Secret Radio Tree House

Detour, Part II

2011-08-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

This second half of the story will make more sense it you read Part I first below.

Nathan and Annabelle sat unmoving in his car. It had been seven minutes and twenty three seconds since he had thrown his BMW in Park. Engines in the cars on the detour around him turned off one by one. The Astrovan ahead of them went silent, the exhaust pipe shuttered briefly, then was still. Nathan let out a labored sigh and shut his own engine off.

“I'm going to find out what's going on.”

He opened the door and got out. He walked up to the mini van. The windows were all open. The driver was in his forties, a thick black mustache hid his lips. He was leaned forward with both hands still on the wheel. He didn't seem to notice Nathan standing there. Nathan felt like he knew the guy after staring at his van and the graphic of his family and pets.

“This is crazy huh? What do you think is going on? Did you see any construction? It's Miguel, right?”

The man turned and looked at Nathan.

“No, no... see the picture on the back of your van, it says 'Miguel' so I...”

The man said nothing. His hands never left the wheel.

“Okaaay... Ah, no hablo? Right-right. That's cool.” Nathan walked ahead to the next car, an old 280Z. The windows were up. Nathan had to bend down and shield his eyes against the headlights of the minivan to see in. Nathan waved to get his attention the guy just stared forward wearily gripping his steering wheel.

Nathan made his way up the line of cars. Annabelle watched him until he passed into the dark and out of view.

She whistled a little tune.

“Getting chilly out there,” Nathan said closing the door and rubbing his shoulders. “I can't believe we're in the friggin' country, 'howdy do' and all that, and I'm the friendliest guy out there. I must have walked up a quarter of a mile. Not one of these idiots will say a word to me, not one. Weird!”.

“I could have told you that,” said Annabelle.

“You'd think people would want to stretch their legs at least.”

“You'd think.”

Headlights turned off one by one. Nathan's blueish halogens were soon the only light visible. Air escaped from Nathan's lips after a while. He reluctantly switched them off.

Nathan settled in his seat. He couldn't get comfortable. In the silence, every move he made against the black leather seemed embarrassingly loud, obnoxious even. There was no noise from Annabelle's side of the car.

He flattened his palm against the blue and white checkers of the BMW logo on his steering wheel. The horn exploded into the dark silence like a flash of sound and a mushroom cloud of reverb. He held it down hard until he was sure there was no doubt how pissed-off he was. Then, he held it there a little longer.

Nathan expected to here a cacophony of horns after his own. People often followed his leads, especially when descent was ripe.

Not a sound. The horn blast was swallowed by the night.

Miguel in the minivan was jolted awake by the horn blast. He gripped the steering wheel hard until he could convince himself that he had not fallen asleep driving down the freeway; then that's why he was there, why they were all there. He looked at the strange woman in his passenger seat.

“Debo estar loco. ¿De dónde vienes señora? ¿Dónde está mi familia?”

“tal vez debería volver y encontrarlos.”

“Feel better?” said Annabelle after Nathan had released the horn.

“What?”

“After yanking the chain on your steam whistle there Casey Jones. Did that help?”

“I don't get it. Why aren't these other people pissed off? They're all sitting here, just taking it, like lambs to the slaughter.”

“Not you though.”

“Hell no! If I was passive like the rest of these victims, I'd still be in the mail room and driving a shit box like that one. Look at these idiots, there aren't even any road cones, someone could just drive off through this field or whatever-the-hell-this-is and escape.”

“So what's holding you back? She said.

“Are you kidding, this is a B. M. W. -have some rock take out my oil pan, or catalytic converter, no thanks, I'll wait with the cattle.”

He clicked on the GPS. Her face glowed in the soft blue light.

Searching...

“You're not cattle yourself, just stuck amongst them?”

“I learned to get what I want. It's not my fault that someone else settles for less, allows themselve to be taken advantage of. It's not my fault that they don't want it as bad. That's what makes them cattle and me, not.”

“Desperation?”

“Ambition, taking responsibility for getting what you want out of life.”

“A Beemer.”

“'B... M... W' Among other things.”

Searching...

“What about your son?”

“They'll be more time for him later. I can't slack off now, I'm making hay you know?”

“Hay?”

“Hay, while the sun shines... money, success.”

Searching...

No Signal

“So that's what you want?” said Annabelle.

“I want out of here that's what I want.”

“It's kinda nice. You see stars.”

Annabelle pointed up through the moon roof. Nathan glanced up with his eyes only.

“I just want outta here,” he said.

Car engines began starting up in the distance and closer until the brake light on the Astrovan painted their faces red. Nathan shifted impatiently in his seat. Annabelle kept looking up through the moon roof. The odd tree branch passed overhead.

The line of cars and trucks slowly rolled forward. The BMW rocked over gentle bumps in the grass. The ghosts of trees appeared at the edge of the dark. The path began to slope upwards.

Nothing had been said for several minutes. Nathan clicked on the radio out of boredom.

Static.

The path sloped down then leveled off. Dust rose in the air ahead. Gravel crunched under the succession of tires.

“A road! It's about damn time!” Nathan exclaimed.

“We're always on a road,” said Annabelle.

“Do you always have to do that... Chief Sitting Bullshit.”

“I have ironic slogans on my panties too, wanna see?”

“You know I do.”

“C'mon, lets pull off and make out!” she said smiling.

“But we're finally getting somewhere.”

“This crowd? Don't be too sure. Who cares anyway?”

“Annabelle listen, I'd love to fool around with you,” his hand moved to her thigh, “just hold that thought for a few minutes and let's see what happens,” he said.

“Suit yourself.”

The traffic was moving faster. Nathan's BMW shifted into second gear briefly.

“I wish these trees weren't so close, I really want to pass this dude, minivan Miguel here. He's got a whole football field in front of him.”

“Stop!” said Annabelle.

“What?”

“Stop the car!”

“What? Here?”

“Just stop!”

The black luxury sedan crunched to a halt. A cloud of dust drifted by them. The line of cars compacted behind them stopping one after the other.

“What is it?” Nathan said.

“There's a road. Don't you see it?”

Nathan's window whined and slid open with a solid shunk. Another gravel road intersected the first at a perfect ninety degrees. It headed off into the darkness both to the left and right.

“Let's go!” she said.

“Go where?”

“Wherever, down the road.”

“Which way?”

“Take your pick? Where's that take-charge spirit of yours when you were driving all over people just to get a couple car lengths ahead?”

In the clearing dust Nathan could see the gravel of the other road in the collective of headlights. Not a single tire print.

“I don't know. Where would this take us.”

“Might just take you all the way handsome.” Annabelle winked.

He laughed. “Tempting, but...”

“But not quite enough,” she said.

Annabelle reached down and picked up her purse. She leaned over and gave Nathan a kiss.

“It's been a pleasure traveling with you tonight Nathan. Give my love to your son when you see him.”

Her purse on her shoulder and began walking down the road that extended to the right. Nathan jumped out of the car and laid his arms on top.

“Annabelle! C'mon, what's wrong? Come back.”

“I'm right here Nathan. Come with me, let go of all that crap that you are afraid of, leave that precious car of yours and lets walk down this road. You won't regret it. ”

“I thought you dug the car."
"It's you I like Nathan, not the car, not the money. It's the same for you son by-the-way.”

“Annabelle, what's wrong? What'd I do?”

“Don't get this wrong Nathan, I'm not a girlfriend, not a date, not the way you're used to, I'm not hurt or upset. It's just time, you can come with me or go on your way, it's not too late but it is time for you to make a decision.”

“You're insane, where are you going? You're going off alone in the middle of nowhere.”

“Just like when I found you. Go... go see your son Nathan, he misses you more than you let yourself believe.”

“But Annabelle!”

“Be well handsome.”

Nathan was speechless. He watched her walk away into the black of the wooded road. He got back inside and looked at her through the window but she was already gone. Cars were beginning to honk behind him.

He clutched the steering wheel and looked ahead. What the hell had just happened?

More honking.

“Shit! Alright, alright you morons. I've spent a lifetime trapped behind your slow asses. It's not like you're going to get very far.”

The BMW spit a fist full of vengeful gravel and lurched forward. Literally and deliberately, he left the honking cars in the dust. All too soon he was looking at the rear of the Astrovan and following the line of brake lights leading off into the dark of the trees. No one had run out of gas pulled off to the side, he wondered why. He checked his tank, it was pegged at full.

The grade of the road increased again. He could hear a truck laboring in a low gear up ahead. The road had degraded some sort of logging road: two ruts with a patch of grass between. Nathan had to slow for deep pockets that had been large puddles at one time. The path began to curve more left and right. Keeping half an eye on the road, he grabbed his phone from his attache and turned in on.

Zero bars

He tossed the phone into the empty passenger seat. He missed her, not the usual: too-bad-I-didn't-get-laid; she had been sitting there for less than three hours and now there was a new empty spot on that half of the car. He pictured her walking down that mysterious road in the pitch black, smoking a cigarette and whistling a little tune. He it hear it as plain as if she were in his own head.

He started humming along.

Between the notes, it hit him. If he ever escaped this bizarre detour he would drive through the night, what was left of it, and see his son on his birthday and every one after that, every soccer game, every play, whenever he needed him he'd be there. No excuses!

The traffic seemed more infuriating than ever. Maybe he could turn around and go back to that other road, find another way back to a real highway, town, a cel signal, a farm house and a phone with a rotary dial... anything! What if he could find Annabelle, she could get him back, he'd introduce her to his son. She was a powerful ally, he never should have let her go.

The trees were so close now there was no room to pull off, say nothing of turning around and going back. If anyone had engine trouble they'd all be screwed. The canopy of branches overhead had grown lower, thicker. He could see broken branches from trucks. Whoever had laid-out this detour really had there head up their ass.

A branch scraped against his door.

“Jesus! If there's a scratch, Caltrans is going to hear from my lawyer.”

Nathan amused himself imagining Miguel showing some Caltrans exec the damage to his crappy-ass Astrovan, his wife following behind, chattering-on in angry Spanish.

The Astrovan pulled further ahead. It was getting difficult to keep centered on the track without more scratches to his BMW. Likewise, the line of cars behind him was more spread out, he could only make out two or three sets of headlights in his rear view mirror. The path turned sharply to the right.

“Damn, glad I'm not driving a truck. Those dudes have got to be pissed!”

The narrow turn was impossible for a truck. No damage to trees or branches. Where had the trucks gone?

More branches screeched across the black sedan. Nathan cringed and swore. The Astrovan was far up the hill, in-fact, he could only see the slight glow from the single working tail light on the overhead trees. The car behind him had not yet reached the sharp turn. Nathan suddenly felt lonely for the his friend Miguel, driving that horrible minivan and the stupid cartoon family staring at him. Nathan drove faster. Branches smacked and scraped along his paint job, it didn't matter now.

Nathan crested a hill hoping to see the friendly red tail light but there was only a glow, even more faint than it was before. He drove even faster, thirty... forty... the scratches against the sides of his beautiful car was a constant scream. He steered the narrow path with the concentration of a Grand Prix driver on a wet track. Fifty miles per hour on a logging road or whatever the hell this was. The car lurched and rumbled on the uneven track. He briefly caught air over a large bump. A low hanging branch banged against the roof, he landed and bottomed-out the four-way active computer controlled suspension. The noise was horrible like the sound of one's own bones breaking.

“HOLY SHIT!”

He did not slow. He was fighting now, fighting this road, this damn forest, fighting his way to his fellow detourees, fighting his way out of this mess so he could see his son.

Nathan flew up over a rise.

More air; a long one. Worthy of a Hollywood stunt.

The BMW tipped nose down as it went earthward. His headlights shined down on a log laying across the path. Nathan closed his eyes.

Impact!

The nose of the car dug into the dirt. A terrible sound. It sheered off the bumper cover and rolled it under him crumpled up like a piece of paper. The car slid to a halt the log jammed against the rear wheels.

Dust flew around him. Nathan sat at the wheel breathing hard. He wiped a single tear from his eye. He had been gripping the steering wheel so hard with his sweaty hands it was sticky. In his rear view he looked white as a ghost.

No cars ahead or behind.

He was alone.

He opened his window. Twigs slapped in, he fought them with his hands. He turned on his high beams, halogen fog lights, hazards, dome light, map light... anything he could think of to illuminate this strange place he found himself in. The growth was thick. Even walking through it would be difficult. Some of the branches had sharp spikes growing from them. Though it was early September, there was not a single green leaf to be seen. All the branches were bare and gray, He tried to open his door. He could only work it open a couple of inches against the forest.

“What is this,” Nathan said in a deep swallowed voice. “What the fucking hell is this.”

He shut off his engine. There was a hollow silence.

“HELLO!” he screamed. “ANYONE!... WHAT IS THIS!

“ANNABELLE... ANNNNAABELLLLE! ARE YOU OUT THERE?”

His voice was sucked into the forest without an echo.

“I've got to get out of here! Where I can at least get out of this damn car, I've got to find Annbelle.”

Nathan started his engine.

Reverse.

The tires spun against the log.

Faster.

Rubbing, squealing.

Faster.

Smoke.

Nathan swore as he slammed his transmission into drive. He didn't want to any further but his temperament wouldn't let him stay in one place.

He rolled forward slowly. Branches screeched on all sides. Twigs whipped his face through the open window. It wouldn't close.

The track was no longer any sort of road. A single footpath. Nathan forced his sedan through the underbrush. Tears streamed down his face.

“I'm tryin' Zachary, I'm tryin'. Your dad's trying to get home to you buddy. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry...”

Nathan repeated his promises and apologies over and over. His words seemed to slur into the hum of the engine.

Down the path the passable clearance grew smaller and smaller like a constricting tunnel, the growth thicker, the grass and brush taller. At any point he might grind to a complete stop and be stuck forever, but he kept moving.

Forward.

Underbrush filled his windshield, he could not even see his headlights. The branches turned to small twigs and the twigs became grass-like fibers as if he was being squeezed through the inside of a bail of hay. The endless scrapping on all sides of the car morphed into a dull roar.

Nathan was no longer driving. His wheels were not on any sort of ground. His engine dieseled and sputtered to a stop, yet he kept moving slowly forward, pushed through this dense tunnel by some unseen pressure behind him. He was not steering. There was no left or right; only forward, slowly forward. He would have taken his hands off the wheel... if he could.

He would be screaming... if he could.

It had been hours maybe. What's an hour? It had been a long time and a numbers of long times strung together. Nathan's windshield was filled with a solid mass of dirt and gravel inching slowly to the sides and past his moon roof. It was packed so tightly only small pieces of it fell in through his open window. All around him was nothing but the soft rubbing sound of his car inching forward.

On.

He moved slower and slower until, almost imperceptibly, he stopped.

Trapped.

He remembered faintly telling a joke about wanting to be buried in his BMW. He felt the hints of an unpleasant sensation.

Nausea.

Nathan did not move. It was something he no longer did.

He was the same yellowish white color as the seat, the steering wheel, the dashboard...

There was a noise. Scraping, lifting. A massive grooved pink object pressed over his window and against his shoulder. It was warm.

Up.

Dirt fell away from around the car. Daylight stabbed his eyes. They wouldn't close. Nathan felt himself moving as if in an elevator going many stories.

Up.

An immense eye looked straight at Nathan where he sat motionless behind the wheel.

“Annabelle!”

She was dressed differently. A conservative yellow dress, her hair up in a bun, glasses. She smiled at the little man behind the wheel.

“There you are,” she said.

She brushed dirt away from the car and polished it a little on the hem of her dress. She placed the car in her purse and continued down the path. Sun dappled through the leaves in dancing patterns. She sat on a bench and whistled a tune. Nathan knew it well.

“What's the matter? You look kinda sad.” she said to the boy who sat down on the other side of the bench. The boy said nothing. She looked up at a group of kids and parents at a nearby set of picnic tables. A colorful piñata dangled from a tree branch.

“Sometimes birthday parties aren't much if somethings bothering you huh?”

“It's my birthday,” said the boy.

“Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“Your party didn't turn out like you hoped?”

“It's okay I guess. I was hoping my dad would come.”

“Maybe's he's just late.”

“Nah, he never comes. I was just hoping.”

“You can't let that get you down. Looks like everyone is having a lot of fun.”

“He didn't call either. And...” The boy picked at a chip of paint on the bench. “The phone rang late last night. My mom didn't know I was awake. She was real upset about the call. This morning, she wouldn't tell me who called or what happened. She's pretending like nothing happened, but I'm worried about my dad.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Annabelle said.

“Thanks,” said the boy.

“You know, Annabelle said opening her purse. “I might just have something for a boy who isn't having the best birthday.”

She handed him a small black toy car. A plastic man was at the wheel. A little phone, a bump in the plastic, was sitting on the seat next to him.

“It's just like my dad's new car!” he said.

“It's yours, if you want it.”

“Sure, thanks Mrs...”

“Ms. Jude, Annabelle.”

“Thanks Ms. Jude.”

Nathan looked back at his son through his plastic windshield. “He's getting so big,” he said somewhere inside. He laughed at the irony.

The boy walked back to the party flicking the wheels of his new car. Annabelle got up from the bench and walk down the path.

Whistling a little tune.

Detour, Part I

2011-08-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Nathan was at one with his car. The dash lights of his BMW were dimmed to perfect level. The six parameters of the motorized seat were adjusted to his precise size and posture and locked into both memory settings. He was cruising North on the 101, slicing through the night without apology. His automobile was so responsive, it was like merely thinking his way around the scattered traffic, like he himself was the car, gliding and sliding from lane to lane like, a speed skater. The slower cars (all of them) were like static objects to slalom around; there just to make things more interesting. No music; late at night with the warmth of two martinis in his blood, he preferred the sound of the road. Driving at over a hundred with the windows and moon roof cracked open was entertainment enough.

Nathan's phone was powered down and packed away in his attache. The deal was done, slam dunk! He could almost feel the back slaps on Monday. Once again he had saved their sorry asses. After weeks of wining and dinning degenerate aldermen, getting them laid, he could take a breath and think about getting himself a piece of ass for a change. For now, his reward was the silence and peace of a late night drive to nowhere the anticipation of what—or who—was to come. He had all weekend; maybe he'd end up in San Francisco or some nice Inn along the coast, as long as there was a bar and some lucky bimbo.

No one saw her emerge from the dark surrounding the gas station off a remote section of freeway. She walked as she might along a path in park on a sunny Saturday. She whistled a little tune. The clerk didn't notice that there were no cars in the spaces or at the pumps when she paid for her Camels and a Bic with a fifty.

“I can't take a bill like that after midnight.” he said.

“Keep the change,” she said.

“You don't understand, I can't drop that bill in the safe, I'll get in trouble.”

“I'll tell you what,” she said, articulating, “I'll pay you fifty dollars to let me walk out of here with cigarettes,” she held them up, “and a lighter,” she held it up. “You can figure out the rest without my help I think.”

The clerk slowly pulled the Jackson off the counter and stuffed it in his pocket.

Nathan pulled turned off the freeway ramp and into the gas station. The island lights made elongated, aerodynamic amoeba patterns on his sleek 750i. An attractive woman smoked a cigarette just outside the door., the fingers of her free arm hooked on her elbow.

She didn't look at him, she didn't avoid looking at him. He found an excuse to go into the store after he replaced the pump. He smiled when he passed her.

She did not.

She was young but dressed smartly, a business person of some sort, cool, confident, sexy as hell. He'd seen heels like those on women getting out of Bentleys, she was not for want of money. If Nathan had dreamed up a girl more his type to encounter in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, he wouldn't have done as well.

He came back out of the store with a package of beef jerky and cup of coffee. He stopped outside the door. He stared out into the night towards the silent freeway. The woman glanced at him after a while.

“It's possible that I'm waiting for someone.”

“That's nice.” Said Nathan. He laughed nervously. “I didn't, um...”

“Didn't you?”

“Okay, a little curious--girl like you.” He looked around.

She didn't respond. Nathan took a sip of coffee and rocked back in a mock stretch.

“Car trouble? Boyfriend coming to pick you up?”

“There's no car, but I suspect there's trouble out there somewhere. To be honest, I'm not sure who I'm waiting for. It could even be you 'Robb Report'.”

“Oh hey, hey, I'm not looking for...”

“Oh please, do I even look like that?”

“Not remotely.” He laughed. He offered her a piece of jerky. She only stared at it.

“Nice car... Yours?” she said.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Let's get out of here Robb.” She stepped on her cigarette and started walking towards the black beemer.

Nathan almost choked on the coffee he had just sipped.

He pressed the start button. The instrument panel came to life and chimed. The engine roared somewhere deep inside itself, but was barely a whisper where they sat.

“I just wrapped-up a honey of a deal, on little victory drive, you know? I'm headed North... just wherever.”

“Fantastic,” she said. She extended her hand. “Annabelle Jude.”

“It's Nathan, not Robb Report.” He shook her hand.

“Yeah I know.”

“You know my name?”

“I know you're a still few paychecks short of making the cover.”

She winked.

She had a champion handshake. This girl has closed a few deals of her own, played the big leagues in one commodity or another.

The freeway was empty. Radar on, he took her up to ninety. Annabelle said nothing.

One-Oh-Five.

Nothing.

Traffic was starting to show up again. The passing lane filled with cars passing a wide load. Nathan slowed to eighty. Without hesitation he eased off the pavement to the left shoulder around the other cars. The driver's side wheels sped on the gravel like it was glass. A Ford focus had cleared the truck but was clearly offended by Nathan's bold maneuver and did not yield the lane. The Ford accelerated for all it was worth, attempting shut out Nathan. Nathan hit the floor and his car easily out-gunned the the Focus. Just before Nathan sacheted back onto the pavement, a good sized rock pinged his undercarriage.

He flinched, as if he himself had been wounded. “Damn it!” He eyed Annabelle without looking. She reached up and adjusted the temperature for her side for the car.

“What is it with you type “A”s and Beemers?” she said after a while.

“I dunno, only make I've ever driven,” he said. “Borrowed my dad's old 320 through college. Got my first after graduation, an eighty-nine, terrible shape. I spent more time under the hood than behind the wheel. God I loved that car! This is my third, the first one dealer new. By-the-way: true BWM folks never call them 'beemers'.”

“Adorable,” she said. “But why a Beemer? What's wrong with a Porsche? Stud like you.”

“The car is part of the image, you should know that. A Porsche—at least you pronounced it correctly—it, says that a man is more interested in his own dick than doing business. Mercedes: old money, says your inflexible. 'adventure' weekend vehicles, Jeeps and shit, say: not enough commitment, SUVs and crossovers, too many, Hummer's and custom pickups are no different than driving beat-up Japanese piece of crap; no dick, no self respect. Volvos; too political, Subarus; way too political—you've got issues bro. Audis; close, but no cigar.”

“Does this have the V8 four-point-four, or the V12 six liter?”

“This is a 750i, the V12 is the 760.” He looked at her. “Wow, I think I just fell in love. You know the 7 Series?”

“In my business I find it's good to know men and the things they love, what they're afraid of.”

“What business is that?” said Nathan.

“Lost causes, one could say”

“Junk bonds huh?”

Annabelle laughed. “Similar.”

Nathan gave her a nice long up and down. It was time to test the waters a bit. Was this foreplay, or 'chore-play'. She certainly felt his eyes on her but said nothing. Her eyes, like the headlights, looked only foreward.

“You're very beautiful Annabelle.”

She smiled.

Headlights.

Nathan took a breath.

“What are we doing here?” he said.

“I hope you're not this quick and eager on all your closes.”

“Well sweetheart, a strange, very beautiful woman gets in my car in the middle of nowhere, and believe me, I'm good with it all. I'm just not sure what to call it.”

“Call it kismet... or maybe 'George'.”

“Yeah? You gunna respect me after 'George'?”

“You assume I respect you now.”

“And she's funny too. I just gotta wonder just what kind of woman turns up at a gas station without a car in the middle of the night.”

Annabelle leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You worry too much.”

“What me worry?” Nathan made a face.

She laughed.

“You gotta wife?”

“Divorced, you?”

“Nope, no wife,” she said. “Kids?”

“Yeah, I have a... Oh crap. I can't believe it. Shit!” He smacked the steering wheel and waited for her to inquire.

She said nothing.

“My son, it's his birthday tomorrow...” Nathan looked at his Rolex, “today now. I promised... Ah shit.” Nathan flicked the steering wheel. “I've broken a bunch of those lately.”

“It's not too late. You could head back now, be there by morning.”

Nathan glanced over.

“How do you know where he is?”

“If you're not LA from head to toe, I'll shave my head.”

“Damn, rely on stereotypes much?”

“Every day. So do you handsome.”

Nathan for waited a prescribed amount of silence to pass.

“So, where are we going Annabelle? Where are you from?”

“Neither of us are going very far,” she said, “look!”

On the next hill, brake lights were multiplying. The mist over the rise glowed a steady red.

“Awe crap!”

Nathan held his speed and dodged cars. At the crest of the hill they saw it: his freeway, the surging veins of a young man, had crumbled into the angina of road construction. Yellow lights flashing arrows closed the right lane half a mile ahead. Nathan continued to dispatch the cars in front of him at speed.

“You've got to act while you can, before we get blocked in,” he said. “I could be saving us hours right here.”

“Please! Do you think I'm from the past or something?”

Ahead, an old Honda crept into the passing lane next to a Hyundai with dealer plates. By all indications they were moving at the exact same speed.

Nathan flashed his brights at the offending car as he closed-in fast. The Honda was unmoved. Nathan braked hard.

“Whoa Nelly!” laughed Annabelle.

This pissed him off a little, he was doing battle here. Was she making light or making fun? He flashed his brights a few more times and laned back and forth twice behind the slow movers trying to pick a winner.

“You morons... C'mon tards, somebody do something for fuck's sake.”

The Honda progressed like a minute hand despite helpful comments from Nathan. The moment there was a car length of space behind the Honda and in front of the Hyundai, he dove into the free lane and rocketed away. Nathan dodged around a few more cars then took to the right lane as everyone else had merged left in anticipation of the closed lane. A red pickup with a patriotic bumper sticker was halfway between the lanes, holding his place in line while policing the empty lane from anyone bold enough to poach their way to the end. Nathan merely past him on the shoulder without slowing and gunned his way to the bitter end where the road cones sliced into the lane. He nosed his way in front of a white hatchback like a gear in a cog.

In line: the part Nathan hated, cattled into a chute with no way out. His view would not change for a while now and it was one he grew to despise in under a minute.

A mini van, worse, an Astrovan, dusty and faded, inched along in front of him. It's right tail light cover was missing and replaced with red tape. The light itself wasn't working anyway and the working one seemed twice as bright as it was supposed to be. When the brake light was not blinding him, his entire view consisted of Jesus bumper sticker in Spanish, a radio station slogan in the same and a line-up of tall-to-short decals of a family, plus two dogs and a cat. They took up the entire rear window. Cartoon Miguel, Felicia, Hector, Edgar, Martin, Juanita, Pilar, Miedo, Sisi and Tigre stared at him, all grinning from ear to ear, smug that they were one place ahead of him in line.

The traffic moved slowly forward; not slow enough to stop, but not fast enough not let it idle along without hitting the brakes every few seconds. Nathan shifted in his seat and hung his wrist over the top of the wheel. He adjusted his visor repeatedly to block out the beaming single laser bright brake light. It didn't work.

“Tell me about your son,” Annabelle said.

“Good kid.” Nathan exhaled.

She looked at him, waiting for more. “Yeah... apparently.”

“No, I mean... Well, I was just thinking... he's getting big, so fast.”

“How old?”

“Seven... no wait, eight... or is he turning eight? He starts third grade next week. Geez!”

“Got a picture.”

“On my phone I do, it's turned off.”

“So, you know the specs of your car and give me a life history of all your beemers...”

“BMWs.”

“Beemers... and I have to ask you about him to get two words about your son and you have to stop and think about his age.”

“You think I love my car more than my son?”

“No, no I don't think so, but the car is a lot easier, isn't it? ”

She redid her pony tail, holding her hair band in her teeth while she ran her hands through her hair. He was grateful she didn't push the issue. He was already feeling trapped. It was pretty obvious she wasn't going to reveal much about herself so he didn't push either. He didn't want to kill his chances for later. Even the damn traffic didn't seem so bad with those legs to look at. There was a serenity to her as well that calmed him a bit. She was as un-phased by his take-charge driving as she was by being stopped dead in some God forsaken field. He wanted to tell her she was beautiful again but he held his tongue.

The K-rail moved them across the right lane then off onto the shoulder where a quickie paving job made a temporary third lane which lasted for only two miles, but the thirty minutes it took made it seem like a whole zip code. The K-rail disappeared, thin orange barrier markers took it's place. He chit chatted with Annabelle, hoping to learn something about her but her pleasant redirects always brought the conversation back to him and before he knew it, he had revealed another chapter of his life to her.

An orange sign up ahead, he couldn't read it yet, not an official sign, just a four-by-two piece of plywood written on with spray paint by some construction worker.

“What's that sign say?” he asked.

“Detour.” Annabelle said.

“Shit, really? This is going from bad to worse. You can really see that far in the dark?”

“What else would it say?”

Closer to the sign he could seen the traffic moving off the shoulder and down an incline. Nathan steered his auto between the cones. They left the pavement and guided the traffic onto two tracks of well-matted grass. The road cones ended and the traffic was guided only by the tracks in the grass. The tracks led the cars and trucks downhill away from the freeway, through a hedge row via a mound of dirt and continued on matted grass. The world was black outside the headlights and tail lights. Nathan opened his window to see if he could get a better look at his surroundings. He got a face full of exhaust fumes.

“Man, this just sucks.” Nathan said, coughing.

The minivan ahead of him came to a halt. Nathan inched forward with several jerky brake holds until the cartoon family filled his windshield.

Completely stopped.

“Shit. This is weird man, really weird.”

“What are you worried about Nathan? You got someplace to be—you know besides back to for your son's birthday? This is an adventure, enjoy it.”

“I prefer adventures I'm in control of.”

“I think you need to look up the definition of 'adventure'.”

Annabelle reached over and massaged his shoulder. Nathan would normally, almost involuntarily, have suggested something lewd. “A slap on the face is well-worth knowing if you're wasting your time,” he would tell his friends. He said nothing to Annabelle. His shoulder was tight, he needed the rub.

Part II of “Detour” next Saturday.

Colorado, Part III

2011-08-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Aug 22 '76

Colo

Matt and I slept in Dave and Hugh's Room. They'll (sleep) down stares

The next morning I arose early. The toy helicopter we'd been denied access to the day before had been in my dreams ever since, and I wanted my shot at it. Hugh was sleeping nearby like that bulldog that was always kicking the crap out Sylvester the cat, so I only got a couple of minutes of glorious tethered circular flight before I was discovered and shut down. An argument ensued and it was suggested by the adults that we find something to do outdoors.

We soon forgot all about the helicopter.

“David R.” the next door neighbor, also my age, was one of the coolest kids I had ever met. He had a 8-track cassette of the hit trucker song “Convoy” and other current music that impressed us. He had bright blond hair, a deep tan and most of all, a trampoline!

The trampoline is at the top of this drawing.

It wasn't just any trampoline. It was set in a large hole his dad had had excavated so the tramp was flush with the ground. One simply walked out on it instead of having to climb up, plus if one went tumbling off there wasn't far to fall.

David R. and my cousin Dave were quite good and could do all sorts of tricks but my brother and I set right out to practice all we could. I don't remember Hugh being around, he was probably inside playing with the helicopter or sleeping.

uc ucu (Uncle) chuck took us to see flash flood Debris. Hugh slept on chuckwag. Had (hard) time, kept rolling off (we) tried to hold (him) back was told not to let go He fell down Woke up went up to bed and doozed off.

Three weeks before, the Big Thompson Canyon flood had done $35 million in damages, taking out bridges and roads, and killed 139 people in around the nearby Estes Park. Uncle Chuck was a volunteer fireman and had worked on some of the rescues and clean-up. He drove us, in our own van, around to see the damage. A police road block prevented us from seeing very much. As a fireman Chuck could have gotten through the road block but... “I doubt I'll be able to convince then with these New York plates.” he lamented as we turned back.

The narcoleptic Hugh was fast asleep on top of the chuck wagon in the back of the van most of the time. We had great fun laughing at him when he would roll over on top of Dave and I who were sitting on the bench just in front of the chuckwagon/bed. Hugh would wake up and groggily complain that we were shoving him. When we arrived home. Hugh remained asleep and we were told to just leave him be. We complied only partly, staying behind in the yard to see how long it would be before he awoke to an empty van in his own driveway. When he finally arose, he staggered past our giggling at him, up to his room and went right back to sleep.

Met aunt Vi and Dady Charles at sup. (supper)

These were my mom's aunt and uncle. I remember them as any eleven-year-old would, just a couple more old folks that I was compelled to be nice to until they were done inspecting me for whatever old folks found fascinating about kids and I was excused to going back to being loud and unruly with the kids they had already inspected.

aug 23

Colo

Went to rocky mt. n.p. (Rocky Mountain National Park) Hugh slept all the way and rolled off the chuckw. Saw chipmonks at over looks went to Cont. Divide got headache

Uncle Chuck had to work and Aunt Carrol was busy with the baby so just Hugh and Dave went with us to the park to camp overnight. My five-year-old sister was also left behind. Chipmunks weren't that unusual to me but I had never seen the tame people-fed national park chipmunks before. I was intrigued that they didn't run away and seemed to acutally be saying. “What, you never seen a chipmunk before? So shut your gappin' jaw and make with the bread and the chips and such.”

The headache I got was certainly from the altitude. Loveland itself is over five thousand feet.

Aug 24

Colo

Viseted Cent. City, (Century City-a ghost town turned tourist attraction) Saw lost goldmine real gold ore! Saw glass blower made glass swans

Saw face painted on barroom floor. Saw old cemetary, (spooky.)

Hugh Dave matt Dad mom and me camped out had spaghetti and meet balls

On our tour they took us into an old gold mine and told us there was actual gold ore dust still in the walls. I was standing next to a wall as everyone exited the cave I thought how cool would it be if I just had a few grains of real gold ore. Hey, what difference would it make? I brushed some of the loose ore into my hand from the wall. The tour guide saw me and chastised me in front of the whole tour group. I felt like a criminal, worse, I had embarrassed my parents.

Aug 25

Colo

Broke camp went to rocky mt np (Rocky Mountain National Park) Climbed mt specimin (Mount Specimen) Saw chipmonks and marmits (a sort-of mountain woodchuck) a plane wave wings at us. When got home coached tramp olimpics for tomorrow but thats when we leeve for n.y.

I learned 2 tricks kneen flip + for. flip.

Climbing Mount Specimen was a lot of fun. The trail head itself was over ten thousand feet above sea level, nearly twice the height of the highest point in New York State, higher than I had ever been on solid ground before and since. We had two thousand feet to go. We hiked past the tundra line, where trees can't survive and only delicate lichen grew on the rocks—we were warned not to trod on or touch them. My mom and sister hiked to a certain point around eleven thousand feet and my dad, my brother, our cousins and I went the rest of the way. Even though it was August there was snow in a shady area below the ridge. I wanted to climb down to it just so i could say I made a snowball in August but my dad said it was too dangerous. A big valley was spread below us and a small plane was flying by nearly eye level with us. We waved and the pilot tipped his wings back and forth to return the gesture. The marmots were comic little creatures that seemed to have no fear of humans. Were we that far from civilization?

When we returned to my Uncle's house there was still daylight left. We jumped on David R's trampoline and prepared for what they were calling the “Tramp Olympics”. One of the tricks I learned I diagrammed with stick figures in my journal above. I remember landing right on my head during an early attempt at a forward flip. Apparently I was a coach of some sort, but the 'Olympics' themselves were scheduled for the day we were leaving to head home.

Aug 26

Colo. Wy. and S. Dakoda

Helped David losen this morning (for the Tramp Olympics)

Hated to say good by long lonely trip

Camped at a KOA kampground.

It really was tough to say goodbye especially to my cousin David. We had become good friends the way only kids at eleven can in such a short time. I was going to miss him and I could tell he was going to miss me. I never saw him after that.

We drove North through the Eastern most sliver of Wyoming which left me a bad impression of the place. It was hot flat and featureless. Our only stop was at a rest area to have lunch. It was filthy and in dire need of repairs. Hornets swarmed our food and we couldn't wait to get into South Dakota.

It wasn't our best day of travel but there was one thing we looked forward to. Friends of my parents, the Rensbergers, had given us a box of wrapped presents, one for each day of our trip. They weren't anyting fancy, things like activity books and a compact mesh hammock but we looked forward everyday to get to open another gift. On days like this one it was even more of a treat.

aug 27

S. Dakoda

Saw mt rushmor (not much) and mt Crazy horse sculpture (it's going to be huge) olsa saw flintstone village had neat play Ground. Went to famouse Wall Drugs ate supper there. See Family scrapbook for Wall Drug map.

Saw Badland nat moun!

I'm not sure why Mount Rushmore didn't make a very big impression on me. Crazy Horse seemed to impress me more even though it was so early on in it's construction that it was little more than a hole in the side of a mountain, but from the scale model of the finished sculpture at the guest center at the base of the mountain it was going to be spectacular.

As it turned out, thirty-five years later Crazy Horse is still only partly completed.

In the background is the mountain being carved

to look just like the model in the foreground.

Sadly The mountain didn't look to much different in 1976,

only the face has been added since that time.

Flintstone Village was a schlocky tourist trap quasi amusement park that my parents wanted no part of. We begged and pleaded them to go until they acquiesced. It was at once a disappointed once we saw how run down and cheap the place was but it was also a hit of much needed kid fun. After seeing so many wholesome historic and natural attractions we were hungry for some good old kid sugar and Flintstone Village, in all it's plastic colorful splendor, was just the ticket.

It was tourist franchise hell, but the kids won out over the adults

As we pulled out of Flintstone Village I saw something I'll never forget. There was a Native American dressed like a traditional chief with the head gear and the whole nine yards. He was so drunk he could barely stay on the horse he was riding. This conflicted with every image of Indians I had ever seen, including the old Indian that had given me the arrowhead in Eastern Colorado. Yet those two contrasting images, to my knowledge, were the only two Native Americans I had ever seen in the flesh.

If you've ever driven across South Dakota you know about Wall Drug, it's impossible not to. Wall drug started out as a small country drug store in the '30s that offered free ice water and dirt cheap coffee to travelers. They expanded both the store and the signs that advertised the place to the point where Wall Drug has become a mecca of restaurants, gift shops and attractions (almost a mall) that has signs nearly every miles for sixty miles in both directions. By the time we got to the Wall Drug exit we we so curious we simply had to stop.

One of the many, many Wall Drug billboards across South Dakota

The famous Wall Drug

In Mitchel SD, we drove by the famous Corn Palace. The fact that it was decorated with elaborate designs done in corn somehow I understood as the place was 'made of corn'.

You certainly have noticed that for a family vacation there is an absence if family photos. When we returned from our trip and processed the many rolls of film we shot almost all of them were lost. The few we have I wasn't able to have my dad scan in time.

aug 28

S.D. And minn

Climbed rocks, took guided nature tour got late start

stopped in minnasoto (Minnesota) for night

My journal for the day before before states that we saw the Badlands, but I was probably playing catch-up with my jounral and writing those entries a day or two after the fact. It was too dark to see anything when we set up camp in Badlands National Park. The next morning we woke to see where we were. It was as if we had taken a wrong exit and ended up on Mars! The landscape was like nothing I'd ever seen or dreamed about.

Most importantly there was few things my brother and I loved to do more than climb rocks, we lived for it. When we saw the climbing orgy of the badlands formations before us just begging to be scaled, we could hardly contain ourselves. The climbing was easy, we were sky high and nearly lost in no time. It's a lucky thing we didn't run across any snakes of other nastiness.

In Minnesota we stayed with some more college friends of my parents. After just a couple days of camping it was nice to be in a bed again. My brother and I explored the residential neighborhood and to our delight discovered some active rail tracks only a couple blocks from where we were staying. I climbed into an empty box car and sat in the open doorway. As was often the case growing up, I was doing something dangerous and stupid and my more sensible brother was nearby saying, “Uh Joel, I don't think this is a good idea (just ask me about the alligator in Florida). No sooner had he said that when the train lurched into motion. My only thought at the time was “awesome!” but I knew the fun was over when the train started to accelerate. I hopped off pretty quick preventing me from being able to tell a great story about how I accidentally skipped a train to Chicago or Milaukee.

(August 30^th -date left off entry)

Min. Wis.

Left minnasota. Changed route

went wisconnson instead of canada

Visited Websters for night.

Apparently, we had planned to go home via Canada. I don't remember why these plans were scrapped but we may have simply been tired and eager to get home. We kids had never been away from home this long, nearly three weeks. The Websters were the only son and grandchildren of my Grandma Irene who was my grandfather's second wife so the Websters step cousinswere a family I had only met once before. The only thing I remember about that visit was that those kids started school the morning we left. I remember thinking how insane that was. Everyone in the world knows you don't start school till the Wednesday after Labor Day. That's a law of nature for heaven's sake!

Sept 1 '76

Wisc, Ill, Ind and Ohio

left wisconnson saw chickogo (Chicago) Ill. Ate lunch in Ind. Stayed at Holiday Inn, Swamm in indoor pool cut foot on side of pool.

Staying at a hotel was a big deal for us. We were all tired and there must have been a little extra money in the budget to splurge. The indoor pool was amazing to us as well. The fun was cut short when I did the same to my foot. My dad complained to the management, but nothing was done. We may have eaten dinner in a restaurant too but I don't remember.

Sept 2

Ohio Penn and NY

left Toledo (were we stayed) Plan to visit gramma Irene in Fredonia

(at the very bottom corned of the last page of my journal I wrote...)

Help!!

That night, sleeping in my own bed was wonderful. I didn't even mind starting 6^th grade the next week because I had something to brag about. I had gone on the biggest trip of my little road warrior life. I had seen the world,

Or so I thought.

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

My last couple of practices, due to lack of time and a certain degree of laziness, I just plugged my bass into my guitar amp instead of the guitar amp/bass amp dual rig with the pedal board and various effects and tuners and cables. It is true however that there will be times that I will have to show up at a small club, plug into only the guitar amp with my bass, sing into a single microphone and still be entertaining. It sounded pretty darn good actually but I won't be selling all the other gear either.

I am starting to plan for a Rochester ,New York show that will correspond with my wife's birthday. We will be in town for Christmas and she's met so many new friends from my old stomping grounds that she wanted to have her birthday at a club and have me play. I sure don't want to disappoint! I will provide details as they solidify.

My weight loss has sort-of plateaued this week, but not because I've been bad or lazy. I kept up my diet nicely and exercised for an hour every day. Just one of those things I suppose. I'm less than 10 pounds away from a major goal.

I must also confess that even though it's a little childish, I find myself motivated by the prospect of my celebrity crush, Lindsay Davenport, noticing I am slimmer when we started producing "US Open Tonight" at Tennis Channel in a couple weeks. If not Lindsay then perhaps some of the other crew who haven't seen me in a year.

It could happen.

Colorado, Part II

2011-08-07T00:46:00.000-07:00

Things had been going well so far but I was somewhat dreading our stay in St. Louis with college friends of my moms. They had a son who had always been kinda mean. We were making our way across southern Indiana and progress was slow.

(aug 17, 1976 continued from Part I)

Now we are on 150 and seem to be moving slower than ever. We stopped at a suvanear (souvenir) shop and I bought a Indiana license plate.

Muffler broke on way to Widdeses. Clutch broke too. Went fishing with Danny and (his) friends. (He) teased me so (I) went back home.

See, I told you. Widdes lived in a large house in what seemed to be a pretty exclusive new development; one of the St. Louis Cardinals, a pitcher I think, lived across the street. The fact that our van had lost it's muffler and clutch in St. Louis rush-hour traffic and Danny's father had to come get us at a repair shop hadn't helped. I felt a little like a hillbilly.

It was the primary season for the '76 Presidential Election. I remember Danny's father, a bit of a pill himself, sitting in a red leather chair, watching TV in his den and complaining about Jimmy Carter. Danny's older sister was a sweetheart though and let my brother and I play with her tape recorder. We recorded several mock commercials and the type of silliness a ten and twelve-year-old are bound to produce.

aug 18, 1976

MO.

We went up in the Arch. It is cool -looks like this

Also went on a boat -boring. Got 3 more L-plates (license plates). Picked up van at repair st. on way home from Arch.

As planned, we stayed in St Louis for two days which actually made it the perfect place for our Van to break down. I enjoyed St. Louis more than I indicated. The Arch was awesome and we enjoyed the natural history museum in the complex below the Arch. The boat ride may have been boring in comparison, but it was both my first ride on the Mississippi and on a paddle boat. The part I remember most vividly was that the bathrooms were in the stern right in front of the huge rear paddle wheel. The dripping paddles were flying by the small bathroom window. Danny thought it would be amusing to feed the toilet paper from it's roll out the window and into the paddles. When the paddles caught hold of the paper the roll spun and rattled like crazy until it was gone. I was horrified by the waste and the disregard for the river (not to mention the poor guy that sat down there next). It was amusing though, I had to give him that.

I must confess, Danny also came through in showing me where there were some old cars in some nearby woods that I could liberate some Missouri license plates from. I figure he cared more about the theft and destruction (however minor) more than my license plate collection. I'm told Danny is now a stockbroker in Texas; appropriate on both counts.

aug 19, 1976

Traveling on a lonely road. Made me cry a bit. Stopped at post office, wrote letters to Peter (Elia) and Kim (Herendeen). Played with T-bears (Teddy bears). Made Secr Ft (secret fort) under bench.

Apparently I could no longer be bothered with pronouns. I was loosing enthusiasm to journal and though I was compelled by my mom (thank God) to write an entry each day, I think I figured out that no one was going to be grading it or require 500 words or more.

My fort in the van was awesome! Well, no, not really awesome or even a fort at all, but it sure was to me. I didn't create it so much as discover it. I found that if I lied down under the long bench I could slide down until my head and shoulders were in the storage area of the chuck wagon where the tent was kept. It was like a separate room all my own.

I have learned that I need a certain amount of time to myself without anyone around, “Joelee time” my wife calls it. My fort was my little sanctuary of solitude. I went there when ever I needed a break from the family. When I was on the road in a tour bus, my bunk served a similar purpose.

Stopped in Hannible MO. Saw M. Twain's boyhood home, toured M. Twain's cave -very cold + I had no shirt on! Spent night at Old MacDonald's Farm Campground. Had amyozment (amusement) park and pool. Went swimming, met Chuck and Tammy -explored amyozment park, discovered old caboose. Slept in tent with Dad.

aug 20 1976

MO, Iowa and Neb

Woke at 6:00AM. Got stomach ache. Ate breakfast Wash up

Scheduled departure 7:00AM

Departed 7:30AM

Everybody took a nap sept for me and Dad.

Stopped for ice. Planned to spend the night North Platte (Nebraska)

We went to “Pioneer Village”. There was lots to see.

When we got to North Platte we camped at Cutty Jr.s Campground. We went swimming in a crowded pool. We met a boy named Brett and some other kids.

Went on a rotating swing. Looked like this...

See the scribbled sketch on the journal page above (not below)

aug 21

neb. Colo

Woke late, did chores, ate breakfast, Did more chores, Washed up, Packed, left.

Passed feed lots, Stunk!

entered Colorado. Plan to visit Heers in Colorado Springs!

are all very excited

Can't see rockys (Rockies) yet

The Heers were neighbors of ours which in our neighborhood meant that they were just under a mile away. They seemed an exotic family to us. They had come from England or Europe some place. The father was always at work and the mother was a rather over protective. My friend Eric was not allowed to play baseball because he had once been hit with a baseball bat; a lesson wasted I always thought.

We didn't end up visiting the Heers. I don't remember why exactly, but Colorado Springs was considerably out of the way so perhaps my request to see my friend Eric was unrealistic and met with a “we'll see” that really meant 'not a chance' and that I interpreted as 'sure, why not'.

There were a few things that happened on this day my journal missed but that are engrained in my memory deeply.

As the day wore on it got hot... really hot; the landscape was featureless and desolate to me and the novelty of it had worn thin. With no AC in the van we lay about like wet rags wilted by the hottest temperatures we (kids) had ever experienced. We had been away from home for almost as long as we ever had and never any further away. Telephone poles went by in a regular and infinite pace. They stretched out to the horizon. At this point I just wanted to be where we were going.

I saw a driveway to a ranch with a mailbox staked at the end but no house or building of any kind in sight—and it's not as though there were any hills or trees to hide behind. This, along with everything else, kinda freaked me out a bit. I imagined a kid about my age dreading the chore of 'getting the mail'. Even with his dirt bike it might take him an hour or more.

My parent's wanted to stop at a Native American historical site, having read “Centennial” the historical novel. There was a small museum and gift shop on a small rise in the middle of the prairie. There were a small number of kids in the place. An old authentic looking Indian gathered several of us in front of his desk in front of a picture window that made the prairie look more magical and beautiful than it had been through the window of our van. He spoke in low soft tones and took a small box from his desk. He took from it several stone arrowheads and gave us each one.

“I want you to have these as a gift,” he said, “in return I want you to remember something: Love. Not the mushy girl-boy love, but God's Love.”

At the time I remember feeling both the elation from having scored a real arrowhead from a real Indian, and kinda 'had' from being suckered into a Jesus commercial. Yet he said nothing more, just handed out the arrowheads and letting us go noisily on our various ways. I started thinking about what he said. It must mean a whole lot to him to give an arrowheads to every kid that passed through. I resolved to keep my end of the bargain. I lost the arrowhead almost immediately but I never forgot the simple lesson of God's love from that unlikely source.

Crossing Colorado from East to West is quite an experience. The prairie went on hour after hour. I knew there was mountains coming I could see them on the map. The pictures in the several pounds of literature the state had sent me for my report showed mountains and skiers, not endless blond hills and scorching temperatures. As they always do the mountains seemed to appeared almost instantly in the distance. Our whole family was glued to the front windshield as we drove towards them like Dorothy, Toto, The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, and The Cowardly Lion towards the Emerald City.

Who's who you ask... well I hadn't intended to take the analogy that far but, okay, what the hay: Dorothy: My mom, Toto: my five-year-old sister, The Scarecrow: my dad, The Tin Man: my brother (even though I once played him on stage myself), I, more because of my absurd sense of humor than cowardliness, am The Cowardly Lion. Happy now? Can we move on?

The journal continues from that same day...

Crossing Colrado prairie

Matt found lost mouse goliuth.

My best guess is that my brother had a stuffed mouse named “Goliath” he had lost in the van somewhere and it's discovery was pronounced enough for mention in my journal.

Stopted at ft collins ate lunch

Started a pop can top collection

going to string them together

make chain curtain

In days of yore, soft drink cans had tabs and pull rings that pulled clean off instead of remaining intact with the can like the modern ones do. The result was a mass litter of ring tabs everywhere people were drinking Cokes Pepsis and Tabs. There is an illustration the journal page above.

I don't know where I got the idea but I started collecting the things with the intent chaining them together by bending the tab portion around the ring of another one and-so-on. I meant to create a chain curtain for my bedroom doorway, I mean what could be cooler? I made an illustration on my journal page (above). From that point on, everywhere we went I was scanning the ground and picking up other peoples discarded soft drink can pull-tabs much to my mother's chagrin.

Arrived in loveland Colo

Met Uca (Uncle) Chuck and aunt Carrol cuz's David, Mark baby timers (Timmers) + foster child Hugh and David R. next store (next door).

I had never met this branch of my Mom's family before. She had been an only child, so her cousin Chuck was the only family she had near her age. They had moved from New York around the time I was born or before. David was my age and we got along immediately. Mark was a teenager and often took care of their infant brother Timmers. I remember Aunt Carol glowing over the fact that Mark was so good with the baby and thinking how odd it was to have a teenager, a preteen and a baby in the same family. The addition of a foster child, Hugh, was an entirely new concept to me, and also curious. Hugh, who they eventually adopted, had not been with the family very long and was still getting his bearings. He was an odd kid with all sorts of insecurities and a near narcolepsy that amused us several times during our stay.

As the adults caught up and did whatever adults do, the kids went to lower level of the split level home. We marveled at their latest toy: a helicopter that actually flew, albeit on a 12 inch solid tether in a circle.

This was it exactly!
Oh how I lusted to get my grubby little mits on the controls of this aeronautical wonder!

It could go forwards or backwards, fast or slow, flying low or a couple inches higher. This combination of things proved magical and we watched them play with it for hours, drooling for our own chance to pilot an actual flying toy helicopter! After a while watcing Hugh play with it I ventured to ask if we could have a try. “No” Hugh said flatly.

This was going to be our longest stay in one place. I hoped it wasn't going to turn into another St. Louis with Danny the jerk.

TBC -Next Saturday

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

Being unemployed--a freelancer whose phone isn't ringing--is kinda awesome! I have enjoyed many carefree days over the past month and it has also been a big factor in my being able to loose weight (over 20 pounds so far). My being 'sent' like a croquet ball from the Jeopardy game kind-of threw a grenade in the party for a couple minutes but I got over it.

Then early last week I looked at the Tennis Channel calendar online to check on a couple dates I knew were coming up, some hours that kept me from panicking.

The Tennis Channel hours had disappeared, poof, there one day, gone the next.

I started to panic!

A couple WTF phone calls and a rehearsal later, a bunch of work materialized as magically as the other stuff had disappeared.

It was almost more work than I wanted.

Almost...

Colorado, Part I

2011-07-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

For those who have been faithfully reading for more than a couple years. This post is a rewrite (not just a re-post) from my old MySpace blog “Diesel Fumes”

In the summer of 1976 I often accompanied my dad to his summer job at a nearby summer camp. We had a used Chevy van. It wasn't the cool '70s van you may be thinking of. This was a family van with windows all around and a sensible one-tone blue paint job. It was largely an empty shell with just the two front seats and a single bench behind, no interior treatments like paneling or carpet, no air conditioning, AM radio; no frills. My dad found it useful to haul lumber and things for his projects around the house.

My dad, my brother and I were busy that summer customizing the van for a particular purpose: a camper for what would be the most adventurous family vacation we had ever (or perhaps would ever) take.

We didn't have a lot of money for vacations and camping was what would make this possible, but we didn't have a lot of money to customize the van either, so my father's ingenious design was innovative, practical and economical.

The first thing we did was to take the bench seat out and remount it backwards using the same bolt holes. This caused the back of the bench seat to press up against the backs of the front seats. On the driver's side of the van my dad built a wooden bench that extended back from the edge of now backwards stock bench seat to just beyond the wheel well. We covered foam padding in cloth and vinyl cases for both the seat and the backrest.

On the opposite side, just aft of the sliding van door, my dad built a series of cubbyhole shelves—two levels of four. These square cubbys would contain a cardboard box for each member of the family and contain our clothes. The extra cubbies had boxes for toiletries and other storage. Under the benches was room for more storage of things like sleeping bags.

At the rear of the van was my dad's piece-de-resistance: the chuck wagon. It was a self-contained camping kitchen that took up the last 3 feet of the van. When camped, we simply opened the rear doors of the van and folded down a horizontal door that hung flat on a couple of chains to become a work area. If it was raining a tarp could be easily rigged over the open doors. Everything from the Coleman cooler and kerosene stove to the food stuffs, plates, cups and silverware was within easy reach in an efficient arrangement of shelves and cabinets. There was even a place for spices and the like. Off to one side of the chuck wagon was room to store the tent, tarp, some tools and other camping hardware.

I remember at the time being disappointed that the 'kitchen' he'd talked about was not inside the van. I had fantasies about making myself a sandwich anytime I wanted as we rolled down the highway.

On the inside of the van, with the addition of a foam mattress, the chuck wagon also doubled as a bed. Just in front of the chuck wagon my dad placed another short bench, the only seat in the rear that faced forward; one of the places I most liked to sit.

Between the benches and the cubbyholes was a table, that could be lowered and mattressed to form a bed that included the surrounding benches. The bed could sleep two adults and the chuckwagon, one child. The remaining two people slept in a tent.

I created this little illustration in Google Sketchup then added text in Photoshop

Curtains were added to all the windows with simple string curtain rods and a vent was installed in the roof .

I realized as I transcribed my journal that we actually installed the curtains later while on the road).

It was a camper!

I remember painting the interior elements (blue) while my dad taught woodcraft at 4H camp. I was a travel junky when I was a kid so I was dizzy with excitement for the biggest, longest journey we were about to embark on.

It had all started in my sixth grade class. Mr. Keller had asked us to pick a state and do a report on it. I had recently seen the whacky Disney comedy “Snowball Express” in which Dean Jones inherits a run-down ski resort in Colorado. So naturally, I picked Colorado.

I contacted the board of tourism for “Colorful Colorado” to request information. A week or so later the biggest fattest envelope ever to bear my own name was curled up in the mailbox. I had struck gold! The envelope was full of pamphlets, maps, information sheets, colorful pictures of mountains, people on horseback, skiing, climbing mountains...

As memory serves, this was the exactvbrochure I got in the mail
(minus the URL added at the bottom of a site where one can buy other vintage Colorado stuff)

“That should give you plenty of material for your report.” My mother said.

Report? What report, I want to live there! Now!

My parent's had just read James Michener's “Centennial” which is a historic novel of Colorado and the region. My Mom's cousin Chuck lived in Colorado and there were college friends of my parent's scattered across the Midwest so my report and a rather thick novel turned into an adventure!

It was hard to believe it was real when our blue Chevy Van rolled out of our driveway and up our gravel road.

We were off!

Traveling in the van was the best! It was so novel to be rolling down the road while sitting at a table and doing puzzles, drawing pictures or writing in the journal my mom had us keep.

To get from the front seat to the back area, one would have to crawl over or under the bench seat or stop the car and enter through the sliding door. This was actually kind of a cool thing making the rear of the van a sort of no-adults allowed club house. One of my favorite places to be was on the Chuck wagon bed in the very back. I could lie down and still look out the windows with a high enough vantage point to look at cute girls my age in the backs of cars and almost look truckers in the eye when I made the 'pull-the-cord-honk-your-horn' gesture.

Unlike the first rendition of this story, this time I am going to post each humiliating page of my journal. Don't worry, you won't have to try to read it, I transcribed text following each with notes in italics. You can click on any of them to see them in their full embarrassing detail.

Sun aug 15, 1976
NY, Penn & Ohio

We are going through Bufulow (Buffalo) on the N.Y. State Thruway. Now we are crossing the switchyards. Boy, Buffalow stinks! We were, and still are, putting signs in the window that said -”Be happy” and stuff like that. I just saw some people riding a motorcycle, they had parked under a bridge and were putting on their wet suits (rain suits).

We are all happy.

We are going through Angola (New York) and are seeing a lot. We just went under a footbridge that had a roof on it.

My wife was thrilled reading this journal that she recognized and had walked on that very footbridge -there is a center island rest area on the New York State Thruway near Angola that the bridge leads to. Stopping there has been a tradition for she and I on all of our cross country treks.

I am seeing a lot of linences (license plates) like Ontario, Ohio, Washington, Florida and so on. We saw a camper that looks like a space vecal (vehicle)

I know now it was an Airsteam trailer I had seen.

Here comes a convoy of busus ware. (Honestly, I can't figure out what I meant by "ware". I remember that the song “Convoy” was a big hit that summer and CB radios were all the rage.) Passing by is a bunch of reel old and cool cars.

I am going to rest now. I will write when I get to Canton Ohio.

We spent the night with a college buddy of my father's in Canton. He had a son who was a few years older than I, who I liked a lot. He was quite intelligent and apparently tolerant of an eleven-year-old kid following him around. He had some cool science gear and taught me the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force. I would have liked to stay and learn more from him, but it was just an overnight stay and there were many miles still between us and Colorado.

aug 16 '76

Ohio and Ind.

We had a good time at Majetch's (Majetich's) house and are on 30 West and our next stop is Indiana.

I have started a license plate collection and I've got a blue and white Ohio license plate.

Ohio is a very industrial state. There's lots of steel mills and factories and it smelled worse than Buffalow.

It is very quiet. Everyone is asleep except for Dad and I. We are coming to Ashland now and I'm getting a bit sleepy but I have to stay up and navagate so I thought I'd show you a map of the van.

Kinda neat huh? If you can understand it.

My dad drove most of the time. My mom would get frustrated trying to interpret the map the way he wanted, so she was glad to pass the job of navigator on to me. So I was the keeper of the maps and let my Dad know when that next turn/exit was coming. I loved maps and was very proud of my duty. I'm not sure if my parents meant it to be an esteem building exercise, but it sure was.

I took a nap and fell asleep listening to Matt (my brother) and Mom argue over navigating.

You see! Where would they have been without me?

Now Mom is driving and Dad is making curtains for the van since we were so busy fitting and filling up the van for the past few weeks.

I can't wait to get home because... The rest is scribbled out. It goes on to say how I am in love with a certain girl and when I hold it up to the light I can just make out who, Here, you try it. ;)

We're going through Cincanaty (Cincinnati) Ohio.

aug 17 1976

Indiana, Ohio

We stopped in Indiana (in Evansville) for the night and had lots of fun. But I dread going to St. Louy (St. Louis) tonight . It is our longest and worst stop for there's a kid I hate named Danny Widdis.

We stayed with the “Wades” near Evansville (Southern) Indian—more college friends of my dad. They had a newly built house among a glade of tall trees. They had a boy my age, Eric and a girl a bit younger, Sonya (I'm making a guess at their names actually). Sonya and my sister Kelly, then almost six years old, became fast friends and my brother and I enjoyed hanging out with Eric. There was a lot of giggly flirtation between the girl and boy factions, the quasi-adversarial 'kooty' kind.

They spoke with deep Hoosiers accents,“ten” was “ta-in, and “help” also had two syllables “hey-elp”. As I listened to them talk I had a revelation.

“Do my brother and I talk funny to you?” I asked them both.

“Yoo shur doo!” they chorused.

Lesson learned.

My sister slept in Sonya's room and Eric spent the night in the van with Matt and I. It was our first time sleeping in the van (the table/bed in the lower position).

I did indeed dread seeing Danny, the son of yet another of my parents' college friends—my mom's this time, that lived in St. Louis. Danny was a jerk; there's no other (polite) way of putting it. They used to live closer, so I knew Danny and knew what was in store. Perhaps I shouldn't have prejudged our enjoyment, as we did have a pretty memorable time in St. Louis as it turned out, but then again; Danny the jerk did not disappoint.

TBC'd next Saturday...

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I have been a bad boy and not rehearsed all week. I had it in my mind to rehearse later in the week then got called for some work the last two days of the week. The first was a thing for Conan O'Brien (no I didn't see him).

The diet progresses well I am down 18 pounds after four weeks. I cheated on Sunday when I worked at Tennis Channel for 16 hours and left my own healthy food at home. I had a couple chocolate chip cookies (the only other thing available were Togo subs each with a minefield of mustard smeared on them--nope, I won't do mustard for anything!) and I had a meatball sandwich later when we ordered. I could have ordered a salad I know but after 12 hours that that point I was in dire need of protein!

This week I have been on all fruits and veggies (and some nuts). The no-meat-no-dairy-no-wheat-no-sugar

thing I was on was tolerable but I can't wait to get back to it after a week of sticks and twigs. I'm sorry, I just can't get into vegetables, or even fruit on this level.

My saving grace has been the smoothies my wife has been making for me.

I dreamed I was eating a burrito the other night.

4H Camp

2011-07-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

There are few feelings quite like the last day of school. To the kid mind, the next school year doesn't even exist until that first 'back to school' sale reared it's ugly head. But when you got off the bus that last time, summer stretched out before you as far as the eye could see.

We lived in the country so there weren't many musements. We had to invent our own fun. We hung out in our tree house, or rode our bikes around the immediate neighborhood (we lived halfway up a big hill so we couldn't go far without either having to push our bikes where we were going, or push them home). We played in and around the barn across the road and explored the woods and gulleys in our area. If it was hot enough, my mom might take us swimming down at the lake.

It was the '70s and there was nothing on TV during the day. We were only allowed one hour per day; The Brady Bunch, Emergency and shows like that got those golden sixty minutes. Hang around the house too much in general and my mother would put us to work, so we gladly stayed outdoors.

Boredom soon overcame us...

...and it was only day 3.

But please... no sympathy; it still wasn't school!

My dad worked at a 4H summer camp only a few miles away teaching woodworking.

I had gone to that 4H for a standard week long session when I was around eight. I didn't care for it. Even though we were doing supposedly fun stuff at camp, it kinda seemed like school to me... 24-7 school.

Going to 4H with my Dad was a different story. At school I was just another jerk who got picked last for dodge ball. At camp, as a “staff brat,” I was cool!

My dad would wake my brother and me up in the morning. We groggily got in the car (sometimes on the back my dad's motorcycle if it was just me) and drive a mere 4 miles down dirt roads, like our own. We pulled into the Ontario County 4H Camp and parked behind a simple brown building that was my dad's wood craft lodge. We walked straight to the large main lodge where there were two long lines, girls and boys. We passed the lines and entered unimpeded. The smell of bacon and pancakes woke me right up. We sat wherever we liked. The doors opened and the hoard of hungry sleepy campers poured into the lodge like batter onto a griddle.

Not just anything could get me out of bed that early in the summer. Their breakfasts were exceptional!

After breakfast my dad unlocked the pad lock on the sliding barn doors of the woodcraft lodge that overlooked the vast front lawn of the camp. I opened the all windows by pulling on a rope that lifted the hinged shutters up and secured the rope to a cleat. There were no screens so the summer breeze blew gently through the shop. The smell of the lumber along with the lives pines around the camp were the essence of summer to me.

Before long, a group of campers showed up and sat at the several tables while my dad went into his spiel about woodworking, safety and the projects they could build. The campers looked around at the tools and sample projects hanging on the wall. They may have wondered who that kid was sitting off to the side on one of the work tables like he owned the joint.

That's right mortal children, I'm cool!

It was at first amusing and eventually tedious to hear my dad repeat his speech every hour, every Monday every week of summer I may have even skipped a Monday or two for that reason, but every other day was a bit more fun.

My dad enjoyed it all. Teaching woodcraft a lot more satisfying than teaching high school. He loved working with wood and there were many things around our house both large and small which he had built, not to mention nearly doubling the size of the house itself. Unlike his high school students, the campers were, for the most part, happy to be there and motivated.

My dad had one or two guys assigned to work with him. Wayne was one teen-aged counselor whose first choice for what to do with his summer was definitely not woodcraft. My dad had to give him one task after another to keep him working or he would just stand around. He was was patient with him and by the end of the summer Wayne was able to work unsupervised. After a couple of years he became a motivated tour-de-force of woodcraft became one of my dads most valued assistants.

There were varying degrees of difficulty to the projects. First timers could select plaques; shapes like a horse or a chicken traced on to a square piece of quarter inch plywood, cut out on a scroll or jig saw, sanded and stained. There was a pig shaped cutting board.

The were the quintessential wood shop projects like a birdhouse, pencil holder and book ends but they were all designed to be completed in four days. Many of the projects my dad had inherited from his predecessor: 'Gramps'. Gramps was a 4H legend after teaching woodcraft for many years before retiring. He would visit occasionally and was quite a character with many stories to tell.

For the more advanced campers there were corner shelves, step stools, a toy car and truck and one my dad introduced: a “limber jack,” which was a Appalachian Mountain folk toy; a wood figure on a stick whose arms and legs dangled freely at the joints that appeared to 'dance' on a flexible stage as you tapped it with your hand.

A video showing a limberjack in action

One project existed almost as a joke: a “round tuit” which was small piece of plywood cut into a circle like a token and had the word “tuit” written on one or both sides. Whenever some put off a task by saying “when I get around to it” you handed them the round 'tuit'.

Four sessions of campers came every hour or so until one of my favorite parts of the day: lunch.

Breakfast was awesome at 4H Camp, but lunch was incredible. Again we, as staff, got to enter before the campers and sit where we pleased. The cooking staff was the same group of ladies that fed me during the school year (actually that was my mom, I almost always brown-bagged it), but they were allowed a better cuisine at camp it seemed. They baked fresh rolls every single day and the food was hot, tasty and worthy of a restaurant.

I can smell those warm rolls now!

After lunch was rest period. Often my dad would lie down on one of the work tables and meditate or nap, I would work quietly on whatever project I was building: this meant (hand) sanding, staining or finishing. Afterwords the campers were up and around doing whatever they did. My dad took lumber deliveries and cut the large pieces of wood on the radial arm saw into raw pieces for the projects. My brother and I swept up saw dust and cleaned up the woodcraft lodge. When we had time we would work more on our own projects; customized versions of the more advanced camper projects or things we had dreamed up ourselves.

Then we did what none of the campers could do: we went home.

I never felt jealous of the campers. Quite the opposite. To me it was the best of both Worlds. I went to camp, but I did what I pleased and no one picked on me like they normally did. I usually stuck close to the woodcraft lodge but occasionally I would take other 'classes' like boondoggle, art or photography.

When kids learned I was a 'staff brat' I could hardly help but rub it in a little.

“That's right when you're swatting mosquitoes, coughing on smoke from the camp fire, and sharing a stinky latrine with 50 other dudes and lying on that nasty mattress, I'll be watching TV, taking a hot shower in privacy and sleeping in my own bed.”

There was other fun I had with the campers. One summer I found a wounded bird and nursed it back to health. I kept the bird in my room perched on a tennis racket out over my dresser with some books weighing down the handle and some newspapers on the floor below. I never would have guess it would be such hard work. I spent most of my days digging up worms for my bird. I took it to camp with it perched on my finger in the car. When we arrived I placed it in the tree just outside the woodcraft lodge. A couple of unsuspecting campers by that very window and my trap was set.

“Yeah I kinda have this thing with animals you know; call it a gift.”

“You do not!”

“Sure I do. Okay, I'll prove it. See that robin up in that tree there?”

“Yeah.”

I went outside, climbed the tree, and speaking in soft bird whisperer tones I approached my bird. Naturally, she didn't fly away. To their further amazement, I stuck out my finger and she hopped on. I carefully climbed down the tree with the bird still on my finger.

Jaws hung open.

That's right, I'm cool.

I suppose there were things the campers had over me. For one thing it was hard to woo the girls from the woodcraft lodge (not many girls took wood craft—they always made the horse plaque) or from home in the more social hours of the evening.

Maybe it would be worth it to have another go at being an actual camper again. I signed up for a week of having to wait in line to eat, take off my 'staff brat' stripes for a spell to meet a lovely thing or two.

I had a much better time in camp as a preteen than I did as a kid. I liked the kids in my cabin, especially a guy named Bill Weirsma. He was one of the younger kids in the cabin but he kept everyone in stitches with his one liners and crazy stunts. His antics certainly cost us points in the cabin competition (an attempt to bribe us with candy to behave and keep the cabins neat) but it was totally worth it.

There was only one activity that was mandatory: Swimming lessons. I was already decent swimmer after an early career at the Canandaigua YMCA, but I never quite cottoned to swimming in general, especially first thing in the morning when my swim period was scheduled. I just didn't like being wet. Seeing the girls in their swim suits though took a lot of the sting of that cold early morning water.

There were a number of girls that I liked, a smaller handful that seemed to like me and there were one or two fit into both categories, but I never had a great camp romance. There are only a couple I can remember specifically. There was Diane from Geneva. After camp was over we had what I thought was a date at Roseland Park (the local amusement park) but she had other ideas. She brought along her high school friends who all smoked dope--a deal killer for me. Then there was Karen from Fairport. Karen was the one that got away; I really liked her but lost her address soon after camp. I suppose if I really really like her I wouldn't have lost it.

One of our counselors was a guy named Dave who was seemed to be the heart throb of every girl (and female counselor) in camp. Normally that would earn my contempt (jealousy) but Dave was actually a pretty cool guy.

Dave was one of the guys that ran the pioneer camping program. Each day we learned a new survival skill like starting a fire with and without matches, boiling water in a paper cup and how to spot poison ivy. On Thursday night we took our sleeping bags off our bunk, walked past the main lodge, shedding a tear that we were forgoing one of their delicious dinners and hiked to an area about a quarter mile from camp where we cooked our own dinner over an open fire and spent the night on the open ground in our sleeping bags. I had gone from my own bed, to a squeaky bunk to the cold hard ground. Their weren't many girls in pioneer camping either.

I lied on the ground in my green Coleman sleeping bag. It was pitch black. Sleeping bags were scattered about like bodies after a South American bus accident. I was having a hard time sleeping already; then it happened: a raccoon fight.

I know what you're thinking Raccoons? Those silent fuzzy comic creatures that wouldn't hurt a fly. If you've never heard a raccoon fight, it will change your whole perspective. They go from cute critters to bloodthirsty killers in a Quentin Tarantino movie. It's horrible! Especially from only a few yards away.

All the other kids improbably seemed to sleep through it while I cowered in my sleeping bag, cringing with each banshee-like battle scream and growl and hiss and... what the hell was that?!

I was certain that: A. They were rabid and, B. The winner of the fight was going to waddle from the dead body of his opponent, straight over to where I was lying and bite me in the face. Sure enough, a few minutes after the long horrific battle I felt something round and warm settle against my leg. I couldn't believe it. I froze with terror. I didn't move a muscle for over an hour hoping it would simply wake up and go away. Finally it did, and I could finally scratch that itch on my leg. I probably went to sleep eventually but it felt like I was up the whole night.

When I got up I carefully looked around and saw my demon raccoon. Some kid, still asleep, had rolled on the open ground during the night until his butt hit my leg.

The last day of camp was a competition between the cabins that involved all sorts of events. Somehow I got talked into a swimming race.

Great.

At the beginning of the race there was one trash talking guy who was already claiming victory. He could have it, I didn't care. All the boys in the race sort of decided the order we would finish, ranked by levels of bravado, even before we'd taken our marks. When we hit the water it occurred to me that the trash talker was an asshole and it would be nice to at least beat him. To my disbelief I came in a hair away from first place by the kid who ranked himself third. The trash talker who'd said he would be first was forth.

Against all probability I had fun as an ordinary camper, but being a 'staff brat' was a lot more fun. I have good memories of both.

Years later my friend Jim met a great singer who's band had just been hired away from him. We needed a singer, so we met to jam at my parents' house. The guy looked really familiar to me but I couldn't place him. My Dad could though. It was Dave, the heartthrob from 4H pioneer camping. We formed the band "Dark Heart Alarm" for several years. Dave and another guy from that first jam session are still at it: Dark Heart Alarm on Reverbnation.

There was one particular summer that my dad had a special project. When his woodcraft duties were complete he (I would work on it here and there throughout the day) would spend a little time each day customizing a '74 Chevy Van into a family camper that would take us on the single most adventurous vacation of our lives, but that's next weeks blog post: “Colorado, Part I”

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I don't have a key to the gate that leads to the place where I rehearse. I am one of a few people that use the place and I think there is only one or two gate keys. Unless I happen to find the gate left open, I have to jump up on a four foot wall, carefully navigate some cacti and sabre-like agava plants (wondering about the possibility of snakes during these warm months) and jump down another four foot wall. Rehearsals have been going really well though. Each time I jump the wall I notice I am making less mistakes and my voice is getting back to the shape it was in when I was recording.

I do realize it's been over two weeks since I posted to my blog. Only the second time I've missed in nearly two years. I'm choosing to blame distraction by a recent bit of unrest in my life. Due to financial reason's of the company I contract with, I have been effectively laid-off my job on Jeopardy. Jeopardy is a part time job, but with my Tennis Channel hours also being cut back it's been a scary scramble to get work enough to get by. More important than the money is not getting to work with my wonderful friends on the show. It really is like a family and I am quite sad not to be there when they start taping next week.

Some work has spouted up and distressing as unemployment is, I have also been excited about where this will take me. Closed doors, open windows and all that.

The good news is that I have lost 15 pounds of the last three weeks . No, it's not because I'm stressing. I have been on a diet that forbids all meat, dairy, wheat (gluten) and sugar. I can't say I'm enjoying what I'm eating all that much, but I must confess there have been many tasty alternatives and it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. What started out as a one week liver cleanse has turned into an extended weight-loss program (My wife's a crafty one). My other secret is some carefully selected vitamin and natural supplements. I have been doing light exercise like taking walks and games on the Wii Fit but I believe that as my journey towards the magic 200 grows closer I will have to rely more heavily on aerobic activity.

I would like to add that this past month
my blog past ten thousand hits!
To thank you all for your faithful reading, I will be posting nude photos of myself!

Wait, wait, come back! I was just kidding!

The Deserts of Taiwan

2011-07-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Las Vegas: a vacation hotspot, a getaway, leisure, gambling, buffets, shows... Vegas means none of these things to me. That is because everyone of the seven times or so I've been to Las Vegas was for work.

When I was working in film one of my first real paid gigs and my first chance to work on a whole feature start-to-finish was a low budget indy film called “21”. No, not the 2008 card counting movie you've heard about; the post-college-mutual-friend-dies-and-everyone-goes-to-Las-Vegas-where-there's-partying-and-some-whacky-hijinks-at-a-backwoods-brothel film that you will never ever hear about in your life after this blog post. I had been hired to be the best boy electric (a sort-of lighting equipment/power manager, generator operator and gaffer's right hand man). They were spending the first week of the three shooting in Las Vegas, it was the first time I would be working on a project that was going on location outside of LA. I was thrilled.

Then they called to tell me I wouldn't be going. Union rules that came attached to their filming permit stipulated that a local best boy must be hired. So I was out and some guy in LV was in.

I got another call from the line producer after their first night of shooting. “It's a disaster,” she told me. “This guy the union sent us has never run a genny (diesel generator) he doesn't seem to know the first thing about lighting, he says he's actually prop guy. Can you fly out tomorrow?”

So I was in and the other guy... was still in (rules are rules).

They were filming at The Orleans Casino and hotel during night hours to avoid the crowds. I'm not sure how thick crowds ever got at the off-the-strip second-rate Orleans. Adjusting to the night hours and twelve hour 'days' made me instantly tired. Sharing a suite with four guys didn't help. There was not much time for the sin of sin city. Some of the crew went out gambling and the script supervisor won around five grand one night, but I was still pretty broke after a year of mostly working for free, so I stayed in and ate mostly at the Wendy's that was close to our hotel.

Like all films I had worked on, it was hard work but it was cool just being in Las Vegas. Even off the strip the lights glowed all night. I sure got sick of the sound of slot machines pounding my brain for twelve hours at a time though.

Maybe a year later, my friend Brandon, who I had worked with on several AFI thesis films, called me to be an electrician for a Tiawanese coffee commercial.

Sure whatever.

At one time I had ambitions of working on some cool films, films that might win a Sundance prize, something I would be proud of working on artistically. Trying to pay bills in LA, it didn't take long before working on a project that paid with checks that were likely to clear, was as good as anything.

The commercial was shooting around Las Vegas. The key word is 'around'. What's 'around' Las Vegas? Nothing! Desert; hot, dry, dusty, rocky, desert (with a few crawly things that want to kill you). We spent our first days working near Parump which is much like it sounds.

The hotel situation was an improvement over my first time in LV, there was only two of us per room instead of four. I was paired with the first camera assistant who kept the camera and a slew of charging camera batteries in the room with us. One doesn't leave a hundred-thousand-plus film camera in a truck no matter how many locks are on it.

The deal was, this beverage company from Taiwan was marketing what they called “American Style Coffee” which was canned and creamed cold coffee sold in a metal can. It said on the label (in English) “American Style Coffee”. I tried some of the stuff that they had on set. It was about ten times sweeter than the Starbucks bottled cappuccino, but other than that, not too terrible.

What was terrible was the craft service. It may seem like nitpicking to the normal world, but in film, even the lowest budget films spend hundreds of dollars a day on their craft or snack table and then also cater a meal every six hour. this production on the other hand had some bags of chips and tiny 8 once bottles of water.

Good thing we're not in the desert... oh wait!

Craft service in Taiwan, I was told, consisted of coffee and cigarettes so i guess we were to consider ourselves fortunate.

The meals weren't much better. One day after a particularly grueling day, I was handed for lunch a Styrofoam box with half a turkey sandwich.

Being way out in the desert had it's interesting points too. Desert people are a unique sort, willing to endure harsh remote living, in many cases simply because they don't 'work and play well with others'. We were shooting on some ladies property, something she was well compensated for. It was a bizarre house that had started out as a trailer and ended up having a sort-of house/deck built around it. The woman was quite particular and we were given a long set of rules for what not to do while on her property. I remember at one point she became quite upset because the set art department had moved some rocks and arranged them in a circle for a shot they needed.

"But even if he puts them all back, they won't be the same rocks in the same place!" she ranted.

A few miles away we shot moving car, truck and motorcycle shots in a valley where there was a general store and bar that looked like they could have come out of a movie along with the characters who inhabited the place

That same location was adjacent to an Air Force bombing range which is pretty much the whole of rural Nevada. A-10 Warthogs would fly overhead alarmingly low, turn on a dime come back and buzz as again. They were surprisingly quite for jet planes.

A-10 'Warthog' over Nevada

I had to take a reflector halfway up a hill about a quarter mile from the road and halfway up a hill. My journey took about twice as long as it would have had I not been certain I was going to step on a snake over every rock. In truth I have only ever seen two rattlesnakes in the wild and both were at Runyan Canyon park about a mile from our apartment in Hollywood.

This was the first time I had worked with a camera car. Camera cars are usually heavily modified pickups—engine, suspension, brakes nearly everything. It serves as a moving camera and lighting platform complete with it's own diesel generator, that can follow, lead and often tow behind it the “picture car” (the vehicle being filmed).

A film camera car

Working with the camera car was a lot of fun. It's basically a giant erector set of Speed Rail that you can build into any sort of rigging you need. It was also great to ride on the back of the thing while filming. The owner/operator of our camera car had worked on a number of things since the '70s. He told me about how in the first season of “CHiPs” the motorcycles looked odd being towed by the camera car since they didn't lean into the turns the way motorcycles usually do. They asked him to develop a system that would tow two motorcycles and have them lean naturally into the curves.

The most interesting thing about the experience was seeing American Stereotypes through Taiwanese eyes. Our little commercial had a star. She was a cute girl that we were told was the hottest pop star in Taiwan—of course they would say that. I'm sorry, but to my eyes, Asian female pop stars all look (and sound) very much alike.

Let's just suppose for the sake of having a name to use, that she was Mandopop star Jolin Tsai—one of the more likely candidates I researched.

Jolin Tsai

She was probably a little famous, at least in Taiwan. There was a small but devoted entourage that followed her everywhere including some dude with a video camera who documented her every waking moment in a way that made me wonder if he also shrink-wrapped, weighed and cataloged her doodies.

Every shot of the commercial which was also being used as one of Tsai's rock videos, so the American cliche's were rampant from the beginning: hitch hiking, bikers, Harleys, truckers, Peterbuilts with flames painted on the engine cowling. The desert, Las Vegas, parties, blue jeans (the canned coffee itself was printed to look like blue jean denim), leather jackets. Tsai and her troup of attractive Asian biker friends were constantly holding up cans of the syrupy sweet stuff and shouting at the sunset.

On one occasion when we were actually shooting in Las Vegas, Jolin was sitting on a motorcycle that was being side-towed by the camera car. Between takes I would take a flag and hold it out over her to keep her out of the Sun.

A side tow rig off a camera car

This could go on for ten minutes or more which became very tiring and hot (I was still in the sun myself). When they broke us for the next setup she looked up at me and thanked me in her limited MTV-learned English “Yuh suh kuh” -you're so cool... I think.

The singing portion of her video was thrown together in the last moments of useable light on the last day with a boom box for playback and a second unit camera. I would pay good money to see that video just to find out how it turned out.

My film days ended—thankfully—and I did most of my work in the air-conditioned world of television game shows. This too led me on several trips to Vegas including a Jeopardy remote in 2009. They are still recovering from the union fees.

Before that, I drove my bosse's F-350 dually to Vegas to run some electronics for a group of guys who were trying to pitch a gambling show to the Casinos. The first Casino they were visiting was “Caesar's Palace.” I was told to simply show up at the front entrance which I did. I unloaded all my equipment onto my dolly and two bellhop luggage carts complete with bell hops to push them. We proceeded into the casino, through a mall, through back hallways up an elevator, more hallways, up another elevator that opened onto a wide featureless hallway that was so long I swear I could quite nearly see the curvature of the Earth. Through the doors on the other side we wound through a maze of cubicles and finally into a small conference room where I set up the presentation. One of the folks in the office told me. You know you could have just gone to the loading dock downstairs.

The next hotel was the MGM Grand. What kind of labrynth was this going to be?

“One floor up on that elevator, second door on your left,” said the security guard.

The two-hundred-fifty mile drive to Las Vegas is a bit of an adventure itself. It is in fact a requirement for LA citizenship; only true Angelenos can state there best 'Vegas drive time' which is often too short to be believed. The highway crosses some of the hottest, most rugged country in the US and goes from elevations from nearly sea level to over fifty-five hundred feet. It can be very beautiful in a rugged desert sort of way. Reference: the opening scene to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. There's a town called Baker around the halfway mark that boasts the worlds largest thermometer (134Ft). It ranges from thirty to one-hundred-thirty five degrees. The highest I've ever seen it was one-hundred-twelve, but that was after dark. It's a good place for lunch and the gas prices are stupid but not yet insane.

Another part of the adventure is the sometimes near death experiences along that most dangerous stretch of the I-15. Remember how Angelenos brag about their 'Vegas times”? The I-15 between LA and LV is one long drag strip for those dudes and duddettes vying for that killer time. You can be going eighty miles an hour and people will still pass you like you're standing still. Add to that, trucks on steep grades, disabled cars on the shoulder and weekend traffic that is beyond insane and you have a certifiable death trap, or good sport—depending on how you look at it.

Comedian Sam Kinison and his girlfriend were some of the many to die on that stretch of highway; then, they were having their own adventure at the time.

The last third of the trip is the most desolate and gas prices and emergency services at the one or two outposts are downright abusive. Ask me how I know.

The company I worked for built a custom poker table for “Celebrity Poker Showdown” and some other poker events. Vegas union rules (screwing me once again) didn't allow for me to work on the actual production of those shows, but I still was able to work on setups and strikes. At the end of one of the poker shows I drove a rental truck to Las Vegas to bring back all of our gear. I decided it would be a good idea to take Audra along since she loves Las Vegas. It was only for one night but a road trip to Vegas is a road trip to Vegas!

We had to do some running around before we left so we weren't on a full tank when we headed up the Cajon pass into the desert communities and the Mojave desert beyond. We were running behind and I didn't want to stop to get gas in Victorville or Barstow. As we passed Baker I took one last look at the gas gauge. Just under a half tank. We had an hour to go till Vegas and we could get some fuel at the border in Primm if need be. It was a truck with bigger than normal tanks to get through a day of deliveries I reasoned and the truck is empty in back to boot. No problem, I thought.

The really scary part of the desert where the only real exit for thirty miles in either direction is where we were when I noticed the gas gauge needle. It was at an 1/8^th of a tank and I swear to you I could see the thing moving.

This event began the following dialog in my head:

“What if we don't make it?”

“We're totally not going to make it.”

“But maybe...”

“No, not going to happen.”

“But what if...”

“Nope.”

“Not even...

“Not a chance.”

“So you mean we're actually...”

“Yup.”

“Damn!”

“You said it.”

All I could do was see how far we could get and hope we could coast to an emergency phone. It wasn't long before the truck started to sputter and loose power. Fortunately we were on a down grade and we coasted to a phone. One might ask where were your cell phones? We both had ours with us and both were completely drained of batteries. There have been rare occasions when my phone or Audra's have been completely drained but never before or since were they out of commission at the same time. Oh, and we both left our chargers at home.

Like they say in the movie airplane “Looks like we picked the wrong week to give up being stupid” (paraphrased).

While we waited for the truck to come with a gas can, we opened up the back of the truck and sat in the shade it provided, feeling the truck jerk to the side every time a big rig blew by.

The I-15 North right about where we ran out of gas
I remember it well.

So, guess how much it costs to have a can of gas delivered in the middle of the Mojave Desert?... $110!

Guess how much gas they give you in the middle of the Mojave Desert?... Just enough to get to the hillbilly Podunk, middle-of-nowhere gas station that belongs to the guy who delivered the $110 gas who charges—and remember this was when gas was normally under $3 a gallon—$4.10!

You don't want to know how much they wanted for phone chargers!

We passed.

One thing I'll say, it sure feels good rolling down the highway again after you've been sitting along side for an hour or so.

Without phones we couldn't tell the crew in Las Vegas we were going to be late. So we just showed up late and it was all good. It's just as well. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about running out of gas in the middle of the Mojave.

After loading the truck I was drenched in sweat. I can imagine how I looked when I checked into our hotel. For reasons I can't even remember we ended up having to drive back that night after just taking a shower and getting some dinner. We sure topped of that tank before we left town.

About two years ago I got a call from an art director friend of mine for a job. It was the end of a very lean summer and I was pretty hard-up at the time. He offered me a job doing graphics for the new “Let's Make a Deal” game show. They were shooting in Las Vegas.

I passed.

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

Good news! All the work I have been doing has enabled me to purchase a car stereo to replaced the broken one in my car. It might not seem much of a step forward musically, but now I can rehearse singing in the car again. Almost all of the vocal progress I made leading up to my album was done in the car. When my old stereo broke it took the wind out of my sails but after some soldering and pushing and pulling and reading through the complex (for a car stereo) manual I'm ready to go!

It'll be a pleasure just to have music back in my commuting life!

In the health department: I am going vegetarian, gluten free, dairy and sugar free for at least a week while I do a little cleanse of the liver and other bits. I be honest, it sucks, but not as bad as I thought it would when my wife hit me with the idea. That is after I got up from the ground crying, screaming and pounding my hand and feet on the floor. I mean DO YOU UNDERSTAND NO DAIRY MEANS NO CEREAL!!!! And no, I won't do soy, or almond milk, I'd sooner plaster mayonnaise on a sirloin steak.

I have this food thing you see, but I'm fairly sure I'll survive... mostly.

The Angel Voice of Annie Wells

2011-06-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I like to brag... Hey, what do you mean; “what do you mean 'once in a while'”, let me finish... Every once in a while I like to brag about one of my friends.

When I moved to Rochester from Canandaigua.... No, let's go further back...

In the times of the ancient Romans...

TOO FAR BACK!

When I was in college, a friend of mine Went to Geneseo State or “SUNY Geneseo”. There was a music shop in Geneseo called BUZZO's which is an experience of it's own. In that shop worked a talented dude named Mic Fambro who many of my friends had god-like respect for. He could, and perhaps will be, the subject of an entire blog post.

But not this one.

Mic turned me on to a lot of great stuff including one of my greatest influences “The Blue Nile”. He also turned me on to and introduced me to (in a round about way) a local artist named Annie Wells.

Yup, this is about her.

I met Annie at a record release party for “Miche' and the Anglos,” Mic's amazing band, but I had already heard her music so I was actually a bit star struck. That fact that she was very cute didn't help... or hurt... or help...

Annie was also very sweet and despite my awkward fawning over her and her music was kind and forgiving. It kinda reminds me of that scene in “High Fidelity” when John Cusack and his buddies see Lisa Bonet play at a bar and (sort-of) talk to her after her set.

Annie sang and played piano in a distinct style (both) her voice had the remarkable quality of being at once airy sweet and sultry. Her piano playing was jazzy but with a folksy quality all her own.

I got to hang out with Annie here and there. Once I helped her move in her apartment building from one floor to another. The biggest challenge was helping move her baby grand piano that she wrote most of her music on.

Imagine my surprise and delight when she called me and asked if I would be interesting in playing bass in her band. I said yes right away but I was concerned. Even though I had played all sorts of music from Jazz and classical to rock, the louder variety was all I had played for several years running--and not because I didn't enjoy it. I wasn't sure if I was going to do a good job playing under Annie's whisper-soft voice and her low key piano playing.

Our first rehearsal was at Annie's Parent's house about 40 miles away from Rochester. The recent bands I had rehearsed even further away so it didn't seem that far. It was just Annie, myself and a drummer who was a bit mediocre. Having a decent drummer has always been of pinnacle importance to me but I was so pleased to be playing with Annie that I didn't complain about the drummer until she herself expressed reservations.

For my part, it was a very odd thing not to hear my amp throbbing at 100dB and to deliberately allow long warm sustained notes without embelishment, to place subtle vibratos and nuance in ways that would have been completely lost in the fray of the other bands I had played in. Don't get me wrong, I loved 'the fray', I still do, but Annie's music opened me up to a new level of musicianship I hadn't had the need for since high school, but didn't have quite the skill to pull-off until then.

Annie's first gig was at the Women's Music Festival at William Smith College. I was pretty self conscious about being a dude playing at such an event but maybe not as much as I should have been. I joked with Annie that maybe we (the dudes in the band) should dress in drag. She didn't laugh and said that definitely wouldn't be a good idea. I believe she had played at the event before as a solo artist and had a better idea what was coming. My parents wanted to come see me play—the gig was in Geneva, New York, closer to where they lived than most of my gigs. My mom happened to be busy that day but my father came on his own. The stage of the daytime concert event was the raised portion of a grassy sunken garden. There where a smattering of people in lawn chairs—about fifty women of various ages and one guy, my dad—were gathered, mostly at a comfortably distance from the 'stage'. The exception was two college age girls lying on the grass only a few feet from where we were playing.

About halfway through Annie's set, I looked down at the two girls. I wasn't sure that what I was seeing was real. They had, in front of us and the entire audience started an impromptu wrestling match on the grass. No... that's not wrestling. They were... it appeared... passionately... making out? I both looked up at my dad and made sure not to look at him. It was the kind of awkward moment like when you got you're first VCR and found yourself watching R-rated movies sitting across from your parents for the first time. F-bombs and T&A bounced unabashedly around the room while you avoided their glance and they avoided yours.

I also avoided looking at the wrestlers, which in reality, meant I could look at nothing but.

Before our next gig Annie found a different drummer who, if nothing else, apparently had a local place to practice. I arrived for my first rehearsal with Tim, the new drummer. I was impressed when I learned the address and amazed when I saw the house. It was an large English Tudor just off East Avenue across from the historic George Eastman house; the George Eastman “Kodak” house for you non-Rochesterians.

The brick driveway led to a four-car garage that was bigger than many homes with it's (empty) chauffeur and gardener quarters on the second floor. The entryway of the house had strips of polished brass between the large squares of marble on the floor. Tim met me at the door. He was a good looking guy with an warm easy-goingness that could border cavalier at times, but a good guy overall with a decent sense of humor.

Could he play though?

Tim showed me in to where we would be practicing. To call it a living room would fall several notches short of the mark; this was a a thirty-five by twenty foot 'great room'. Every inch of the walls were either covered in (real) walnut paneling and decorative woodwork or tall diamond-cut leaded glass windows, The entire twelve foot ceiling was ornate and detailed plaster bas relief that featured birds and fruit and bunches of grapes on vines. The floor was wall-to-wall hardwood but had a couple immense oriental carpets covering most of it. The furniture was arranged into several conversation areas breaking up the larger room into intimate spaces.

It was soon clear why this room was chosen, not because it was the largest or most impressive room in the house, but because of the baby grand piano at one end. I brought my amp in and we rehearsed in one of the most luxurious and beautiful places I have ever played. Annie's voice sounded particularly heavenly in that room.

My parents had once received “The Preppy Handbook” as a gift in the early eighties. It was an amusing hand illustrated book that essentially defined the American 'Preppy' in great detail. It wasn't until after I had known Tim a while that I happened to flip through the pages once again and discover that point after point he was not just kind-of preppy, he was nearly text book. From the Polos, Khakis and topsiders he wore to the VW Golf he drove, point after point, it was all there in the book. And yes, he had attended actual prep school. Not just any prep school, Tim had attended St. Andrews of Middletown, Delaware better known for being the main backdrop of “Dead Poets Society”.

And by-the-way, Tim could play his ass off! He had a slick, snappy, on-top-off-the-beat sound that was reminiscent of Stewart Copeland (the Police) and make-it-look-easy jazz chops like Dave Weckle (Chic Corea).

Annie also added a keyboard player named Chip and a sometimes sax/WX7 player named Doug. Doug walked up and gave me a hug the first time I met him as if that's what everyone does. He also had a tremendous sense of humor and he could play!

The aforementioned WX7 is a electronic MIDI control device that uses standard sax/flute fingering and a breath and pressure sensitive mouthpiece to play a synthesizer or sound module instead of a keyboard.

It was still the eighties.

I would joke with Doug that he was encroaching on my turf when he would play runs on his WX7 that unencumbered by actual physical acoustics, started with stratospheric high notes and ended on subterranean lows that were far below what my standard four-string bass could even dream about.

Annie had a lot of class and would bring it to all her gigs, even though there were one or two that frankly didn't deserve it, or her. One early show was at a rave-like club that was freezing cold and featured graffiti covered walls with several spray paint splattered TVs playing random images.

I would help out by creating computer designed posters For Annie's shows. This was a bit of a challenge as I didn't have a computer in the late '80s. I discovered somehow that if I showed up at the University of Rochester Library and simply sat down at one of their Macs, I could design and print out a poster and no one would question my presence. Yes, not the most honest thing I could have done, but I was always sure not to be seated at a computer when there were no others available.

I wish I could post one of those posters which I still have somewhere... somewhere.

Tim, the drummer, and I got along well both musically and otherwise. Drummer/bass player combinations are an important relationship that can have dire or magic consequence. He was tasteful player but also a little bit of a hot dog like myself. With a combination like this it was hard to resist playing off each other into a jazz fusion 'hot dog' mode during rehearsals which Annie was not keen on.

Tim decided to have a party for the express purpose of (besides the obvious reasons of having a party) giving both Annie and “Miche' and the Anglos” a place to play on that particular Saturday night. I told a lot of my friends about it as we all did. Tim went a step further and printed up invites that he handed out at some bars. Perhaps not the best idea since it was his parent's very nice home that he was having the party at. Even worse: technically, it wasn't even his parents house but the parsonage of the church where his father was the pastor.

Tim did take measures however. He almost completely stripped the ground floor of furniture and removed the large oriental rugs that covered the great room floor. He also placed sheets of plywood on the stairs to keep the amorous ones off the beds upstairs.

Annie played first which was great as it allowed us to enjoy the party more. Miche' put on a great show, of course and the party went off pretty well considering the disaster it could have been. There was some serious cleaning up to do and despite the stair barricades, Tim had to chase lovers off his parents' bed and clean up after them. I guess love, or at least sex knows no barriers.

Not surprisingly, a neighbor outed him to his parents when they returned. After all this was East Avenue, not fraternity row.

Annie began to record at a studio in Rochester that was so new the lobby was still studs and plywood floors in places. Not all the handles were not on all the doors. The studio itself was completely finished and functional. It featured some pretty world class gear and design. I would record at Dajhelon Productions several times in the next decade but I believe Annie was the very first person to record there. It was an amazing place to be, with or without door handles.

Listening to the tracks though, things weren't quite right. Annie herself was fine, but Tim and I were losing our ability to hold back and play tasteful, supportive and unobtrusive parts, our technical ambitions were getting the best of us. Annie's producer came in to play on some tracks but he seemed distant and distracted. The tracks sounded okay, but not great. It wasn't quite the Annie Wells that Annie Wells could be.

Maybe it was for those reasons, maybe for others I wasn't aware of, but the recording process came to a halt.

More importantly than being her bass player, Annie was and is a great friend of mine. She has a wonderful sense of humor and there was always a lot of laughter. We were once both considering parallel moves to the Boston area. I have fond memories of a road trip we once took to get a feel for the place.

Annie has a wonderful way of putting people at ease and speaks nearly as softly as she sings. To this day I can barely even imagine Annie being upset or angry. Of course, she is human and entitle to the same range of emotion and expression as everyone else.

I was hanging out with Tim at his vast kitchen table while he was on the phone with Annie. He had just rather flippantly told her that he could not play a gig that had already been booked. Tim was quiet for a minute as he listened to her response. Without excusing himself, he took the phone away from his ear, covered the receiver and turned to me.

“Joel, I think Annie Wells is yelling at me... Just a sec.” He slowly put the phone back to his ear for a bit longer and removed it again. “Yep, yep, Annie Wells is yelling at me.”

Annie, as sweet as she was, was growing impatient with Tim's attitude. She was frustrated with his recreational (over)playing and perhaps mine as well. She did some solo performances for a while and eventually starting using some members of an established Rochester band as her own; a band that better matched her classy style and were far less inclined to the progressive/fusion bent that Tim and I were.

There were no hard feelings. I went back to playing loud and aggressive but with some new skills of subtlety and expression under my belt. Tim, as talented as he was, strictly played drums for fun and had no desires to be a career musician. He continued his true ambition: to be a cinematographer.

As I had started out, I was still and remain an ardent Annie Wells fan. I was excited when her first CD “Sad and Beautiful” came out. It was humbling to hear how much better she sounded with her new band. I was glad to hear that the new bass player had learned some of my parts pretty closely and I could quietly claim some small role in what ended up being a wonderful CD. Her next disk. “Something to Dream About”, came out after I had moved to LA. It was even better than the first.

Annie did a CD of lullabies called “Sleepy Town, no voice is more perfect for that than hers! Her latest CD “Tell Me” has taken a more jazz direction with some really stellar players and I believe it is her finest work yet.

Tim sold me his Yamaha drum kit of which I still have some cymbals. The rest of the kit I in-turn sold to another friend of mine, Jeff Dopko who is another of my favorite drummers to play with. He still uses those drums to play with “Gray Young.” Tim went on to be the cinematographer for “Cherry Crush” a movie shot mostly around Rochester. I was surprised to learn that it was produced by one of my high school classmates and I remember seeing advertising for it here in Hollywood. To Tim's credit, it looks beautiful but other than that, sadly, it's not a very good movie. I once made an attempt to get in touch with Tim but never heard back.

Annie, I am still in touch with, though it has been a long time since I have been able to see her play. You won't hear music or a voice anything like Annie's. Her lyrics, even when they sport a touch a humor, are always extremely touching and personal. “Rosary” one of my all-time desert island top 10 songs, gets to me every single time.

I highly recommend picking up one or more of her disks, or at the very least, checking out her samples on iTunes or her website http://anniewells.com where you can purchase any CD individually or the whole AW library as a box set.

To really experience her charm though, one should really see Annie Wells perform which she does from time to time in the Rochester area. One would be well-advised to 'like' her Facebook page to keep attuned to shows, news and additional recordings.

These days you need a student ID to use the computers at the University of Rochester, but it's my guess they sit dormant most of the time.

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I wasn't able to rehearse once this week. I spent the first three days this week working two different jobs day and night. On Wednesday I tried to catch up on sleep and take care of things that have piled up while I was working so much and on the road shooting the Hundai 'Event'. Thursday I drove out to Highland to pick up Audra and we didn't get back until late on Friday. Night hours over the weekend and wanting to spend some time with Audra killed off the week for rehearsals. This kinda stinks because I am paying money for the rehearsal space and so far I haven't been able to make effective use of the place. I may have to rethink this and use commercial hourly spaces.

I brought back my small PA system from where I was storing it at Audra's folks' in Highland because the last couple of times I rehearsed their PA system was gone leaving me to sing into a dead microphone (better than not rehearsing at all).

Next week is pretty open so far so perhaps I can get in a trio of rehearsals then. On Friday I'll have to cough up rent again.

Regarding next week being “open”, it's an interesting thing being a freelance worker; I absolutely love when I find myself face to face with a whole week when I have nothing to do, and yet there is a certain underlying terror to it. I am essentially unemployed until the phone rings again. I have every reason to believe it will but it hard to escape the reality that we're in free-fall until it does. As many know I work on Jeopardy, a steady gig many in this business would love to have but what many don't know is that's it's a part time gig (4 to 6 days a month), and only for 9 months of the year. Still, I love the relative freedom.

The Revenge of Mr. No-So-Cool

2011-06-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

A re-write from my old Myspace blog "Diesel Fumes"

During high school I was not cool. I was not an athlete. I had never won anything, not a contest, not a raffle, not classroom bingo, nothing. I was quite conscious of this; probably why I didn't win.

In school, my academics were poor. I have mentioned my so-called learning disability in a previous post. This was a factor of course but I also just didn't care that much. I might not have cared at all, but my brother was getting excellent grades and my parents were both teachers. They were good not to pressure me to the point of rebellion but I knew they were at least a little disappointed. My teachers, noting that I was actually pretty intelligent would say “If only he'd apply himself..."

Okay, I'll do better. I'll work hard and... I'll just do better. I promised myself.

I studied, I did homework, I but after just a few minutes it was as if I was just looking at a different language on the page. Each word would evaporate from my mind as I read them. Soon my desire to pick up my bass won out over the books. I was breaking new ground on bass but looking at C's and D's as ever in school.

My social life wasn't going that well either. In my school, one of those places where everyone was very much caught up with football, we were known as “band fags” or 'biffs'. Nice huh? If I were to have listened to the masses I would have thought of myself as being the bottom of the food chain. Which of course I did. I was in high school with a low self esteem, not some semi-enlightened adult. Though I claimed to disdain them, the popular kids were royalty. I effectively bowed when they passed and cared very much what they thought of me which as a result, wasn't very much.

Girls: I thought about them all the time. The ones I liked I could barely utter an intelligent syllable to and I pretty much liked them all.

Music was what I was good at. It was my island it; the 'Earth' where I was superman and high school was my Krypton where I was just another weakling.

But music, my island paradise, had it's problems too.

I was not, nor have I ever really been, a disciplined or academic musician. I didn't practice as often as i should have and when I did I played what I felt like, not learning scales or practicing reading music—my big weak point. I had barely mustered a B- on my NYSMA (New York State School Music Association) solo competition solo on upright bass and I think they were being kind. As a bass player in the school music groups I was in, and even the rock bands I played in, I was always in the background, there was always some else in the spot light. As with many bass players, it was my self-image that had really put me there, not my choice of instrument.

Auditions, I hated them. It was not just about how well I could play, which was pretty good, it was about having the cool confidence to play before scrutinizing ears and eyes, by myself. It was a test of mojo, not just musicianship. During my senior year I went to Penn Yan, New York to audition for the Area All State Jazz Ensemble. There were several others auditioning, but I primarily noticed this one local guy warming up. He was a skinny kid that had a silk shirt with pictures of little records on it. He was playing some Led Zeppelin tune to warm up. He wore his bass strap very low, his bass almost to his knee. "Mr. Cool."

"No problem", I thought, "I can outplay this guy. I'll clean up Mr. Cool without breaking a sweat."

During my audition though, things did not go smoothly. There was no drummer, no band to play along with I was completely exposed. My mojo was out by the highway thumbing a ride back to Canandaigua. For the site reading one of the judges handed me a chart for a piece that he himself had composed and that I had never seen before (the whole point of site reading). Without anyone else to play with, I could barely get out the notes let alone lay down the good feel, the thing I was best at.

Did I mention this particular judge was also from Penn Yan: Mr. Cool's music teacher? No matter.

Mr. Cool was in and I was out. I was disappointed even a little pissed that I would have to sit out area allstate my senior year. I had put all my eggs in one basket and didn't audition for the allstate orchestra. I put it out of my mind and I most certainly didn't go to the concert.

Shelly Binder, was a stellar trumpet player from our school. She passed her audition with ease and played lead trumpet for the Area Allstate Jazz Band. She was a great player both academically and in the true musical sense. She also had what I lacked back then: self confidence. Shelly was also a good egg and has lent me some of her chutzpah on more than one occasion. When she returned from performing with the select group, the one with Mr. Cool on bass, she brought with her a jazz-rock chart that they had performed. During jazz band rehearsal she mentioned that the Pen Yan bass player, "Mr. Cool", had taken a solo in the piece. My blood began to boil but then she finished. "Joel would have done better. He should take a solo too." Mr Peters, our director agree and I was given eight bars of spotlight.

You can bet I worked my ass off on a rockin' solo.

Later that year the Canandaigua Academy Jazz Band, our jazz band, was at a jazz competition at Haverling High School in Hammondsport, New York. We were backstage, on-deck to perform. There was another band milling about that was playing after us. Among them was a tall beautiful girl in a yellow dress with a Les Paul Custom guitar strapped on.

Be still my heart! A cute girl with a Les Paul! I was instantly in love; that happened a lot (not seeing cute girls with Les Pauls around their necks, falling in love with cute girls with pretty much anything around their necks).

I attempted to make conversation with her but she, noting I was wearing a cheap, Korean-built Hondo II P-bass copy, was well aware that she outclassed me by around a thousand dollars. There was no talking to her. It didn't bother me too much though. I knew what was coming.

Onstage, in the late measures of our last piece, that same jazz-rock piece that Shelly brought in, I reached back and twisted the volume knob up on my Fender Bassman. I spun around in time to light into my solo. I wailed, my fingers flew, the notes came together together like Swiss gears and left my amp like a forest fire. I was completely in the moment. I relished every note.

The Five Points of 'Mr. Not-So-Cool's (my) Revenge:

1. I didn't even look at the snobby chic guitarist with the Les Paul as we left the stage. Maybe she was impressed with what a cheap bass could do in the hands of a bad ass bass mo-fo, maybe she wasn't, I didn't think about it much frankly. She was a lightweight who'd borrowed her daddy's guitar and could barely play with the feel of a cardboard box as far as I was concerned, and I hadn't even heard her play.

2. Mr. Cool was also in attendance for the solo. My friend Scott, also a Penn Yan student, was sitting next to him and told me that Mr. Cool was quite impressed with what I had done with 'his' solo (I choose to believe that meant intimidated as hell). My revenge was complete…

Or was it?

3. After all the bands had played everyone assembled in the auditorium to hear who had won the competition. Like with all award ceremonies they can't just read third, second, first place and be done with it, there always has to be a bunch of other stupid awards like 'best dressed trombonist' or most in-tune sax player. I didn't know, I wasn't paying attention, such awards never applied to me and definitely not to bass pla...

"The bass player from Canandaigua."

Whaa? What did they say?

There was back-slapping from all directions, otherwise I'd have thought I was hearing things. Apparently it was the award for 'best soloist'. Stunned, I began to rise from my seat to redeem my award, but the slapping hands pulled me back. Karl Taylor, our band's representative was already onstage to receive all our awards. Our band won the overall competition as well.

I still have the plaque

4. Still reeling from my award and life's shift away from never having won anything, I sat on the bus with the rest of the band waiting for our director, Barry Peters, to return from the judges meeting. We were all on a psych from the win. Everyone continued slapping me on the back and shaking my hand. They had known about the Area Allstate thing. I got the feeling they were nearly as happy about my unexpected win as the band's championship.

When Mr. Peters reached the bus it was plain that he was very pleased too. He came right up to me grinning like the Cheshire cat: "One of the judges is the jazz band director at St. Bonaventure University. He was really impressed with your playing. In fact, he wants to pay you a scholarship to go to school there and play in their jazz band."

I've never been so blown away in my life. I was already adjusting to my first "win". The word "scholarship" didn't belong in the same sentence with anything having to do with me. Frankly, it was a little hard to take, all this honor and attention—it was also mentioned during the morning announcements the next day at school. It was all great and wonderful but I was completely unprepared to know how to feel.

5. By the time the bus reached our school and drove home it was after midnight. I rapped gently on my parents' bedroom door and stepped into the dark of their room.

"You'll never guess what," I said.

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I just returned home from the second and final weekend of the Hyundai 'event' I was working on. This Weekend we were in Paso Robles in Central California. the weather couldn't have been any more perfect, even if not compared to last weekend's 100 degree plus sweaty fry-fest in Arizona.

Even better, our hotel, The Carlton Hotel was this awesome little restored hotel in Atescadero, California, about ten miles from our shooting location. A nice restaurant and I had a really charming very large and luxurious room, one of the nicest I've stayed in. The price: a steal at $150 a night. I highly recommend the place.

I car-pooled up and back with a couple of great guys. One I already knew and one I had just met on this project who has lead an amazing life so far and had many fascinating tales to tell.

Now I'm home and in about eight hours (2:30AM) I start my first shift covering Wimbledon at Tennis Channel. Afterwords I going to work sorting out the gear from the Hyundai thing. Tomorrow's going to be a long day!

I got a couple rehearsals in last week. Lets see if i can get three in this week.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven, Part IV

2011-06-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

This is from my journal during a high school trip to England and Scotland with the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. This current font indicates my comments written in the present.

See parts I thru III if you haven't already

For this final chapter of “Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven” play the following video while you read. Don't bother watching it, it just a series of photos.

There may have been some in our midst who were disappointed to be staying with host families instead of being put up in hotels, but I loved it. We were staying with real people and that's how I wanted to get to know the real UK.

The four families I ended up staying with during our time in the UK covered a wide area of class and apparent wealth and age. The first in Schrewsbury were a basic middle class family. They were very friendly average folks it seemed. In Harrogate, our hosts couple—the well-to-do older couple with the horrible dog—kept us at a polite arms length. The last family my roommate and I stayed with was a single mom and her two girls near London. I'll get back to them later.

In Scotland our hosts were a different story altogether and the most memorable of all the people I encountered in the UK. It was late at night when we met our Scottish hosts due to the bus breakdown. The guy who picked us up drove a three-wheeled car. He explained that even though it was just like a car, though a bit small, it could be registered as a motorcycle at a much cheaper rate than a regular car—quite expensive in the UK apparently. We met his wife briefly when we arrived at their modest condo then it was straight to bed.

There were chocolate Easter Eggs on both our pillows.

These were good people.

In the morning I awoke to hear two small boys in another room. The older was playing school master by quizzing the younger on his colors (colours).

“...And what colour is thot?” one said in a lyrical Scottish accent.
“Bluue!” a younger voice responded enthusiastically.
“Cadect.”
“What colour is thot?”
“Gdrrreen!”
“Cadect.”

I went back to sleep, but soon I heard a closer sound, the creaking of a door. I opened my eyes to see the door to our room opening slowly. A small fuzzy head peered around the door and a smaller head appeared just below the first. I closed my eyes. I could imagine being in their shoes, waiting all day with great anticipation to meet their guests from another country only to be told it was bed time and they'd have to see them in the morning. Now it was morning and behind the door were sleeping strangers from thousands of miles away. There was whispering and shushing. I decided to have some fun.

“RRRAAAAR!” I said as I opened my eyes wide. Two little boys ran down the hall giggling and screaming.

Geoff was an Englishman who married a Scot (Anne) and had moved to Scotland—though I may well have the order of events reversed. They were very open, friendly, down to Earth and funny. Geoff and Anne carried on a continual good-natured battle of Limy versus Scot. Neil and Frazier (don't forget to roll the Rs) were their young boys, 3 and 6 years-old. I sat across the breakfast table from Neil, eating his cereal, his hair a-tossle and the tie of his school uniform askew. His mother chided his appearance but no effort by either was taken to correct and off to school he went.

We toured Edinburgh and spent time at Edinburgh Castle, the classic castle on a high rock and traveled a mile down High Street to the equally amazing Palace of Holyroodhouse. I actually got to spend some time with Kristin!

Edinburgh Castle

Holyrood Palace

The orchestra rehearsed later that day. A half dozen of us were dropped-off a half mile from where our various host homes were. We stopped at a Chinese Restaurant along the way. The guy behind the counter spoke in, despite his broken English, the most understandable voice I had heard in the UK so far.

“Hey you guys Americans, you from New York? I from New York, Chinatown.” he said. While we were waiting for our food, one of the kids, a cellist, took out some girl's violin, propped it up on a table and played it like cello. I was surprised how well this worked.

That night those of us in the same neighborhood decided to go out to a pub. We could legally drink here, how could we not? I myself was a teetotaler at the time, but I figured 'when in Rome'.

We took a bus to a pub in downtown Dunferline. I was surprised at how low key and comfortable it was. We hung our with some local guys who were perplexed when they saw us playing 'quarters' (a drinking game popular with American high school kids at the time). I don't think they were scratching their heads over our bouncing quarters off and table and (hopefully) into the mug of beer, I think they were wondering why anyone needed a game to drink.

Being unaccustomed to English beer, let alone beer at all. I was feeling no pain after a pint and a half. We were being loud Americans at the bus stop and getting some sideways looks from some older ladies. “Bluudy Americans” I said in my best Scottish accent. On the bus ride home I felt euphoric. The reality of being there, really there, and traveling as a musician. Sure it was just a high school youth orchestra, but it was a damn good one. Laura, one of the flautists, was sitting next to me. To my own surprise I put my arm around her and to additional surprise she didn't protest.

At our hosts' home the whole group came in and watched 'telly' for a while. I tried to hide my drunkenness from our host, though I didn't think it would hurt to allow myself to indulge in my alcohol-inspired charisma in a nice conversation with out hosts.

The next morning Anne gave us a 'look' when we came down for the hot breakfast she had made , her "supreme sacrifice".

“Any 'angovers this mornin?” she said.

That evening our Scottish concert the was in the modest Lochgelly center. It was smallest room we played but it was full of people, probably more than the largest room we played at Leeds Town Hall. The concert went pretty well, but our French horn player squawked that note again. It was beginning to be a thorn in everyone's side.

Soon we boarded buses and headed south for the day-long trip back to London with a stop in Yorkshire of which I can only seem to remember there being a very large wall. Jonathon, one of our violinists and a prodigy who had written several symphonies, but also a bit scatterbrained, was missing when we boarded the coaches. After about twenty minutes of Mrs. Reifler searching in a panic he was found wandering aimless about.

We met our new host at a school in Bromley, a suburb south of London, where we would be play a concert in a couple of days. She was a charismatic, maybe a bit flighty woman with eleven and fifteen year-old daughters. On this stay there were two more kids from the orchestra staying with us. They were a couple of young Asian guys who were not only astoundingly immature but embarrassingly obnoxious. They constantly giggled like school girls. I probably would have enjoyed our hosts more if it had just been David and I, Our host talked a lot and had many projects around their house in various stages of completion. She and her girls loved the US. They had Disneyland stuff around their house from a trip to California (someplace I had not yet been).

The next evening after our own rehearsal, we attended a London Philharmonic concert at Royal Festival Hall on the bank of the Thames near Waterloo Station. It was humbling to hear how good a 'real' orchestra sounded. Maybe we weren't so great after all.

We had a whirlwind bus tour of London the next day. Our volunteer guide was a older woman who donned white plastic louvered sunglasses which were sort of hip at the time. They looked a bit ridiculous on her (as they did on anyone) but she seemed to carry them off somehow. We had a chance to explore London on our own a bit. I finally had a chance to hang out with Kristin and her friend Kathleen by default. We took the 'Tube' to Piccadilly Circus and looked around a bit. It was very touristy. We got some food at a stand and when we received our food the guy said: “you're the first American's I've ever heard that said 'please' and 'thank you'. I was unsure whether to be flattered or insulted.

When we left for our bus tour we were told to bring our concert clothes as we would be going straight to our concert afterwords. I brought my suit but failed to remember my dress shoes. So I had to wear my sneakers with my suit.

It was a significant concert for two reasons. 1. It was our last concert in England. After all those concerts and rehearsals we were at the top of our game (a sports analogy seems odd but 'oh well'). 2. Were were playing at a public school (“public school” in England means 'private' in the US, as it is funded by the public not the government). The school orchestra was playing before us and we collectively felt a desire to show off a little.

Before the concert there were kids from the host school milling about as well as the throngs of Americans. The English kids seemed shy, almost frightened of us. Shelly, the trumpet player who had gotten me my audition to join the RPYO who was not at all shy and or frightened of anything, started a round of the “Star Spangled Banner” with the brass players and even a few singing along. She decided to 'smooth it over' with the Brits by playing “God Save the Queen” but they may have been even more taken aback by that.

The host orchestra, a strings-only affair, played very beautiful slow lush soft graceful sad pieces like “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber (think of the end scene in “Platoon”). Each piece they played seemed to end very softly, the conductor easing them into silence with the utmost care. I remember thinking two things: that they were a very good, well rehearsed and disciplined ensemble and “wait'll they get a load of us!”

I don't know if they were impressed in the sense of admiration, but we certainly made an impression. Our pieces were, at times, loud, complex and rhythmic and usually ended with a bang. But what about “The Moldau” It was our last piece, my favorite to play; it was full of soaring scales and multiple textures and moods as the 'story' of this tone poem follows the Czech Moldau River past beautiful countryside, austere cities, a peasant wedding and violent rapids finally flowing into the sea.

We were worried. Our first chair horn player had not gotten that difficult passage correct yet. Not once in concert. We didn't hold it against her, more like we were cheering her on wanting her to succeed. But now the stakes were higher, we were playing for our peers who had just played for us. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath as her infamous passage approached.

She nailed it! Perfect, confident, as the English say: “spot on.”

This created a collective rush for all of us. It was all down hill from there and we, pardon the expression, rocked it! We had never sounded better and there was no doubt by anyone in the theater that we were, for our age, quite good.

I met our host and her daughters after the concert. The eleven-year-old (in her adorable accent of course) said to me “Why are you wearing your tennis shoes.”

I didn't know the expression at the time, but if I had, being on the high of such a great performance, I might have replied: “Cuz that's how I roll baby.”

Because I happened to be 19 at the time (the drinking age in NY in 1984) several kids had asked me to bring bottles of wine, etc. they had purchased at duty free shops at Gatewick airport through US customs for them at JFK. I still had some fruit that my host 'mom' had packed me off with that I threw out because I was nervous about it being 'contraband'. My carry-on bag was heavy with he alcohol it and I was a little nervous at the prospect of having to lie and say it was my own but in the end I was waved through customs altogether simply because I was carrying my huge string bass. Can you imagine?

We boarded the big dirty Greyhound bus for the trip home and I remember having the thought “The driver's sitting on the wrong side.”

One by one the kids all got picked by their parents in front of the Eastman Theater in Rochester, New York in the wee hours after our buses had arrived. By 5AM only the director Howard Weiss and I remained. He was looking annoyed... more annoyed than usual. I tried to call my parents but my sleepy brother told me they had spent the night with friends so they get up early and pick me up.

So where were they?

When they finally showed up and Howard could go home. I said “where were you?”

It had been the daylight savings time shift that morning and they had either forgotten about it or shifted in the wrong direction.

Still, I was euphoric. It had been an amazing trip. I'm sure I didn't shut up about it the entire ride home. I knew I would be back, as a rock musician next time!

Twenty seven years later I have been to the four corners of the US in a tour bus and played to crowds large and small, but I have yet to get back to England. I never properly dated Kristin either. We kept in touch by mail via her friend Kathleen but because of her age and her strict parents that was as far as it could go. I once drove to Ithaca College where she was attending a music camp of some sort and I got to hang out with her (and Kathleen of course) for a little bit before they had to get back but we lost contact after that.

A couple of years ago on a whim I decided to see if I could find her and lo and behold she was living with her wonderful family in Southern California! As a result we often commiserate on the points of being foreigners in this strange land (Rochesterians in LA). She even played violin and viola on my album! Had I been seated somewhere else on that 747, I would not have the friend I do today and my album would not have sounded the same.

My not returning to England hasn't been as happy an ending, yet. I not only want to go back but I would like to spend more than eleven days there and so does my wife. More than a month, more than three! I'm still not sure how this will transpire or if my visit will be as a musician or something else, but somehow, some day I will get back.

Cuz that's how I roll baby!

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I am writing this from my hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona (Glendale really). I have been here for a couple days (I fly home tomorrow) working on a "Summer Research Event" (as we're supposed to call it) as a camera tech. Yesterday and today I spent the entire day outdoors in hundred degree heat trying to keep video equipment in the trunks of test cars from melting holes to the center of the earth.

If nothing else this has been great for weight loss. I'll be quite excited to go home and see what this two-day fat camp from hell (plus some difficult prep days earlier in the week) has done. I was pretty good and stayed away from the craft table for the most part. Other than working on the Jeopardy Watson project at IBM I have done very little physical work in the past six months so I am quite sore, sore, sore, SORE right now.

Musically I have little to report. Extra prep days kept me from rehearsing at my new space during the week but I have the next four days off so I will get a couple in there.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven, Part III

2011-06-04T06:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 4/18/84 -continued

...Shrewsbury is a really lovely town; unspoiled. Charles Darwin was born and raised here. Our hosts are really nice. They have 2 kids at home; Dave 20, and Catherine 14. Dave was cool and would have taken us to a pub but we were too tired. Catherine was very quiet.

Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK. the center of town hasn't changed much
since Charles Darwin walked these streets

Thursday 4/19/84

The next day after a breakfast of sausage eggs, bacon, toast, cereal (I was surprised for some reason that the English had Corn flakes and other familiar products) and tea, we (Dave -my roommate, Tom -horn and Scott -trumpet were delivered to the town square. We broke into groups of 25 (I wasn't with Kristin—again) for a walking tour of Shrewsbury... We ended up at “The Castle” (Shrewsbury Castle). We had a reception by the Mayor. We had time to shop before rehearsal.

Shrewsbury Castle

The large instruments still haven't arrived. So when rehearsal time came we (the players of the large instruments) could still shop and hang out while the other kids had to rehearse anyway. I bought a pair of pinstriped jeans with Mary (cello). The van didn't show until an hour before our first concert. Then, 18 bars into the first piece, all the hair pulled out of the tip of my bow. I was furious and had to play pizzicato (plucking the strings) for the rest of the concert. It was ridiculous!

One of our guides, “Tim Jones,” is a bass player and happened to live right in Shrewsbury -thank God. He said he would lend me his (bow) for the rest of the tour.

After the concert we ate a late meal with our hosts and talked late into the night.

Walking around the town, we didn't have to open my mouths for English kids to know we were Americans. They seemed to know straight off somehow.

Shrewsbury was my favorite part of England, it was rich in history and beauty. It proved to me that the way I had always thought of England actually exists... except for maybe the punk rockers. It seemed that every kid in England at that time was completely punked-out and we Americans looked like a John Hughes movie on tour. No wonder they could tell we were Americans.

There was one girl in my own graduating class who was considered the class 'punk' because she wore dark eyeliner, black stockings and shunned the frilly preppy blouses that every other girl wore. We thought she was the coolest thing in the world because she was so 'rad'. If there was one thing about England that surprised me more than anything else, it was that, even in a small town like Shrewsbury, so many of the kids were hardcore: leather, spiked hair, piercings, Mohawks, chains, studs. I was a little frightened of them frankly. It was like our safe little John Hughes movie had detoured into a post-apocalyptic sci fi... that happened to be set in an idyllic English town.

Friday 4/20/84

We left for Yorkshire. After 5 hours of winding through gorgeous countryside we unloaded in Harrogate and almost immediately started rehearsing after listening to a very so-so high school band from Canada. After rehearsal I was ready to kill Jeanine (my stand partner) The stage was too small for a hundred plus member orchestra and Jeanine and I were practically backstage and still cramped. She kept hitting my bass with her bow as I recall. Jeannine was an annoying fourteen-year-old, but I think I was also a bit bugged that, because of my lousy audition I had been placed fifth chair out of six players even though, practically speaking, I was a better player than all but one of them. The situation with my bass bow didn't much improve my mood. Even though I had a loaner bow from one of our guides, it was a German style bow; very different from the French style I'd always played with. It used an entirely different hand position that resembles the final stages of arthritis. Getting used to it was was a learning process and making my right hand sore.

We then met our hosts. Dave and I were alone this time. Our hosts were nice enough but a bit stuffy. They had an awful dog who had his name on my leg.

We were formally 'received' by the older upper class couple in their sitting room for a brief and formal Q & A, then shown to our rooms on the third floor. We only saw our hosts at meals henceforth. I felt my behavior or rather “behaviour” was being closely scrutinized the entire time I was there.

(At the concert) We were the last act in what must have been a tiring show for the audience. We only played part of the program of our usual show. It was funny because it was the largest audience we'd played for and the least appreciative. Backstage at that concert a kid from Canada gave me a pin (of the Canadian flag) that Canadian Commerce had given him to give away.

Our performance at the Harrogate International Youth Music Festival.
There was so little space on this stage that the first chair violin and cello
had to put their music stand up on the conductors podium.
I'm the bassist on the far right in the back who's halfway backstage.

Sat 4/21/84

We got to sleep-in (sort of). Dave and I headed to the square for pictures of the orch, then shopped.

I remember getting lunch at a pizza place that served the worst pizza I have ever tasted.

The Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in Harrogate, Yorkshire in the UK.
Can you find me? Hint- I'm not looking at the camera. -you can click to enlarge-

That evening we had a concert in Leeds (or “At Leeds” if “The Who” are to be believed). It was the most beautiful hall we've played -Leeds Town hall. It seated about 700 people. Not quite 100, (mostly elderly) people showed up, but after our third straight show we were awesome! Tired again, why does Dave practice his recorders at night?

Leeds Town Hall, an awe inspiring place.

We were getting better with each show we played but there was one thing that kept us from sounding professional. There was a French horn passage in “The Moldau,” a beautiful piece that tells the story of a river's journey to the sea, that our first horn player could never seem to get right. It was almost a solo, completely exposed. There was a difficult leap to a high note right at the end of that section. Each performance so far she had missed the note. French horn, like violin, is a challenging instrument that sounds wonderful when played well, but like wild animal mating calls when not played absolutely perfectly. Each time we got to the horn passage the orchestra collectively held it's breath hoping she would hit that high note without 'squawnking' it.

At Leeds, once again, she squawnked.

Sun 4/22/84 (Easter)

I wanted to go to church or to an Easter Mass but our hosts didn't seem to know of anyplace. Off to Scotland...

There were both differences and similarities that surprised me about England. I'm not sure why it surprised me that there are four lane highways—or “motorways” as they call them in the UK—that look like they could be in Kentucky or Upstate New York except of course the traffic is all going in different directions on the right and left sides. Even the rest stops, with gift shops and fast food, looked very much like those along the New York State Thruway.

We had different buses this time, but Kristin was on the other one as usual. Amy (oboe), Jeanine (my stand partner), another Amy (violin) and a bunch of other girls decided it would be fun to do my hair after my very reluctant permission was granted. They matted it down with setting gel and put eyeliner under my eyes. Shortly thereafter, the bus broke down. (All the kids crammed onto the other bus) I stayed behind to help transfer luggage when a replacement bus would arrive later.

In the company of my fellow students, my funky looking hair and my rock star eyeliner looked a little bit cool, or at least was seen in the context of the fun we were having, and how can I lie—I loved the attention from all those girls—but now I was left back with a coach driver and the tour manager. I looked like an idiot and the rest of the orchestra was headed to Scotland without me.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven, Part IV

DOUBLE J's
Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

During my long uneventful night hours during the French Open I finished the noise reduction modification to my Repeater (looper), some scary and intricate electronic alterations that I downloaded instructions for. The instructions warn that it's a difficult procedure. I was not deterred but maybe I should have been; I'm afraid the Repeater lost some of it's functionality under my scalpel, but it can be fixed later and thie things I killed were things I didn't expressly need, so it is back in my rack and now -more quietly- helping me recreate things like "Rice Crispies and Gin" live.

After my first rehearsal (by myself) at my new space. Lou, the guy who primarily rents the place, called me to say that a guitarist friend of his who rents a space below ours told him he 'sounded really good the other night' when it was actually me he was hearing. "Keep making me sound good" Lou said.

I start work this coming week (today technically) on a Hyundai commercial that will take me on the road for a couple of weeks. This will be something a little different for me and I am looking forward to it.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven, Part II

2011-05-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

At my mother's suggestion I bought a marble composition book to journal my trip to tour England and Scotland with the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. I wasted no time and started journaling a couple weeks before the trip.

Selections from my journal entries have been slightly edited and will appear like this:

Fri 4/6/84 1:30AM

10 days to go till I go to Europe. I'm Ecstatic. I'm to tour with the Rochester Phil. Youth Orchestra for ten days in the U.K. Playing concerts in London, Harrogate, & Edinburgh. This log will contain day-by-day accounts of that trip...

Sun 4/8/84

Was up early because RPYO (rehearsal) was from 9:45AM to what turned out to be 4:48PM with only two breaks. I had missed the last two rehearsals so it was good to be back, even though it exhausted me. The pieces we are playing are all of professional caliber. Most of them are from the big orchestra's (Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra) library... I find this exciting, though I'm not sure the other kids really care. Many of them are veterans of RPYO; not easily pleased with such trivialities. None of them can escape the thrill of this trip. One can feel it as we work for and talk about it. Sometimes in my sleep, I awake and realize that I'm flying over seas, and it's hard to believe. The pieces we are playing are: Candide by Bernstein, Some of the nutcracker Suite, Lenore OV. (overature) #3 by Beethoven, The Moldau by Smetana, Hoedown by Aaron Copeland...

Mon 4/19/84

School is school. After that Dad and I went to Nippenoze in Holcomb to get me a Woolrich shell jacket for Europe. I am going to take good care of it. It will last me a long time. (I wonder now what happened to that jacket, how long did I actually have it?) Being in Nippenoze reminds me of how I like being close to nature. Afterwards we wnet back to my car at school and I went to Rossi's to get two D strings (I used to break a lot of strings) and ended up buying 4 bass picks also.

Wednesday 4/11/84 -6 Days

It will be good to break the routine of school on this tour I'm really getting sick of the day-in-and-out. Bill (a guitarist friend of mine from another school) and I are playing for a YMCA benefit production called “The Fabulous Fifties”. We're part of the pit band... Judy Cornish (piano) taught Bill a lot of music theory at rehearsal on Sunday while I was at RPYO rehearsal. Tonight we rehearsed for the last time before our shows on Fri and Sat. It occurred to me that this will be the first time that Bill and I play out together and this will be his first gig period.

Thurs 4/12/84 5 Days!

I'm starting to engage my anti jet lag strategy by getting up and going to sleep earlier, but my schedule this weekend could foil my plan. The show (a YMCA benefit) is Friday and Saturday, RPYO rehearsal on Sunday will go till 8:30 (plus the drive home). Jazz band rehearsal on Monday will go till 9. by that time who can sleep anyway, I'll be too WIRED! Mrs. Reifler (RPYO's tour manager) called and told me I have to take my bass (the school's) over because they couldn't rent them in England. So I've got to rent a hard flight case in NYC: $50.

Friday 4/13/84 FOUR DAYS LEFT!!

I love mornings, it's my favorite time of day, especially when I'm going on a trip. It's hard to believe we're leaving Tuesday. In school I'm always telling people how many days I have left whether they ask me or not.

Sun 4/15/84 2 DAYS!!!!

Hectic day. Bill and I left the cast party for the 50's thing (a YMCA benefit musical review) around 12AM last night so my sleep has been shot. I don't know if I'll survive the day ahead... RPYO rehearsal was grueling but effective and exciting. It ran till 9:15. I slept at 11.

-The Trip-

Tues 4/17/84

I was excited and could only manage a couple hours of sleep...

Mom and our neighbor, Mrs. Marsh, drove me to the Memorial Art Gallery parking lot where we were to board our buses, but there were no buses. Mrs. Marsh gave me an Andy Rooney book. After what seemed like forever 1 of the 3 buses arrived. We painstakingly loaded 2 harps, 5 basses, 8 horns 4 bones and 11 cellos on and under the bus. When the other buses arrived I got on the first one... the trip to NYC was good. The city (what little I could see of it from the rush hour traffic) fascinated me. NYC is so filthy though...

New York was still kind of a scary place back then both in my imagination and in reality too. It was the kind of place that if your car broke down it would be stripped of all it's parts within hours, at least these were the legends I had heard. I didn't know whether they were true or not until I saw several gutted cars along the expressways going through the city on our way to JFK airport.

The late buses had caused us to miss our Flying Tigers freight flight that all the larger instruments were supposed to fly on. Our tour manager had to do some fancy footwork and got our instruments re-booked on Pan Am Freight. The only problem was that all the cases for the basses and harps had been delivered to the Flying Tigers hangar and there was no way to get them to Pan Am Freight several miles away. If you've never been through JFK, it is, by itself, a small city. Three buses pulled into the lot of Flying Tigers looking very out-of-place next to all the trucks. Volunteers were asked for to go into the warehouse and help carry out the cases. Go into a air freight warehouse is one of the biggest airports in the world? Sign me up! Inside the terminal our tour manager told us to stay put while she disappeared inot the warehouse to find the right people to talk to. No sooner had she left when a very gruff razor-stubbled old dude named Rudolph walked up to us incredulously and yelled “You kids,GET OUTTA HERE!” Six or seven high school orchestra geeks then tried politely to explain that “you see, Mrs. Riefler" "She's our tour manager" "She went that way." "Yeah so like she, um, told us to to stay here and um...”

“I don't care about no missus nobawdy, now GET OUTTA HERE!” Rudolph and his three day growth stomped off back into the warehouse.

Mrs. Riefler returned a moment later. Several of us chorused to her at once: “There was this big guy...” "He was mad..." “He, um, yelled at us and told us we had to leave...” “Yeah, so, um, maybe we should wait outside.”

“You're my responsibility not his. Just stay here,” she said. Then, to our horror, just like 'that', she left us again. The teamsters hanging around and loading trucks (mostly hanging around) were having great sport laughing at us as we looked around in fear of the formidable Rudolph. Naturally, it didn't take him long to return and see that there were still young clueless intruders loitering in what was clearly his turf.

“Hey you kids I thawt I told yous to get outta here. GET OUTTA HERE!” he bellowed. We started to move towards the door we had come in through like a nervous herd of cattle. “NOOO, NOT THAT WAY, THE UDDA WAY, GET OUTTA HERE!!” He pointed in some direction that was no where near the direction of the way we had come in or of where the buses were parked. One of our guys, a bit more nervous than the rest of us, could take no more and made a break for it. He ran towards a loading bay door and slipped out between the truck and the rubber flap in the doorway. I couldn't see him after his jail break, but I feel confident he was running with his arms flailing all the way to the bus.

Eventually everything was worked out and we were piling luggage into the empty seats of one of the buses and loading the large instrument cases into the now empty luggage bays. The harp cases were so big that we couldn't get the doors closed, so we carefully drove to the Pan Am freight terminal with the bay doors wide open.

The sun was down by the time we boarded our plane an Air India 747. That's right, Air India—mythinks someone found a good deal on 100+ tickets. The flight attendants wore saris and bindis on their foreheads. They bowed with 'praying hands' when I entered the plane.

I regret now that I didn't take a camera with me.
This picture is just one I found but it's exactly the way I remember the
flight attendants when boarding our Air India flight -just on a much bigger plane.

The bad news: with a 2:11 chance of getting a window seat on a 747, I didn't even get near one. The good news: I was sitting near a rather cute violinist named Kristin.

Wednesday 4/18 continued

The in-flight movie was "Tender Mercys" but the sound was terrible and the film kept getting jammed and melting turning what was probably supposed to be a heartwarming drama into a post-apocalyptic nightmare. I was on the Aisle on the inside and sitting next to me was Kathleen (violin) and her Friend Kristin. Kristin, who I became rather found of during the flight, played violin as well. At first she was quite quiet but she opened up eventually. She talked of all the places she's been (Germany) and complained about how picky her grandparents are...

Kathleen grew up to be quite lovely but was a bit geeky back then. She seemed to eye me with suspicion as well. Kristin was more interesting to me and as I said, cute! I wrote in my journal that we exchanged several smiles on either side of her sleeping friend. I was disappointed to learn Kristin and her friend were only 14. It was no surprise that Kathleen was that young but Kristin seemed transcendent of her age emotionally. There would be no dating her though, especially if her German parents were as strict and old fashioned as she said they were.

In the comedy of life it should be noted that the woman I would end up marrying was only three years old at the time.

Another plus about the flight: the best airline food I had ever eaten before or since. They offered us a choice of an Indian and a Western style meal. Unlike most of the kids around me, I choose the Indian. I already knew what Western airline food tasted like. The Indian folks seated in the sections behind us may have thought the Indian food was poxy, but I found it delicious.

I had been going on very little sleep and had hoped to catch some on the seven hour flight to London. I actually drifted off for about a minute until some guy on the flight crew was hurrying down the aisle and ran into my knee. We hit turbulence over the Atlantic that were severe enough to knock open the overhead bin above us open. “My violin!” shouted Kathleen in a panic. “Your violin,” I muttered, “my life!” Between that, flirting with Kristin and my excitement about the trip, I never did get any sleep on the plane.

When we were over land again the sun had risen. It was still around 2 AM on my body clock. I was able to get up and look out some windows. Seeing bright green landscape the red tile roofs of the houses below let me know I was indeed in England.

Standing in line for customs at Heathrow, I strained my ears to hear an English accent but, I was still surrounded by people from the flight: New Yorkers and Punjabis. Being in England wasn't going to be real until I could hear someone talk. Someone say something!

The customs agent was curt and brief but he had an English accent God love him! That was plenty good enough though, music to my ears. I was really in England and my passport received it's first stamp!

Wednesday 4/18/84

After touching down, 100 weary musicians trudged through London's Heathrow Airport. Customs lines, baggage lines and waiting for everyone else to finish took forever. We finally loaded onto some buses (I was later to find out they call these coaches) The coaches were quite different than I expected; very luxurious. Our bus had TV with a VCR and a Blaupunkt stereo, sunroofs and a very nice interior. Kristin and Kathleen were on the other bus, not as nice as ours but still better than those smelling Greyhounds...

What I didn't mention about the English coaches was that they were built for midgets, there was so little leg room my knees were crammed against luxurious upholstery of the seat in front of me. In-fact I soon learned that everything in England was a slightly miniaturized version of what I was accustom to in the US: homes, doorways, dishwashers, cars and especially the roads they drive on.

Our coach would drive along highways that were smaller that the secondary streets with stone walls coming right to the edge of the pavement through the countryside and buildings and homes blurred by my face it seemed only inches away.

According to Google Earth, the main street (called appropriately “Main Street”) of my birthplace, Canandaigua, New York, even wide by US standards, is seventy feet from curb-to-curb and another sixty feet from the curb to the front porches of the homes on either side. The English highways were often merely two ten foot lanes with no shoulders in the country and only a small sidewalk separating the road form the fronts of the buildings in the towns and villages.

Wednesday 4/18 continued

...I rode deliriously to Stratford in awe of the lush countryside.

My delirium was a juxtaposed result of my lack of sleep, jet lag and my wided-eyed joy of being where I was: England! Despite my efforts to stay awake and enjoy the miracle that this was for real, I would often drift off to sleep, but because my face was glued to the window to take in every quaint, historic, and picturesque detail, the corner of my glasses would hit the window and I would be jolted awake. This kept repeating itself in an endless cycle until we reached our first destination.

...I was disappointed in Stratford. It was so touristy. I am fascinated with the cars. They look so different and no rust in sight. I have seen Ford and Chevrolet models that I have never heard of. So odd to see those emblems on cars that look so European. I walked around Stratford with Lisa (Bassoon), Pete (Trumpet), Joanne (violin), some others and my roommate for the trip, Dave (clarinet) whom I just met.

I made my first money exchange at a bank (I was carrying all my money in travelers cheques), then we went to a restaurant where we were practically ignored. We left and boycotted “Wimpy” for the rest of the trip. For lack of affordable options, we ended up at a McDonalds of all places.

By that evening we arrived in Shrewsbury (pronounced: shroze-bree) and met our host families at a car park (parking lot).

One of my favorite parts about our trip to England, and I felt this way even before we left, was that we would be staying with host families instead of in hotels. I was looking forward to experiencing England and Scotland with regular folks in their homes. I imagined that hotels would be, for the most part, like anywhere else and the folks who hand you your room key, extra towels and dinner plate were pretty universally generic themselves.

When we got off the buses, our tour manager, Mrs. Reifler, told us that, because of the last minute change in flights, the large instruments had been held up in customs. She hoped they would arrive by truck some time the next day.

The next day was our first rehearsal and concert. Though one might not miss the two harps frankly, the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra was going to sound pretty funny without any cellos, basses, trombones, french horns or a tuba.

Not counting the restless two hour 'nap' the night before I left home and the cumulative ten minutes of ten second naps I had had on the coach, I had now been awake, for around forty-five hours. I could have passed out face down in a ditch and not moved for ten hours. Dave (my roommate) and I waited with our luggage until our names were called. A middle-aged guy with a long brown overcoat stepped forward. I wondered what he was like.

I also wondered if he had any cute daughters.

Part III of Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven

DOUBLE
J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

This is a feature I am
going to try out and see how it goes.

This blog is essentially about my music career but there's not always enough to report on to make for an interesting read. however in keeping with this original intent I will post a brief update in this box every week.

This week after a number of delays I finally moved into my rehearsal space. One more excuse eliminated... that's good right? I only had time to write my blog tonight but I am going to rehearse tomorrow afternoon.

I got some drum tracks from a friend of mine recently (no explanation the tracks just showed up) which have proved inspirational, I am going to create some music to go with a couple of them and see what happens. It'll sort-of be a new direction I think.

I have been working crazy night hours at Tennis Channel during the French Open. Things are pretty quiet at night and I have been able to spend time working on a electronic modification of my Repeater looper (a device that allows me to play more than one part at a time on stage) to reduce some excess noise. It is a difficult and delicate procedure and I fear I may have killed one of the inputs... not a real big deal since I only use one. the night hours have been tough getting used to and I missed calling my nephew on his birthday today. Things are just topsy turvey in general. I don't mind the shift itself though. It's kinda cool and you can't beat the fact that there's not much traffic at 1AM. If only that were true in the morning when I go home dog tired.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven

2011-05-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

My sister, or “seestor” as we often say in our bad Mexican accents) told me recently she learned new things about me on a regular basis by reading my blog. Well here's something very few people know about me. My 'seestor' may have forgotten about as well: I went to high school for 5 years.

I graduated as a senior after four years with the same class of people had been in class with since kindergarten, but because my GPA was on the low side and I had a hard time getting into the colleges I wanted to go to, my guidance councilor made the radical suggestion that I take classes for another year. After all, I had spent half a day for two years taking drafting at a local trade school. Even though I had a diploma I had really only had 3 years of actual high school.

I'm not sure exactly why I didn't think this was a horrible idea. I decided it would indeed be the best thing. For some reason I knew I was quite ready for college in more ways than academics. Maybe it was because of the scholarship.

That's right. I couldn't get into college but I had been offered an actual scholarship.

I had won an award for “Best Soloist” at a jazz competition and was offered a scholarship to play bass for the St. Bonaventure University Jazz Band the same night by it's director who happened to be one of the judges.

I told the tale of that evening in post on my old blog "Diesel Fumes". The post was called “The Revenge of Mr. Not So Cool”. I am planning to rewrite it for the new blog post very soon, but here's a link to the old one if you just can't wait: http://www.myspace.com/joeltjohnson/blog/236605472

When I went to St. Bonaventure to play with the band visit the school, actually spending the night in the dorms, I could escape the feeling that I would be out-of place at SBU.

So back to high school I went. For one more year. It was actually a very good experience. I wasn't under the pressure I had been my senior year. I had a pretty easy schedule and I was taking more of the classes I wanted to take since I had already graduated. It was much easier socially too. I don't remember anyone giving me a hard time for being their an extra year. I was involved with the band as an instructor which I loved.

Shelly was the best trumpet player in school, she had been since she was a junior. She not only played in the high school wind ensemble, orchestra, jazz band, marching band, and field band, she also played in the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the student arm of the Rochester Philharmonic; a pretty well-rated orchestra for a city the size of Rochester.

“What? I didn't know there was such a thing,” I told Shelly when she suggested that I join the youth orchestra. I was a bit of an underachiever in the area of music academics as I was in other academics. Still, I was a pretty damn good bass player, though I had a hard time admitting it at the time. I was so good at being able to play by ear that it had become a crutch and I never learned to read music very well. I could get by with the simple parts I had been given in the high school orchestra and the improvisation skills required in jazz band. I doubted I would be able to pass an audition that would certainly include some sight reading.

When I told my concerns to Shelley she said. “Don't worry about it, they really need bass players. You can handle it, believe me.”

I was still a little nervous when I drove with Shelly up to Rochester to rehearse with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. I entered the room where there were a hundred kids I didn't know. Nearly thirty violinists, eight violists, eleven cellists, about twenty brass and wind players, a handful of percussionists and not one, but two girls on harp. There were four other bassists. In nearly every ensemble I had ever played in, I had been the only bass player.

Shelly told the director who I was and I simply started rehearsing with them.

Home free!

Not quite.

When the director called for a break in the middle of the two hour rehearsal, before I could head off to find a candy machine the director said. “Mr. Johnson could you stay during the break, I'd like to talk with you.”

A little informal interview perhaps, no problem!

Howard Weiss was the concert master of the Rochester Philharmonic. It would have been great if I didn't know that then, but I did happen to know he was a professional orchestra's first chair violinist. He looked remarkably like James Lipton of "Inside the Actor's Studio"

James Lipton looks a bit like our director, Howard Weiss
-except for the smile

He sat in a chair before me and clasped his hands austerely. I stood before him holding up my string bass, a posture a kin to being caught red handed trying to make off with a stolen chest of drawers on foot.

“Well Mr. Johnson, what have you prepared for me?”

Prepared? Oh crap. “Um, they just told me to show up so...”

“He gathered himself as if heading off a physical tick that occurred when something really annoyed him.

"Ah, I see. Why don't we hear some of the Beethoven.”

The piece we had started working on in rehearsal so far was Beethoven's Lenore Overture #3. Mr. Weiss had me start at a section that had a two octave run of thirty-second notes. Translation: a really fast scale.

What I know now that I didn't know then was that when a composer writes a thirty second note run for string basses it's really an effect they're going for not actually to hear the bass section perfectly articulate each note perfectly. One plays the first note solidly, the last note solidly and audibly bows furiously while the fingers approximate all the notes in between.

An effect sounding something like, if I may: “RRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRUMMMPH!”

I played for him some other things until the other players began filtering back into the room. Nothing he asked me to play was quite as challenging as the “Rrrumph!” Either I had done that very thing, hitting the first and last notes correctly with a flurry of activity in the middle, or he was truly in great need of bass players as Shelly had said. I passed the audition!

Every Sunday Shelly and I would car pool to rehearsal. One particular day not long into the season they made an announcement that may have been the best news I had received in years.

“We will be going on tour in England and Scotland.”

There was a collective gasp in the room and some squeals of excitement, but no one could have been more excited than I. The tour wasn't for another five months but I could go on that for a long time. If I had had any doubts about attending an additional year of high school this blew them away. I constantly dreamed of traveling, one of the many reasons I wanted to be a musician. I had always dreamed of going to England in particular. I had always been quite an anglophile--which is illegal in several southern states.

Now I had my chance!

Next: Part II of Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven

Aliens Ate My Blog

2011-05-15T16:23:00.000-07:00

Last week's blog is gone. "Poof" disappeared. It may return as I have learned Blogger.com (blogspot.com) had file corruption problems earlier this week and they are "working to restore all blogs and comments" I have a copy of the blog in Open Office but many of my corrections and the addition of photos exist only in the final posting so I'm going to hope that they can restore it before I go to a lot of effort.

With that in mind I'm going to make a simple post this week less it also evaporate into the ether.

At least that's the excuse I'm giving (and sticking to).

Honestly, I have been struggling with coming up with blogs that I think are interesting. I have two posts I have started and put aside because... I don't know they just weren't doing it for me.

So lets just start with a progress report and see where it goes.

I am all settle back in at home after my Canada trip. There are rumors, or "rumours" as the Canadians and Fleetwood Mac spell it, that they may tape some more shows in the the not too distant future but we'll take it as it comes.

With Jeopardy on hiatus until July and Tennis Channel still a part-time gig, time is one thing I have a good amount of. Lets see if i can make some good use of it.

I have been writing some new song ideas using my looper. There's an idea for a blog: a video demonstration of my using a looper. For now enjoy this video of my friend Jim Schreck making great use of a looper. His looper and it controls are on the floor so you can't actually see him using it but it's not hard to tell what's going on.

I mentioned that I had found a place to rehearse on a regular basis. My friend Lou Castro, a true professional bassist, has a rehearsal space I am moving into where he rehearses with his band "Oui' 3" in the Cahuenga pass (North Hollywood). It's going to be a significant expense but it's really important that I have a place where I can rehearse. The apartment with a persnickety downstairs neighbor is not cutting it to practice and record and though I have the unlimited use of my in-laws' pool house, I can't drive 75 miles every time I want to practice or lay down a loud track. This something I should have done years ago.

You can hear some samples Lou's jazz rock band Oui' 3 here.

I have been using electronic media less and--hold on to your socks--READING instead. My presence on Facebook is going to be diminished in the coming weeks. My wife has a liver cleanse planned for the near future so I may not be good electronic company anyway, always whining about how I am missing my precious cereal.

The blog posts will be a bit shorter too.

Like this one.

Slinging Bed Pans and Saving Lives, Part III

2011-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

So this guys dies and goes to heaven where it's explained to him that everyone is equal. While in line at heaven's cafeteria a guy in green scrubs and a green skull cap cuts right in front of him in line. “Hey, I thought everyone here was treated equal?” he says to the guy behind him. “Don't worry about it, that's just God,” the man replies, “sometimes he thinks he's a surgeon."

In our society we think of doctors as special, our modern-day shamans. They possess power not just in the skill of their hands and minds but even the legal ability to treat our ills and save our lives. Not till you work with them every day can you really see that they are regular folks as well (even if they have to be reminded once in a while).

I really don't mind uplifting those who cure and heal us a little bit. I just wish people like nurses and teachers got more reverence for the magic they do.

It didn't take too long working in the ICU for the mythology and romanticism of the MD to loose it's luster. Most of the docs I worked with were residents. They were young doctors who by the hour, were making even less money than I was. Obviously their salaries would climb considerably once in practice, but most of them had borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars for med school and then they would have to be paying that back while they borrow once again to set of their practice and pay staggering amounts for insurance.

Attending physicians and surgeons were established and making good money but I was certain I saw more of them than their families ever did. They were always working, always stressed.

Then there was the incident: “Code blue, code blue,” the overhead speakers blared, “Parking garage, level two. Code blue, parking garage, level two.”

There must be stranger sites than a bunch of nurses running... and I do mean running, around a parking garage, pushing a top-heavy crash cart and trying to find someone in medical distress but I'm not sure because I had to stay in the ICU. Finally they found him, unconscious in his running car with a hose run from the tailpipe into the back window. They said he was a doctor.

After he had recovered a bit I went into his room to get his vital signs. I was flabbergasted! I knew the guy, not from Highland or from Rochester General. He was one of the radiologists that rotated on Saturdays at Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua, my first X-ray job.

It really hit me hard. He was a really nice guy, a good looking guy in his late thirties. He had a family with young kids. I had always enjoyed working with him but, obviously there were things I didn't know. I tried to treat him with kindness and kept and air of normalcy. I feltbadly for him wondering what in his life had made him want to end it. I was also embarrassed for him; to have something like this happen and be cared for in one of the places you work must have been a difficult pill to swallow... then again, he did choose to make his attempt in our parking garage when he could have done it anywhere. I never saw him again after that.

Though there is an urban legend via “Seinfeld” that dentist's have the highest occupational suicide rate, it's actually physicians. Factually, foodbatchers have them slightly edged out, but who the heck even knows what a foodbatcher is? Oh maybe that's the reason they're hurling themselves into industrial mixers at such a rate.

Though I still would work with an residents that I found interesting and attractive. I no longer had any illusions about doctors in particular. In fact, to me the MD was a count against them. Of course it was after I reached this conclusion that a resident expressed an interest in me.

It was nurses though who I worked with most closely. There is a stereotype of the ICU nurse made famous by Kathy Bates in “Misery” but nothing could be further from the truth. Well, okay there were one or two... Every one of them were intelligent, dedicated professionals and most were a great pleasure to work with.

"You should have bought a squirrel"

Our business was literally serious as a heart attack but we had our fun too of course.

The chief resident, Conrad, was on his last night of being 'on-call' and we decided to give him a going away present during a quiet period in the evening. I dressed up as a patient and got in an empty bed. We attached a heart monitor to my chest and taped fake IVs to my arms. Conrad was in the on-call room where he had fallen asleep studying. One nurse ran in to get him as everyone else stood at the ready a few yards from 'my' room. When Conrad ran out, dazed and in his stocking feet, everyone went into action—except me; I just lied there. Not only did we respond codes on a somewhat regular basis but they practice codes we ran every week. I could only hear the goings on with my eyes closed. The crash cart was wheeled in the room, drawers opened, IV bags ripped. There was a flurry of activity all around around me. The respitory therapist who was in on the joke pretended to breath for me with an ambu bag which was pretty handy in covering my familiar face from Conrad. The nurses kept giving Conrad a made-up medical history for me. I was a coke over-dose which was odd because they also told him I was a surgical patient (hence a patient he had not worked-up). One nurse alongside me wiggled a finger on one of my heart leads so in the monitor it would either look like v-tach or at least have so much artifact that my normal healthy heart rhythm could not be seen. It was an unexpected eye-opener for me. Being at the center of a code, even a fake one, was actually kind of scary.

Conrad was still trying to put together this unlikely medical emergency in his sleepy state and make sense of the BS everyone was feeding him. Right around that time I thought it would be a fine idea to have a seizure which stirred the activity in the room like smoking a bee hive. Not long after that Conrad thought to take a manual pulse on my wrist. “Wait a minute”, he said in his Pakistani accent, “this patient is not in V-tach, he has a pulse.”

The gig was up. I sat bolt upright and said “I'm feeling much better now.”

Conrad rolled his eyes and walked wordlessly from the room went back into the on-call room and closed the door. Everyone else laughed hysterically.

As ever, I was a musician first. My career path in healthcare was by accident, a mere survival tool. I had been there for several years and was never even tempted to make it some sort of career. Anita, the department manager who had hired me, had left for another job. Her replacement, who looked like Santa Claus and has since tainted that image for me, had a very different philosophy than Anita regarding the technicians. This, along with some other factors turned a job that was marginally tolerable into moderately miserable.

Testing pee, dumping bedpans and suctioning trach tubes had never been my favorite thing to do but now those things really began to grade on me. I had always had a pleasant bedside manner and enjoyed my coworkers but my overall attitude was slipping fast. I was finding more and more that I just didn't care, and in an ICU, that ain't good!

I became so frustrated with my job and those in charge of it that one day when I returned home, before I entered the house I took off my stethoscope and threw it as far as I could. Later that night I jumped over the fence in my back yard, retrieved the thing from my neighbor's yard and gave it a good cleaning.

A good friend of mine that I'd met in drafting class in high school had actually become a drafter and knew of my unhappiness where I was working. He told me there was an opening for a drafter where he worked. There was the obvious problem of my never having worked a day as a drafter and that I had never drafted on a computer (our school got AutoCAD computers the year after I left). Throwing myself into something unreasonable was something I was getting good at. My friend helped me get set up with a cheap 386 computer and a 'copy' of AutoCAD. I went to his house to get a crash course then I was on my own. I spent every waking hour learning AutoCAD and creating drawings that would become my portfolio. I had two weeks from the time I got my computer until my interview. To say I was motivated would have been an understatement.

I interviewed with a very nice guy named Dan who would be another person that took a chance on me as a largely unknown quantity.

Thanks Dan!

Working as a drafter was such a pleasure after being in the ICU for seven years and being in X-ray seven years before that. Sitting at a desk all day, all by itself made me feel as though I was being fed grapes and fanned with palm fronds. I also took great satisfaction in creating the drawings even though those drawings were largely of cable harnesses and electronic assemblies.

I was even being paid more.

My time in healthcare had come to a close. Though I think I did it for several years longer than I should have, I have no regrets. I think there are reason's that things happen as they do. I met many wonderful people, several of whom I am still in contact with.

Me working in the Highland ICU

Even more than that, I experienced things that have prepared me for life at large and for situations I will likely face in the future. I have stored away many stories and human experiences that I can engage as a writer and a songwriter.

I already have such a song from a patient's point of view. I have never been a patient in an ICU or for more than a couple of days. I never would have been able to write this song without seeing the things I've seen. Here it is as a rough demo of the song: Dronmonium
The link will open in a separate tab. Return to this tab if you want to read the lyrics and tech notes below.

Dronmonium

©2005 Joel T Johnson

There's a bloodstain on the ceiling
I stare at it all day
The IVs drip into this empty feeling
I wish life away

This life's for living
This blue sky, for breathing in
I won't forget you
With all my might

Through the haze of the meds and the pain
everything feels like mud and rain
I can't tell where does this bed begin
and where do I end

I feel your hand close round mine

This love's for giving
This blue sky, for breathing in
I won't forget you
with all my might

Fishing poles, snow, cardboard boxes, The Alamo
Driving home at three AM
Wind that bends the trees
Your hair in the morning
Sun so bright it makes me sneeze
Fire trucks, socks, cereal

It's time to go now
Gray sky parts to let me in

I won't forget you
I won't forget you
forget you...

Tech Notes:
While working on a film score the director also was considering having me do some sound design as well so I experimented with recording some bird sounds off my balcony. I didn't end up doing the sound design portion of the film and forgot about my experiment and recorded "Drononium" on the same tape but thankfully not over the track the bird sounds were on. When I first mixed the tune I heard the birds and wondered where the heck they were coming from. Eventually I remembered the experiment. I like the effect so much I simply left the birds in.

The bass--as in many of my song--is the main musical force. Not sounding like a bass--as in many of my songs-- the bass uses harmonics and a thickly mixed delay for a clock-like chime sound as well as ringing fretted notes for a drone quality--hence the name of the song. The bass guitar is recorded on one track. There are no overdubbs, no other bass tracks.

The actual low-end bass is handled by a Korg MP-1 Analog synth.

There is guitar in this recording but, you guessed it, it doesn't sound very much like a guitar. it was recorded by Dan Penn, who, if you listen carefully, speaks during the intro to tell me he can only hear music in one side of his headphones. Dan uses a guitar 'playing' technique he coined "Squee", where he uses multiple effect pedals (relying heavily on multiple analog delays) to create and shape a continuous stream of sound and noise from the guitar, often without having continue playing the guitar after the initial wave of sound is created.

This technique creates an otherworldly atmosphere throughout the song and becomes especially interesting at the very end. We recorded several takes at Dan's request. Just before I hit the stop button at the end of the last take he unplugged the guitar which created a brief but loud buzz. With all the effects and delays that single buzz became a rhythm of several buzzes as the various delays returned the sound at different intervals. The icing on the cake was that when I played back the tape the buzz rhythm was interrupted at the point that I stopped the tape but instead of it giving way to silence the tail end of the previous take was heard because I had stopped the tape further along for that take. At the moment where the last take gave way to the previous take there was, just by chance, there was a wonderful bell-like tone Dan had created. The chance edit made the two things sound like one magical sound effect that sounds like nothing I've ever heard that drifts off into the distance just like the character in the song.

I later created a whole 'mix' based on that one sound.

Slinging Bed Pans and Saving Lives, Part II

2011-04-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

I was young, hormones were coursing through my veins. Of course I had some romantic interest in some nurses, residents and medical students here and there, who wouldn't? I confess, the financial prospect of ending up with a doctor had not escaped the outer reaches of my imagination. “Hey Doc, how'd you like to be a patron of the arts?” was the joke I told my coworkers whenever I saw an attractive girl in scrubs and a lab coat. I went on a date with a med student, but unlike her med school curriculum, there was not a lot of chemistry.

I knew at my most charming, the chasm between their professional world and the jerk pushing a wheel chair was a big one. Looking back, I thank my lucky stars I never actually got involved with a doctor.

I had a secret admirer who turned out to be the daughter of a patient—and not particularly attractive. Her interest in me ended abruptly when she discovered that I wasn't a doctor.

At least I looked like a doctor apparently.

Maybe it was time to stop being that guy pushing the wheelchair. As a music major college drop-out with no intention of giving up music and seven years of hospital work under my belt, to stay with it—love or hate—was the best option until something solid churned up in music.

I kept my eye out for full-time hospital jobs in Rochester; anything that didn't involve a mop or require certification. With ambitions of attending The Berklee School of Music, I took a trip to Boston and submitted my resume at nearly all of the twenty-hundred-bazillion hospitals in Beantown to no evail. I even briefly considered gong to nursing school but determined I didn't want to invest in something I had no passion for.

One day I got a call from a woman named Anita O'Halla. She wanted me to come in and interview for a position as an ICU technician at Highland Hospital.

A technician? In an intensive care unit? Whoa! It was exactly the type of opportunity I had hoped for... But, whoa!

During the interview she told me plainly that all the other people she was considering had a lot more experience with patient care. No surprise there; EMTs, ER technicians and nursing assistants were among my fellow applicants. Even though I had been working in hospitals for the last seven years I had never made a bed with hospital corners or taken a blood pressure. This was an experimental type of position at Highland and there would be a lot of on-the-job training.

It seemed a long shot and a lot to hope for. Highland was a nice small hospital and only six blocks from where I lived. Not only would it be a full time job with respectably more money, but there would be benefits, actual health insurance!

To my great surprise Anita called a few days later and offered me the job!

The irony is that if I thought I really had a good chance at the job I might have been more nervous and blown the interview. Anita described the job in detail and said how intense (no pun intended) it could be at times. She asked me pointedly if I thought I could handle it.

“Yeah, no problem.”

I was so under-qualified for this job, it seemed pointless to stress about it? Don't get me wrong, I was pretty sure I could do the job if given the opportunity. I have a talent for throwing myself into new things quickly and I probably said something to that effect. I looked confident and Anita figured I was worth taking a chance on.

There is a short list of people who have taken a chance on me like Anita O'Halla did. Even though health care was not a passion of mine, I worked with some amazing people and gained human experience that made me a better person.

Thank you Anita, wherever you are!

I learned a lot about human physiology and the practical side of critical patient care. I learned how to perform EKGs, and six different ways to measure and test urine. I learned how to read and measure normal and abnormal heart rhythms. Then there was the scary stuff like performing, CPR, drawing blood from veins and arterial lines, inflating balloons on the ends of Swan Ganz catheters in the pulmonary artery and taking readings from a cardiac output computer, assisting with sterile procedures and—the one that makes everyone cringe when I tell them about it—inserting urinary catheters.

Then there was the gross stuff... I won't trouble you!

On the job most of what I did was routine: getting and charting vital signs, washing patients who couldn't do it on their own and making beds, often with the patients still in them.

“Codes” or “code blue” means, well heck, everyone's seen “ER”. When a code was called, my chief responsibility was to 'get stuff' and get it fast. I also ran (literally) samples to the lab and assisted in whatever way I could.

One of the residents or med students would usually perform chest compressions at the beginning of a code, which, when done correctly, are pretty tiring. When those folks got winded one by one, a succession of a nurses would take over and then, eventually, me.

I can remember once doing chest compressions on a patient right after my shift started. I timed my rhythm to a song I had heard on the radio that morning. Unfortunately, the codes that went on long enough for me to be called into service at the center of things were usually, by that time, a lost cause. The patient pronounced dead while I was kneeling next to them on the bed and pumping their chest.

I sometimes felt more like I was an harbinger of death than a saver of lives. I remember giving one of them a shave a couple days after the fact. I was part of the team and contributed to saving a lot of lives. I just hoped that one day the CPR I performed would actually do someone some good. Eventually there were two people saved after I did CPR.

TMI Alert Skip ahead if you're easily grossed-out.

The chest compressions shown on TV in the movies are not often like the real thing. When done correctly, the sternum is pressed down hard enough that it 'squishes' the heart so it pumps blood. It's pretty brutal really. When a patient has been receiving chest compressions for that long, some ribs are often already broken. When the duty came around to me, I could feel the bones already grinding beneath my hands.

Even though most codes were successful in resuscitating the patient, I only did chest compressions on codes that went on for a long time, so very few of the those people survived. They usually “called it” a few minutes after I had jumped up on the bed.

I also had the opportunity to perform a defibrillation... well actually a cardioversion. That's the thing with the paddles... you know...

-eeeeeeeeee- “CLEAR!” -eeeee-

SSCHOCKKK!

It's like defibrillation except it's not an emergency. Officially, a doctor is supposed to perform this and there was one standing right behind me sure enough. He asked me if I wanted to do it and I did.

Cardioversion patients are placed in a non anesthetic sleep-state using a drug called Versed. Often the patient, upon being shocked, would sit bolt upright and say out loud “OWWW!!!” then fall back asleep as if nothing had happened. They would have no memory of the event. Another feature of 'vitamin-V' as I called it: zero recall.

After I had been on the job a couple months as was leaving to go home one day I ran into the daughter of a man that had been in the ICU a couple of days before. ICU stays are usually pretty short before the patient is transferred to a regular floor. I wheeled his man up to his new room myself. I had developer a rapport with both he and his family so when I saw the woman my face lit up and I asked her. “How's Charlie doing?”

“Dad passed away earlier today,” she said.

It was as if I had been hit with a two-by-four. I had lost my first patient. It wouldn't be the last. It was an ICU, I saw dozens of people pass. Violently in the throngs of a do-whatever-you-can, all-hands-on-deck heroic measures code, or slowly and peacefully with “do not resuscitate orders” signed and a family gathered around. Peaceful deaths are nothing like on TV and the movies by-the-way. The heart lumps out an occasional labored beat every few seconds. This could go on for an hour or more.

I soon developed a protective shell regarding death. No other patient death effected me personally the way that first one did.

Except for one.

It was the late eighties/early nineties and people in the end stages of H.I.V. were not uncommon. One such patient had passed peacefully. He couldn't have been more than thirty. There was no family, just the man's same-sex partner, a soft spoken young man who asked us if he could help us wrap the body.

This was unheard of. No one had ever even asked us that. Perhaps it was the boldness of the question or the sincerity in his eyes but the nurse I was working with agreed to allow him to assist as we cleaned, shrouded and tagged his dead partner.

I had not been exposed to openly gay people very much at that point in my life. Even though I thought of myself as progressive and non-judgmental, I was not even aware of my prejudices until I felt them melting away. I must have felt that being gay meant that one felt love differently, it was not real love, not a love that I could understand or relate to.

The young man calmly, almost serenely, cared for his partner's body while wiping away silent tears. I could not yet imagine loving someone that much and yet this gay man knew worlds more about loving someone than I did. Hearing him whisper his final goodbye as we covered the passed man's face with the shroud, something inside me changed. I saw things differently from that day on.

That doesn't mean I was suddenly comfortable with same-sex affection. I had a ways to go.

I don't enjoy asparagus very much either, but some people love the stuff.

Part III next week.

Slinging Bed Pans and Saving Lives, Part I

2011-04-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

It was my first time solo. She was very beautiful, which was no help, I was already nervous. She was also deaf which was even worse, for my efforts were not met with silence but with a plaintive animal-like wail unrestricted by any self-consciousness. She may not have even been aware that people in other rooms could hear her .

I gave up and released the knotted band around her arm. There was no way I was getting any blood from her veins. I put down my needle and test tube and got a nurse to take over.

I never aspired to work in the medical field. I have been told I have a talent for patient care but to be honest, I didn't care for it. I was a musician and I needed keep myself in bass strings, that was all there was to it.

What do you call a bass player without a girlfriend?

Homeless.

I had no girlfriend so I needed to come up with rent too.

It all started out innocently enough; I was standing by my locker in high school and said “I have to find a job,” to no one in particular.

“I've got a job for you,” said Dave Clark.

Dave, who I barely knew, was about to change jobs and his old one as a X-ray transporter at F.F. Thompson Hospital. After school we went to meet his boss, Don, who was a gruff sort who, as I remembered later, had been the one who X-rayed my foot after a childhood bike accident.

F.F. Thompson Hospital

Before I knew it I was working Saturdays wheeling patients to and from X-ray, taking sheets of film from X-ray cassettes and feeding them into the developer. On my second day on the job I opened the door to the darkroom after forgetting to close the film drawer. I'll never forget having to tell Don I ruined twelve hundred dollars of film. Somehow I lived to tell about it but never came close to doing in again.

I used to religiously watch the show “Emergency”, a TV series about Paramedic firemen which included the goings-on at a hospital. A few of the kids on my school bus were also big fans also and we would 'play' Emergency on the bus -with each kid getting off at a different 'fire' along the way. I was one of the last kids off the bus but in my head I was still 'playing'. Because we lived in a remote corner of the township our bus was a small one, not even a dozen kids. Each kid on the bus played a different character on the show. I was Captain Stanley, Matt Colf was Roy , Beth Repard was Johnny and Dave Carson, whose favorite show was really “Scooby Doo” himself chose to be “Boots” the fire house dog.

One day I was wheeling a patient on a stretcher over to X-ray from the ER wearing my white lab coat. I passed my friend Beth in the hall who had become an EMT and was dressed in her blue uniform. I thought back to playing Emergency on the bus.

Whoa, head-trip!

Eventually, Sundays were added to my schedule. Sundays were nice because there were no scheduled exams and generally less to do... other than the Sunday ER regulars: There was always hand X-rays for the morons that punch a wall after some girl left the party with someone else. Now that they were sober the next morning, that sucker was really starting to hurt. There was usually some skier who would hit a tree or something else at Bristol Mountain during the winter. Summer had it's share of mishaps too with the lake shore population doubling and running into each other apparently. There were of course car accidents year round but always more when it was snowing. My favorite was the abdominal exams late on sunday afternoon for the folks that could see Monday on the horizon and weren't about to take it lying down... meaning that they had every intention of taking it lying down... all day; so they needed a doctors excuse.

Sundays were no picnic though. The work-load was lighter but then there was Liz to deal with.

Liz was an X-ray technician that worked from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning. That's right: forty hours straight, one marathon shift. She would make up a stretcher and sleep when she could, but there were unlucky weekends when she barely had a moment to close her eyes the whole time, “Crazy busy” she called it. Anyone that would agree to such a work schedule, it shouldn't be a big surprise to learn they are a bit um... 'touched'.

Liz was unique, to put it politely. Working with her was a trip and there wasn't much peace in it. To say Liz was a talker is like saying that Rush Limbaugh leans a tad to the right or that a competing in a triathlon is getting some exercise. From the moment I walked in Sunday morning till I left in the afternoon she never stopped talking. There was at least one occasion at the end of the day that I backed away slowly trying to interrupt her endless stream of trivial commentary to take my leave. “Okay, gotta go Liz... that's nice Liz but I... okay, yeah I'm really leaving now... yeah uh huh... bye... yeah... okay...” As I walked down the hall I could still hear her talking to me in the empty X-ray lounge area. I had to wonder how long she kept going. It could have been hours for all I know.

If Liz is in a forest and there's no one to hear her, does she ever stop talking?

During her forty hour shift, I was the only other person to work with her directly. I can understand her being keen on having an eight hour chat in the middle to get it all in, but there was that other problem...

Whatever chemical most people have in their brains that prevent every single thought from becoming public speech, Liz didn't have it. She didn't just talk constantly, she talked about anything and everything. She talked about... certain... things, girl things, things no man should hear, in detail, every month; a sort-of vaginal Tourette's syndrome.

*shutter*

Liz's quirks went beyond conversation. Someone told me when she moved to town, she met the “Welcome Wagon” lady at the door wearing only a smile. Liz actually once said to me while discussing her days as a young mob groupie: “You know, I don't see what's so wrong about organized crime.” Her husband was a horse trainer and she spent her five day 'week-end' working with him and the horses. It was apparent that she spent more time with horses than patients; on a few occasions when trying to raise some old guy's leg in the air to take a hip x-ray she would click her tongue the way one would when getting a horse to raise a hoof.

To write Liz off as simple minded was a mistake though. She came off as flighty to say the least, but she was actually quite intelligent and could 'zap' you when you were least expecting it. I came to respect her for that and I actually did like her. She was just a bit of a challenge to be around.

I worked at Thompson Hospital through the remainder of High school and college then I moved to Rochester and started working at Rochester General Hospital. I had the same job and did the same thing only on a factory scale with a team of other transporters (at least two of whom are doctors now).

Rochester General Hospital
Far bigger than this picture shows.

My entrance physical exam was given by a female med student. She was an attractive girl who wasn't much old than I was. She was extremely nervous during the exam, especially when she had me cough. I thought it odd for a doctor, whatever the sex, to be nervous about 'lil ole me. Perhaps that was her first time like mine with the deaf girl a couple years later, but at least I wasn't yelling about it.

The Radiology department was headed by a doctor who had a unique personality. He had a thing for zebra's and probability which had something to do with their stripes, but inever quite understood it. He referred to the X-ray department as “ARRG...ZAP” or Associated Radiology at Rochester General Hospital -Zebras and Probability. We even had pens and T-shirts with the logo.

Told ya!

The radiology department, like the hospital, was huge. There were around twenty exam rooms set up in a rectangle with typical tiled and barren hospital corridors around the outside of the rectangle and carpeted smaller hallways within. The inner carpeted portion of the department—the part the patients never see—was decorated with the eccentric creations of the head radiologist. There were many posters of Zebras and two actually zebra skins hanging on the walls. There were a number of humorous photos framed in old x-ray film cassettes, a “Deliveries In Rear” sign on the entrance to the barium enema room, many mobiles and wind chimes made from artificial hips, orthopedic plates and artificial heart valves.

We transporters had our fun. We figured out how to make a nifty blow gun by rolling up and taping an 11 X 17 'chest' film into a tight tube and inserting an 18 gauge needle through a cone of paper of just the right size. We could even get the projectiles going fast enough to stick the needles into the walls. It was all fun and games till one of our own got one in the leg as he walked past our target range.

The patient waiting area had one of those large photo mural wallpapers popular in the eighties. It showed an autumn woodlands with a stream winding gently through the middle. We used to cut pictures from magazines and place them discretely in the picture. We had a guy fly fishing in the stream, birds in the trees, animals in the woods and super models looking out from behind trees. The department administrator hated this and would search for and remove our contributions after every weekend. This made it a game to camouflage our collage well enough for him to miss. One day I saw him eye ball the mural from an angle at one end to try and see the tell-tale Scotch tape against the surface of the paper. There was a small orange bird we placed amongst the fall foliage that was so well hidden it was still there when I left.

Elevator surfing was another sport we enjoyed, but not perhaps quite as daring as it sounds. When riding from floor to floor we hopped up on the rails and stood in the corner with one foot on the back edge and one on the side. The trick was to be able get down quickly if the elevator stopped at a floor to let on a doctor or nurse. Another part of the game was to hit the emergency stop button while someone else was mid-surf. For the rest of the day solid floors felt like they were moving up and down.

Still it was a hospital and a big one. We saw plenty of nasty and interesting stuff. Yes, I have my share of 'stuff up the butt' stories--I'll spare you the details. I even saw open heart surgery when they called for a portable X-ray because their sponge count was off. The man's rib cage was agape and there was the heart in the middle of the red canyon plain as day and still as a rock while the heart lung machine did it's job.

It was at RGH when I first witnessed death but still not up close and personal. I saw plenty of patients I had brought over from emergency and perhaps even talked to, covered with a sheet later on in the ER.

Still, this was just a job and not even full-time. I was still doing gigs as a bass player and a sound mixer. I was mowing laws and working with retarded adults to keep one or two meals ahead. My X-ray job either started very early on weekend mornings or was the night shift altogether, which didn't always gel with music gigs. There were several times that I went straight to work after a gig and crashed on the ultrasound stretcher for a couple hours instead of going home. It seemed that every time I did though someone needed an emergency ultrasound. I kept the outside door locked. I would wake up when I heard someone trying to open it and be gone by the time they came around to the inside door to open the outer one. Then I'd attempt to get some sleep on the rock-hard tomography table next door.

I hadn't saved any lives yet but I hadn't touched a bed pan either.

Both were about to change.

Fifty Favorite Movies

2011-04-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

When someone goes to your house and starts pawing through your collection of movies does that make you nervous? Do you start preparing a series of excuses as they begin to comment on you taste. “That was a gift, that one is my wife's/kids. That one came with the house.”

“How the heck did something like that get in there!”

I am opening up my whole DVD cabinet for your inspection and sectioning off some categories of my favorites into top fives among just the movie I actually own. I'm no film critic, as you will see, but I will try to express what it is I like about these 50 favs of mine.

My Top Five Music Movies

I'm a musician, I should have a ton of music movies but frankly I find a lot of them pretty boring. Of those I own here are the five that stand out for me:

1. Sting, Bring on the Night -1985

A Steadicam moves down a long drive up some steps and into a huge French mansion while a band jams the intro chords of a upbeat tune. The shot moves through opulent rooms. Unlikely snakes of cables and road cases can be seen amongst baroque décor. Soon mixing consoles and roadies can be seen sitting about and the camera enters a grand high-ceiling room with. Sting and a band of all-American all-black jazz musicians are playing the music we've been hearing. Then the drummer kicks in full. I was hooked from that moment on. Even of you're not a Sting fan this is a cool movie that manages not to lionize it's star and even makes him look a little silly at times. The Branford Marsalis interviews alone are worth it.

2. Rush, Beyond the Lighted Stage -2010

If you're not a Rush fan, this is a well-done documentary that pulls you into the characters. If you are a Rush fan this is freakin' AWESOME!

3. Joe Bonamassa at Royal Albert Hall -2009

Joe was a child prodigy blue guitarist from Central New York State that I remember hearing about when I lived back East. Unlike most 'prods', instead of collapsing under the weight of expectations and falling into drugs and ego, Joe grew up well and put out some great, well-written, well-produced albums that just rock! Even without the 'local boy makes good' factor and the Eric Clapton walk-on, Joe is an amazing guitarist and great showman on the stage of the grand round hall without forgetting chubby kid he used to be, or the guitar geek he still is.

4. The Commitments -1991

To get all the jokes make sure you have the captions on for this great Alan Parker film about out-of-work Irish kids playing if a soul band. No it's not a doc, but accurately captures the essence of being in a band better than any documentary I've seen. It's also really funny.

5. Once -2006

Another Irish music film that feels more real than any doc. Like the commitments, the actors are real musicians but unlike the Commitments these musicians are always playing on camera and wrote their own wonderful songs. It's also a love story that has a nice innocent quality to it but never gets close to being sentimental or sappy.

My Top Five Travelogue Movies

I love to travel, so naturally I like my movies to hit the highway as well. A journey can really move a story and parallel the characters' inner journeys, plus a change of scenery is always nice.

6. Midnight Run -1988

A foul mouthed bounty hunter (Robert DeNiro) and a mild-mannered but annoying accountant/white collar criminal with a heart of gold (Charles Grodin), handcuffed together on a cross country journey with the police, the mob and everyone else on God's green earth hunting them. What's not to love?

7. A Sure Thing -1985

Another unlikely pair forced to endure each other cross country but with college sexual tension this time. One of them is cute (Daphne Zuniga), the other is a wise-cracking John Cusack. Done and done!

8. Planes Trains & Automobiles -1987

Like with all John Hughes movies, I'm beginning to see a pattern with my favs here as well; opposites forced together through some sort of journey. On this occasion the journey is literall as well as symbolic on the road... “They're on a crash course with whAAAAAkiness.” This is as funny and quotable as it is touching. If you're one of the six people who haven't seen this movie do yourself a favor and take yourself off the list.

9. Rain Man -1988

See this movie for the quotes and love it for everything else. Of all my road movies, this one makes me feel the most like I am traveling with these wonderful characters.

10. Coupe de Ville -1990

Three brother's who could not be more different or at odds with one another drive home in a convertible Coup De Ville to their father who has purchased it for his wife's birthday. This coast to coast tale is different from the others in two respects. 1. It's one of the only American travelogues I know of that go West to East. 2. You've never heard of it. Daniel Stern, the guy most known for getting repeatedly klonked in the “Home Alone” movies, shows not only a completely different side of his acting but that he really truly is an excellent actor. To be honest I broke the rules with this one. I don't actually own it yet but that's not for lack of trying; astonishingly it isn't available on DVD for some reason. It's such a gem of a movie I had to include it.

My Top Five Laugh Therapy Movies

The Blues Brothers -1980

I am trying not to repeat any movie in these different categories. Here's one that could have been in my top five in several. It's sort of a travelogue, it's definitely a music movie, great quotes, etc... the bottom line is that it always has the laugh endorphin meter in the red so here it resides.

11. LA Story -1991

I loved this movie before I moved to LA. After I'd lived here a few years it got 32.8% funnier.

12. A Christmas Story -1983

This movie makes me nostalgic for a time I wasn't even around for, but I don't need to tell you how funny it is because you've either seen it ten times or you were brought up in Gdansk.

13. Galaxy Quest -1999

A ridiculous movie about a ridiculous premise that I laugh ridiculously hard at. My fav in this movie: Tony Shaloub!

14. The Burbs -1989

One of my wife's favorites and consequently on of mine. I'm not doing her any favors though, this is a character rich environment. I love Bruce Dern as the over militarized Vietnam vet and Rick Ducommun as the over-enthusiastic, clueless neighbor with the unabashed Canadian accent who manages to take Tom Hanks from a rational guy trying to keep to himself, to a unstrung paranoid neighbor... but are you paranoid if they really are out to get you?

15. Harold & Maude -1971

Is it a love story... or a life story? You'll have to forgive me, I've been watching a snarky clip show being taped as I write this and everything suddenly seems to need a healthy dose snarkasm. But seriously, if you haven't seen this because it's an amazing story with great humor and quirky characters, see it to see the then-unknown Tom Skerrit as the frustrated motorcycle cop.

My Top Five Comfort Movies

These are the films I turn to when I come home from a lousy day.

16. Sabrina -1995

There's not an unloveable character anywhere in this movie but maybe it's the fairytale quality that makes it the cinematic equivalent of mac and cheese... You understand that's a good thing right?

17. Fools Rush In -1997

This is the funniest movie Matthew Perry has ever acted in. It's a great story too but there are plenty of laughs per minute that never feel forced or unnatural.

18. A League of Their Own -1992

When we first moved to Hollywood, we were holed up in a Motel 6 for the first couple weeks. That time was stressful and down-right scary. At the same time HBO was running “A League of Their Own” and we watched it at least four times. It's a great movie on it's 'own' but the comfort I associated with it escaping those rough times still make it a go-to film when I just need to escape for a while.

19. The Big Chill -1983

Ah, this one's no chic flick. Clearly, the concept of Glenn Close setting her husband up to impregnate her best friend is the brainchild of a man. It's more the atmosphere of the weekend visit of good friends that I find comforting somehow.

20. Gosford Park -2001

There are hundreds of English weekend-at-the-huge-mansion-who dunnits but this one is different in many respects. It's smarter and it's plot and characters more intricate. I think it's the fact that by the time we had seen it enough times to keep track of the characters and all the little nuances, we were hooked. That never would have happened if it wasn't an awesome movie to begin with though.

Five Top Movies I can't stop quoting (and a quote from each)

21. Juno -2007
Juno is shaking a developed pregnancy test strip. The convenient store clerk (Rainn wilson) responds: “that ain't no Etch-A-Sketch, this is one doodle that can't be undid homeskillet.”

22. Garden State -2004
“Don't pick on me for my hobbies, I don't pick on you for being an asshole.”

23. Blazing Saddles -1974
“Mongo only pawn... in game of life.”

24. Office Space -1999
“It seems you've been missing a lot of work lately.” “I wouldn't say I've been missing it Bob.”

25. Young Frankenstein -1974
“SEDAGIVE??!!!”

My Top Five 'By Accident' Movies

We all have movies in our collection that got there through means other than our deliberate efforts; some that we can't even explain how they got there. That doesn't mean we can't fall in love some of them.

26. Them -1954

During a visit to Cambridge, MA. to visit my aunt and my TV savvy cousins, they were watching “Them” a fifties horror lick about giant ants. Being a ten or eleven-year-old country bumpkin with only a hour of daily TV rations, I found the movie pretty intense and scary. Later when all the kids were bunked together in one room. One voice was heard in the darkness, it was mine: “I keep thinking about them stinkin' ants!” To this day I can't visit my cousins without getting ribbed about that. This past summer, my cousin DJ presented me with the DVD of “Them”. I watched it and was amazed by how tame it was compared to so many things I had seen in the past thirty-five years. I also came to realize, unlike many of the horror/monster movies of the fifties, “Them” was actually a pretty good movie.

27. A Hard Day's Night -1964

I also remember seeing “A Hard Day's Night” on TV as a kid. All I remember was a helicopter and four guys running around a field and falling down. I didn't fully understand who the Beatles were but it was obvious that they were having fun. Many years later I married a Beatle fan and it wasn't too long before I saw HDN again as an adult. Yep, they were still having fun and so did I watching them.

28. Rejected -2000

I also married a girl with interesting, quirky and artistic tastes. She also has a great sense of humor. Words cannot describe the over-the-edge hilarity of the Oscar nominated “Rejected” aptly so...

Here is a link to the entire nine minute film if that wasn't enough for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQqSVrkkag

29. Eraserhead -1977

I married a girl with with really, interesting, really, really quirky and really really really artistic tastes. David Lynch's Eraserhead is considered one of his masterpieces and if you thought Twin Peaks was inexplicably strange, that, my friends, was child's play.

30. Sneakers -1992

This is a video I borrowed from someone and... well you know years went by and by now trying to return it would be just... you know, awkward. In any case it's a bit of a sleeper. I'd never heard of it before. I shouldn't have to say any more than the cast of Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn (Hollywood's best kept secret), Dan Akroyd, and River Phoenix less than a year before his demise, but maybe it will help to hear that it's about a band of misfit security operatives (each with his own speciality) who suddenly find themselves in hot water and.... say it with the voice... you know THAT voice... "A world of intrigue and mystery!" Charmingly, funny... Great movie!

The Five Top Movies I Don't Want You to Know That I Love

Then there are those movies towards the back... no not that far back. The ones I love but I wouldn't want you to see them without my being able to explain a little bit. Here's my chance both to embarrass and redeem myself.

31. Flight of the Navigator -1986

My wife cued up this movie and I thought, “Well, it's a live-action Disney movie from the eighties that I've never heard of. Maybe it won't be terrible. It wasn't. The missing Oscar nod perhaps not, but it's charming and sincere with an intriguing story about a kid that falls down in the woods and comes home to discover that eight years have gone by and he has an ESP connection with an alien space ship that sound suspiciously like Pee Wee Herman. Okay, okay, still not convinced. How about a young Sarah Jessica Parker? Yeah I know, she got hotter with age, but still.

32. A Goofy Movie -1995

Another surprise. And it's a yet another travelogue! Seriously, the folks who did this movie sincerely cared about what they were doing and told a great story that happened to fit in the Goofy universe.

33. Twister -1996

I once made the mistake of telling a graduate film school student friend of mine that I like this movie. I think he's thought I'm some sort of low-brow yokel ever since. Twister is supposed to be this horrible movie and I can plainly see all the things wrong with it. There's only one problem: I love it! There just something about a bunch of misfits chasing down storms in there busted up cars and ad-hoc equipment but it more than that. The story always has me riding down the road with them. Sure, there are a few moments I cringe at but they're well worth the trip. Oh and by-the-way: travelogue.

34. The Brave Little Toaster -1987

A little known Disney animation, it's a story about a group of misfit appliances on a journey of trials redemption and expired warranties. Misfits, and (guess what?) a travelogue Yay! Jon Lovitz plays an obnoxious radio (can you imagine) the the late “Theeeeey're Greeeeat!” Tony the tiger guy, Thurl Ravenscroft, plays a vacuum cleaner named, of course, Kirby.

35. A Little Princess -1995

My taste in movies has made some wonder if I am a chic. This fav may peg me for a ten year-old girl as well. But wait, this story, if you know it, has all sorts of Dickensian cruelty, injustice, suffering and ultimately REVENGE! Yay, revenge! Not exactly Rambo in a dress with ribbons in the hair (wait! actually, Rambo did have ribbons in his hair) but it's a nice story and I like it, so there!

Top Five Movie's You Probably Haven't Seen -But Should

Okay now that I'm through that embarrassment let me redeem myself--though the film students have long since moved on--with some off the beaten path films in my humble collection that I absolutely love that maybe you haven't heard of but aren't too terribly esoteric either.

36. Primer -2004

This film is so clever and intricate you'll have to see it a couple times to figure everything out. What I like about primer is that it treats a subject like time travel, not in a glitzy adventurous sci-fi way but views it from the perspective of engineers and treats engineers the way they really are from their quest to find a new technology in their off hours and launch their own successful company, to the growing mistrust and the vortex of chaos they enter when they start to mess around with time. You'd never guess that the writer/director only spent a few thousand dollars making it.

37. The Dish -2000

Maybe everyone has actually heard of this but it's a great little sleeper about a sleepy little town in Western Australia that just happens to have a large satellite dish that just happens to be in the right orientation during Neil Armstrong' historic moon walk. There are some challenges along the way and a wonderful collection of quirky characters in a friendly little town.

38. Secretary -2002

This one may be a bit racy for the kids and the chaste at heart, but if you allow yourself an open mind for an hour and and forty-four minutes these characters will get to you and you will no longer think of this subject matter the same way.

39. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra -2001

What if you made a fifties black and white sci-fi horror film that was soooo horribly bad that it was wonderful and in-fact hilarious. Oh by-the-way it's 2001 and you're shooting on DV. The dialogue in this movie alone is priceless here's a quick sample:

40. Bubble -2005

Let's say your a successful director... we're talking Ocean's 11, 12, 13, and a best director Oscar on your mantel, but you like to 'keep' it real once in a while with an experimental project where you show up in economically depressed West Virginia city and cast non-acting locals to more-or-less play themselves in a micro-budget indy film that doesn't have a script and relies heavily on improv. If that were the case, your name would be Steven Soderberg and you would end up with a one-of-a-kind really cool film called "Bubble".

My All-time Desert Island Top Ten (among the movies I own)

...and not including the preceding forty I already mentioned that I managed to sneak onto the desert island in a secret compartment in my volley ball along with a DVD player, a five kilowatt solar panel and a change of underwear.

41. Raising Arizona -1987

You won't hear dialog like this anywhere; not evenin other Coen Brothers' films. Though I'm not positive I can say that this is my favorite film of all time, I often do when pressed for an answer. I can still remember seeing this movie for the first time being continually delighted as the Coen brothers took me on a series of unexpected turns that were at once hilarious, Disneyesque whacky, and deceptively deep and meaningful.

42. Lars and the Real Girl -2007

What if people really cared for one another? Without being the slightest bit sappy, this movie will make you expect the world to be a better place when you're done falling in love with everyone of the people (and one whose not) in this film. Explaining the interesting premise would only mislead you.

43. Brick -2005

This is a noir film containing all the classic elements but set in a modern day high school. That description doesn't do much to prepare you for some of the best dialogue I've heard in a long time and a story that sucks you into it's rabbit hole. This movie and it's characters are wall-to-wall cool. Even though this trailer (like all trailors) make it look far more conventional than it really is, it will give you an idea.

44. It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World -1963

This could have been in four of the categories I listed above (yup, another travelogue). Talk about a crash-course with whackiness! Also the cameo movie to end all cameo movies.

45. The Big Lebowski -1998

If you don't love the Dude there's no explaining it.

46. Blade Runner -1982

Sublime imagery, music and Sean Young tell me that the dark, rainy, corrupt future isn't all bad.

47. The Hunt for Red October -1990

Lots of great quotable lines and of course the awesome Tom Clancy plot line, well imparted by Connery's and Baldwin's characters doesn't hurt either.

48. North by Northwest -1959

Another Travelogue from the man who wrote the definitions of intrigue and suspense: Alfred Hitchcock.

49. Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 -2003, 2004

Quinton Tarrantino showed us what over-the-top was, then he went over, over-the-top -just cuz..

50. Contact -1997

I was always a big Carl Sagan and Jody Foster fan so I guess it was inevitable that this movie would do it for me. I had no idea much though. I actually saw this in the theater four times dragging someone new with me on each occasion. Perhaps I found comfort in the fact that her mind bending journey across galaxies made my impending move to LA seem that much more manageable.

The Top Ten Movies I don't own but should

For whatever reasons some of my very favorite films are not a part of my library. If I owned these movies they surely would have made the list:

Maverick -1994

The Gods Must Be Crazy -1981

The Triplets of Bellville -2003

The Wizard of Oz -1939

Rat Race -2001

Gregory's Girl -1981

While You Were Sleeping -1995

Tombstone -1993

Henry V -1989

Clerks -1994

So there you have it... what's that? I promised full access to my video cabinet? I guess I did didn't I. Well, you asked for it:

A Christmas Story • A Goofy Movie • A Hard Day's Night • A League of their Own • A Little Princess • A Prairie Home Companion • A Simple Twist of Fate • African Queen • Alfred Hitchcock -Early Collection • Alice in Wonderland • All of Me • American Beauty • American Pie • American Pie 2 • Animal House • Bagdad Cafe • Band of Brothers • Beetlejuice • Benny and Joon • Bitter films Volume 1 • Blade Runner • Blazing Saddles • Blue Velvet • Breakfast at Tiffany's • Brick • Brief Encounter • Bubble • Bugsy • Capote • Cartoons that Time Forgot The Ub Iwerks Collection Vol 2 • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory • Contact • Dark and Stormy Night • Dead Poets Society • Death Proof • Dirty Dancing • Donnie Brasko • Donnie Darko • Dr Katz Season 1 • Edward Scissor Hands • Emergecy -Season 1 • Empire of the Sun • Eraserhead • ET • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind • Everythingwillbeok -Don Hertzfeld • Failure to Launch • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas • Ferris Bueller's Day Off • Flight of the Navigator • Flight of the Navigator • Fools Rush In • Forrest Gump • French Kiss • Frida • Fried Green Tomatoes • Funny Face • Galaxy Quest • Garden State • Ghost • Girl Interrupted • Good Will Hunting • Gosford Park • Gran Torino • Grosse Pointe Blank • Groundhog Day • Harold and Maude • HELP! -The Beatles • Heman Masters of the Universe • High Plains Drifter • History of the World Part I • Home Alone • Home Alone 2 • I Love You to Death • I'll Be Home for Christmas -JT Thomas • I'll Do Anything • Icestorm • Imposters • It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World • It's a wonderful Life • Jeff Dunham, Arguing with Myself • Joe Bonamassa at Royal Albert Hall • Johnny Dangerously • Julie and Julia • Juno • Karate Kid • Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 • LA Story • Lars and the Real Girl • Life with Father • Little Miss Sunshine • Little Women • Lolita • Lost in Translation • M -Fritz Lang • Magnum PI Season 3 • Man with a Movie Camera • Matilda • Melody Time -Walt Disney Animations • Memphis Belle • Mermaids • Mickey's Christmas Carol • Midnight Run • Monsoon Wedding • Monty Python and the Holy Grail • Monty Python's The Meaning of Life • Moulin Rouge • MST3K -Vol 1 • MST3K -Vol 2 • MST3K -Vol 3 • MST3K -Vol 4 • MST3K -Vol 5 • MST3K Red Zone Cuba • MST3K The Movie • Much Ado About Nothing • My Neighbor Totoro • Night Shift • North By Northwest • Nothing but Trouble • Office Space • Once • Overboard • Pee Wee's Big Adventure • Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea • Primer • Rain Man • Raising Arizona • Rear Window • Rejected -Don Hertzfeld • Romeo & Juliet -Baz Luhrman w/ DiCaprio/Danes • Roseanne Season 1 • Rumor Has It • Rush R30 • Rush, Beyond the Lighted Stage • Sabrina • Schizopolis • Scrooged • Secretary • Sense and Sensibility • Shine • Sin City • Sister Act • Sixteen Candles • Sleepless in Seattle • Snatch • Sneakers • Snowball Express • So I Married am Ax Murderer • Somewhere in Dreamland -Max Fleischer' s Color Classics • Spaceballs • Speechless • Spirited Away • Starring Donald -Walt Disney • Steamboat Bill Junior -Buster Keaton • Sting -Bring on the Night • Stranger Than Fiction • The Abyss • The Adventures of Pete and Pete Season 2 • The American Gangster • The Big Chill • The Big Lebowski • The Blues Brothers • The Bodyguard • The Brave Little Toaster • The Burbs • The Changling ('70s) • The Commitments • The Dish • The General -Buster Keaton • The Ghost and Mrs. Muir • The Golden Girls Season 1 • The Haunting • The Hours • The Hunt For Red October • The Jerk • The Kid -Charlie Chaplin • The King and I • The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra • The Lost Skeleton Returns Again • The Miracle Worker • The Nativity Story • The Nightmare Before Christmas • The Others • The Princess Bride • The Red Shoes • The Red Violin • The Rocky Horror Picture Show • The Secret Garden • The Sure Thing • The Upside of Anger • The White Stripes -Under Blackpool Lights • Them • Thoroughly Modern Millie • Three Men and a Little Lady • Three Men and Baby • Tillie's Punctured Romance -Charlie Chaplin • Tin Cup • Titanic • Topper Returns • Toy Story 3 • Twister • Ulysses' Gaze • Uncle Buck • Walk the Line • Wall E • Waynes World • Waynes World 2 • What About Bob • Wild Child • Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory • You've Got Mail • Young Frankenstein •