe’s cow pasture. A county cop car pulled up the road. I thought he must be lost or something. So we ran back to the road to see what was up. The next thing I knew we were in the back of the car heading to Murfreesboro. We heard over the radio that they had another car sent to question the kids on the three-wheeler (my so called friends).
The cop recognized Freddy. He had been busted a few months earlier for breaking some kid’s ribs in a fight that had its genesis in a Junior Pro basketball game from the spring. We were told we were being brought in for questioning for vandalizing the church. Freddy certainly had an alibi for that one since he lived in Smyrna. But my goose was cooked even though I didn’t commit the crime. Failure to rat in this case was enough to convict. Even so, I kept my mouth shut. I only told the police that I didn’t do it.
They got the information they wanted from the guys I had once thought were my friends. They were brought into the station just as my mother came to get me and Freddy. Later, I was told, they brought the Herc in crying. I wish I could have seen that, because even as scared as I was I didn’t cry. And the fear I had while riding to Murfreesboro in the police car was nothing like the fear I had of what my father would do to me when he found out.
He did nothing to me. I repeat nothing. Perhaps this is even scarier. There was nothing to do but to face the judge and his punishment. That would be enough. I was a huge disappointment to my parents and I was ashamed. But really, I was less ashamed of the bust than I was of the fact that I should have given the Herc a black eye. I thought perhaps I would attack him during juvenile court.
Once played out in my imagination I let it be and the court proceedings went on without any fistfights. Herc was actually almost contrite, maybe realizing that he was the one to blame for this anyways. Even so he received the same punishment. We all ended up with 8 hours of community service. If we kept our records clean, the incident would be wiped off our record once we turned eighteen. I worked off my debt to society one Saturday at Oaklands Mansion by raking leaves with another young criminal who kept trying to get me to go smoke pot with him. I really didn’t think that was too good an idea.
I didn’t need anymore trouble. I had also decided to start dipping Skoal that day and it was making me so sick I would never do smokeless tobacco again. It was a dispiriting and miserable experience and it didn’t really benefit the community at all. The grounds of the mansion were fine. It was the caretaker’s yard that needed raking. It probably hadn’t been done in decades. We’d rake through the muck while the caretaker would poke his head out of his house every ten minutes or so to scream at us and tell us that if we didn’t work harder and do a better job we wouldn’t get credit for our 8 hours.
He was all talk. He signed my paper and I was done. My debt to society was paid in full. Herc stopped riding the school bus and never troubled me again. The two guys I had thought were my friend both apologized to me, but I didn’t cross paths with them much after sophomore year anyways. My cousin Freddy and I never got into any more trouble with the law. I stopped skipping classes and high school got better. And I’m still golden.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Patty Duking
I always love it when Joe Stumble old schools it. Hip hop over to Last Days Of Man On Earth for some education about the Patty Duke featuring among others the Metro Politician Spoonie Gee.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Down The Rabbit Hole
Or maybe just down into a grave dug by Richie Hebner. If you want to understand that, just go by and visit one of America's best writers, Josh Wilker, at Cardboard Gods. Just find the link to Hebner under the Pirates and enjoy.
I've also found myself visiting I Found My Childhood On Ebay alot lately.
Punk rock and heavy metal. That's what my old friends would tell you if you asked them what kind of music I liked. But thanks to a soft spot in my head I also have an appreciation for disco. I think it comes from all of the roller boogie I did in junior high.
And my typewriter lust is unabated, too.
I've also found myself visiting I Found My Childhood On Ebay alot lately.
Punk rock and heavy metal. That's what my old friends would tell you if you asked them what kind of music I liked. But thanks to a soft spot in my head I also have an appreciation for disco. I think it comes from all of the roller boogie I did in junior high.
And my typewriter lust is unabated, too.
The Taylor's Living Room
I once barfed all over the carpet in the Taylor's living room. It was the in the early morning hours after the One For The Sun concert at Hermitage Landing in 1984. The sun drenched day I spent there watching Alcatrazz, Kick Axe, Duke Jupiter, Peter Criss, Greg Allman, Ratt, and many others had become a sun burned and sun stroked sick bed for me. I was weak and perhaps still disturbed by the sight of the drunk women on the boats at the rope line committing lewd acts with whiskey bottles. Maybe it was all too much for my teenage mind and naive soul. I remember well the look of disgust that the Gonz's father, Bootie, gave me when he discovered the congealing vomit. I never was invited to spend the night at the Taylor's again.
But the Taylor's living room still became a home away from home especially when we laying the groundwork for what became our first band The Dislocated. If Bootie wasn't at home sleeping in the La-z-boy we took over and watched movies like The Toxic Avenger, Decline And Fall Of Western Civilization, D.O.A., and Heathers, or we listened to the big stereo. The Gonz felt like the clarity was best at around the 9 spot on the dial. This would rattle the windows and you could feel the air shift around you with sonic waves pounding against your chest.
We mainly listened to compact discs since the Gonz was a very early convert to the digital world. We would crank up some Stormtroopers Of Death, Metallica, Danzig, Primus, Megadeth, ZZ Top, and Van Halen. The Taylor's also had the Radios Appear album by Radio Birdman. It didn't fit into their collection at all, but yet there it was nestled beside what little vinyl they had bought as children and a small stack of albums their mother had purchased when she had probably been around our age. It was those records of his mother that interested me the most.
There were Elvis albums. RCA original releases along with some of the repackaged Pickwick label ones. She had Beatles albums too, but only the first wave. I don't remember her having anything after Rubber Soul. Which makes sense since the Gonz was born in the Summer Of Love. You don't keep up with the teenage music scene once you become a parent. Anyways, she also had alot of blues albums. My memory is hazy on some points: was there Muddy Waters records, surely (and you could call her surely since her name is Shirley) there were some BB King LP's. But there was definitely some Jimmy Reed ones. She really dug Jimmy Reed.
Which was all right, but it wasn't the best of her records. The cream of the short stack of albums,and she did keep them stacked on top of each other (I had to educate them on how to properly store record albums), was an album by Bo Diddley. I was familiar with Bo Diddley, but mainly just for the shave and a haircut beat. The moment I first heard the lines, "I walk 47 miles of barbwire..." leap out the speakers with all of the sizzles and pops of a well worn and listened record I was floored. This platter out punked anything I had been trying to peddle to the Taylor brothers in my attempt to get them to form a punk rock band. Like Bo Diddley sang, "You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover."
So this latest week has been kind of a bummer what with Bo Diddley cashing in his gunslinger chips. He was a rock and roll, rhythm and blues poet of the greatest magnitude. He was "500% More Man" than most. The world is a grayer place without him in it. I hope he's been reunited with Jerome and the Duchess. I just wonder if the Taylor's would let me come by and sit a spell in their living room again. Maybe the old record player still works.
But the Taylor's living room still became a home away from home especially when we laying the groundwork for what became our first band The Dislocated. If Bootie wasn't at home sleeping in the La-z-boy we took over and watched movies like The Toxic Avenger, Decline And Fall Of Western Civilization, D.O.A., and Heathers, or we listened to the big stereo. The Gonz felt like the clarity was best at around the 9 spot on the dial. This would rattle the windows and you could feel the air shift around you with sonic waves pounding against your chest.
We mainly listened to compact discs since the Gonz was a very early convert to the digital world. We would crank up some Stormtroopers Of Death, Metallica, Danzig, Primus, Megadeth, ZZ Top, and Van Halen. The Taylor's also had the Radios Appear album by Radio Birdman. It didn't fit into their collection at all, but yet there it was nestled beside what little vinyl they had bought as children and a small stack of albums their mother had purchased when she had probably been around our age. It was those records of his mother that interested me the most.
There were Elvis albums. RCA original releases along with some of the repackaged Pickwick label ones. She had Beatles albums too, but only the first wave. I don't remember her having anything after Rubber Soul. Which makes sense since the Gonz was born in the Summer Of Love. You don't keep up with the teenage music scene once you become a parent. Anyways, she also had alot of blues albums. My memory is hazy on some points: was there Muddy Waters records, surely (and you could call her surely since her name is Shirley) there were some BB King LP's. But there was definitely some Jimmy Reed ones. She really dug Jimmy Reed.
Which was all right, but it wasn't the best of her records. The cream of the short stack of albums,and she did keep them stacked on top of each other (I had to educate them on how to properly store record albums), was an album by Bo Diddley. I was familiar with Bo Diddley, but mainly just for the shave and a haircut beat. The moment I first heard the lines, "I walk 47 miles of barbwire..." leap out the speakers with all of the sizzles and pops of a well worn and listened record I was floored. This platter out punked anything I had been trying to peddle to the Taylor brothers in my attempt to get them to form a punk rock band. Like Bo Diddley sang, "You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover."
So this latest week has been kind of a bummer what with Bo Diddley cashing in his gunslinger chips. He was a rock and roll, rhythm and blues poet of the greatest magnitude. He was "500% More Man" than most. The world is a grayer place without him in it. I hope he's been reunited with Jerome and the Duchess. I just wonder if the Taylor's would let me come by and sit a spell in their living room again. Maybe the old record player still works.
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