So Long Saint James (Tribute To James Gurley)

I suppose some people can say it about the places they grew up in. I might even be accused of exagerrating my sense of pride of having grown up in the Bay Area. But there is something very special about San Francisco that no other place exibits. If you are sensitive and open-minded enough to allow yourself to develop an intuitive inner sense of San Francisco's surroundings, you can sense the spiritual presence of the artistic burst of epic proportions that took place there back in the '60s. You can feel it among those who have since died and those who are still living and have left a mark for other spirits to pick up on and allow people to communicate with their inner artistic and spiritual intuitions.
When I walk around San Francisco, I have always felt an almost damn near tangible feeling that I was among spirits both angelic and artistic who weave both elements together. I don't know if it's the fog that does it or if it's in the air or the ground you walk on. Perhaps it is a combination of all of them or none at all.
The thing of it is that you didn't have to be from the Bay Area to become a fixture there if you became a part of the landscape and you had the gift of expressing yourself through some kind of art form. Once us Bay Area people knew who you were and accepted you as among kindred open-minded spirits in touch with the artistic muse that we could never explain clearly (but knew existed), you were considered a member of our society. Janis Joplin may have hailed from Texas, but she became one of our own. Well, James Gurley came from back East as well. He met a kindred spirit in Janis Joplin and then Big Brother & the Holding Company became an even greater entity than it was before Janis arrived.
Like Jerry Garcia, fellow Big Brother bandmate Sam Andrew, Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina and Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen (Carlos Santana would follow along slightly afterwards), they were breathing the same air. As a result, something was definitely right because these guys all became trailblazers in the sound department. Apparently, James was one of the first to tell people that it was o.k. to stretch the boundaries as he was doing it with no feeling of guilt himself.
In the wonderful DVD called Nine Hundred Nights (a documentary on Big Brother & the Holding Company from back when Janis was a member of the band), there is an interview segment of James Gurley talking about being influenced by Jazz great John Coltrane and how he exploded past musical boundaries. James took that mindset and made it a part of the spiritual mindset of the San Francisco scene as well as in the essence of his guitar playing.
What he did in his time with Big Brother is something which will never be taken from him. Over the years, revisionist critics made it a point of slagging Gurley and Andrew for being sloppy and for letting the songs go on too long instead of tightening up the structures of the music. Gurley led the way in making an art form out of strangling your guitar and to make feedback a normal part of expression. How can anybody fault him for this? What exactly is wrong with this? What James Gurley did was embody freedom through the breaking of barriers. He wasn't the only one doing it, but he was doing it and he did it well. It would really be nice to see some of these critics who have taken the piss out of Gurley and Andrews and try to do what they did. Let's reverse the roles and see if they'd like to recant some of their statements.
The Cheap Thrills album is the one which broke Janis into the big-leagues. The first album was a very underrated album and it contained the seeds of the multi-colored explosion to come with Cheap Thrills. Cheap Thrills was the album which changed the landscape in San Francisco along with the word of mouth news of the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane live shows. Listen to the album. The whole point wasn't to be perfect. If there was a point, it was to be free and show people just how mindblowing and beautiful freedom is. Though Cheap Thrills isn't a true live album (it was made to sound like one), it really shows you what happened when they really cut loose as a band. It was alos the album where Jnais was part of band. They were not billed as Janis Jpolin with Big Brother & the Holding Company back then. They were a team. It took for Albert Grossman to get Janis to take on becoming JANIS and then everybody else took second to her billing after she left Big Brother.
And if you really want to get a treat and you own either an SACD or Universal player, then get the SACD version of Cheap Thrills and get completely blown out of your socks by the extra couple of minutes of feedback that Gurley and Andrew added to the classic "Piece of My Heart" back then that you won't hear on the old LP's or even any of the CD reissues. Add to the fact that this period of time in the '60s was not a mono type environment, it was a multi-layered multi-colored stereo experience, listening to this work in 5.1 is downright trip inducing unto itself.
And if you want to go beyond Cheap Thrills, then pick up the Columbia/Legacy CD Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company-Live at Winterland '68 and listen to this non-studio work of two shows. You'll get to hear the gloriously distorted Gibson SG of Gurley's in all of its glory.
I am going to miss James Gurley a tremendous deal because he was also a character. I have seen interviews of him over the years and he always seemed like someone you'd want to know because he wasn't dull. I privately carried with myself the hope that I would meet him. Sadly, it never happened. I have a big hole in my heart right now because he has passed away. I'm sure that he has seen Janis again and that he's going to get to hang out with John Coltrane too.
The next time I have the great fortune of walking around in my dearly beloved San Francisco, I know I am going to feel his spirit and what he left among the spirits and in the fog. I will feel that history almost breathing and whispering to me. And I'll know that the history and the spirits will be fuller because James added to the legacy of the San Francisco which still lives if you still your mind long enough to hear it within your heart.
So long, Saint James. You are already sorely missed.

Eugene 1970-1972: More To Recall

Over at St. Paul, they had this thing called a Smoker one time. The kids got to take part in boxing matches and everybody was invited to watch. It took place in the gym and I recall that a lot of people were there-parents, etc., to witness this event. I decided that I wanted to box and I was accepted to take part in a match. My brother, Mike, also was in a match as well. I had to brush up on my boxing skills as I had none. I was doing this on a complete lark. It harkened back to the day when I challenged Raymond to that race when I was in First Grade donw in Santa Clara. It just popped into my head to give it a try. So, I dug out copies of Encyclopedia Brittanica and the World Book Encyclopedia we had and I read about different boxing moves. On top of it, I was recalling what I was seeing in watching ABC's Wide World of Sports-especially the Ali-Frazier highlights. To go with all of this, my brother John taught me a few things.
The time came for me to do my (I think) 3 rounds with this kid who had to have weighed at least 30 pounds more than me who was the closest thing to my weight. I think I would have been classified as an atom weight because I was so thin that I was barely even there to be seen. My match took place early in the smoker. Anyway, the kid and I spent a good portion of the first two rounds barely touching each other and just dancing around. When the third round came about, that's when I decided I had to make my move. I recalled something that I saw in one of the encyclopedias that I was thumbing through and decided I'd put it to use. I finally got right into the kid's face. I faked a swing with my left over his head and knew he was going to duck his head downward. And then I hit him with my hardest swing I could put in with my right in an undercut right to his nose. I hit him solidly. It came right towards the end of the 3rd round. When the match was over, I saw that he was crying. I figured that would get me the win. Instead, the judge called it a draw. I thought I got gyped. But that was o.k. I know knew what it was to box.
As the night wore on, I got enjoy watching the other matches. The most bizarre and hilarious one I saw that evening was the one which either ended or almost ended the night's festivities. That was the match which took place between my brother Mike and Jon G. Jon had braces and my brother Mike had some braces as well in his mouth. To this day, I will never forget watching these two friends pound the shit out of each other's faces and laughing each other silly while doing it. On top of it, because of their braces in their mouths, they were both making a gory mess out of each other too.
O.k. For the record. I was not in school when Billy M. slapped Sister Elizabeth in the face. I happened to have a cold when it happened. All I did was hear about it. I never got to witness it. There would be times later on in my school years when I wished I could have done the same to a few priests I would come to know. But God! This story became legend among us.
I wish my brothers and I could get along better nowadays because this next story is one where having a brother was a really neat thing. It proved that he cared about me. It also proved how wicked his revenge could be when he put his imagination to it. I don't know if any of you remember the classman who was older than us 3rd and 4th Graders, Kent D. Kent was one of those guys who threw his weight around at the time thinking that he ruled the roost when, in truth, he fell in the middle as far as a social pecking order goes. Well, I happened to be walking over to the section of school where I could go and take a peak at my brother and his friends over in the room that Vidar Alexander set up for the older sports guys to hang out in. When I went walking over there, Kent comes walking up to me like he's some kind of police officer and starts harrassing me for having crossed his path. He was being pretty cocky and telling me that I wasn't supposed to be around in his area. During the course of this, I believe that he grabbed my shirt a little bit and ended up pulling one of the buttons off of my shirt. He then told me that if he ever saw me walking around that area again without his permission that he was going to throw me in the garbage can that was nearby. After this exchange, Kent was quite pleased with himself as he walked off. I was a little scared about the whole bit. After school was over that day, I got my brother Mike's attention at home and told him about what Kent said and did to me earlier in the day. Mike told me not to worry about it. He said that I would never have to worry about coming over to take a peak to see him through the window of the hang-out area again and that Kent would never be a problem anymore. Well, little did I know what my brother had in store for Kent.
It goes like this. Mike spotted Kent at school not long afterwards and cozied up to him to make him feel all nice and good that he was starting to climb the social pecking order. My brother was one of the biggest and most feared people in school as he was already almost approaching 6 feet tall back then in his final years of Grade School. Mike very nicely invited Kent to come see him and a few of the guys after school was over one day and to meet him out by where the hang-out room was. I was told about this by my brother and I have no doubt that what happened was true. When Kent showed up. My brother and a few of his friends took Kent for a walk a little ways out into the field behind school. Along with a few of Mike's classmates, a dog was around and was hanging out with the guys. It was, apparently, a friendly dog. I guess Kent got a little nervous because my brother's mood changed from nice to something a bit south of it. Mike then grabbed Kent and made it very clear that he was very displeased that he was bullying his little brother who happened to be one of the smallest people in school and had been battling health problems in the early part of his life. Mike basically forced Kent to his knees and made him feel like he was being softened up for getting his ass kicked. The story goes that Kent was pretty much begging to get out of the situation at this point. My brother saw that the dog was around and decided it was time to humilate Kent in front of the other guys in order to humble him and to remind him of where he stood in the social pecking order at school. Mike got the dog and brought him over to Kent and told him that he could go after he got done doing something for him. He and his friends lifted the dog up by his front legs. The dog was a he. Mike told Kent that he would let him go after he licked the dog's balls.
I saw Kent again after the incident. I couldn't get over how nice he was to me when I saw him again. He was very effusive when he said to me that it was perfectly o.k. for me to walk anywhere I wanted to and anytime I wanted to. He was also extremely apologetic to me that he popped the button off of my shirt too. I don't think Kent ever came within 20 or 30 feet of me again the rest of my stay at St. Paul School.
The one person whom I always felt secure around was my Dad. He and I had a lot of fun together. He took me to Em's games up here. We saw many great games in '71 and '72 and witnessing Greg Luzinski, Mike Schmidt and Larry Hisle play. Larry was my favorite. I still have my autographed ball I got from him. I recall being at a game when there was a bomb scare and we all had to hang out on the field.
Dad also took me to my first college basketball game when Dick Harter was coaching the Kamikaze Ducks. I got to see UCLA at Mac Court when Bill Walton and Keith (later Jamaal) Wilkes were playing for coach John Wooden. He took me to my first college football game at Autzen when Dan Fouts was the quarterback and Bobby Moore (later to become Ahmad Rashad) was there. I saw them play against the team that had Sonny Sixkiller at quarterback. Was that Washington State or was it Washington? I can't remember.
But my favorite events, other than the Ems games, were when Dad placated to my wishes and took me to see the Portland Wrestling guys over at Marist and the one very memorable night that Dad took me to the Fairgrounds so that I could see the Indian Death Match which took place between the good lovable guy, the late Lonnie Mayne vs. the bad guy Bull Ramos. I really dug this stuff hook, line and sinker back then. I used to watch Portland Wrestling religiously every weekend. My favorite was Dutch Savage. I also used to see Jimmy Snuka and the Boyd Brothers from Australia-Lloyd and Jonathan. In the great drama that it was, Mayne practically got murdered that night and lost to Bull Ramos that night. I still crack up about my love of wrestling from the two years I was up here because I never caught the fire again that much afterwards.
My television viewing included The Odd Couple. I absolutely loved it. I also recall watching Love, American Style, Dragnet, Adam 12 and Emergency (and getting a crush on Nurse Dixon-Julie London. Who didn't?). I also got into The Brady Bunch as well. Saturday mornings found me watching Scooby Doo, The Jackson Five as well as Lancelot Link-Secret Chimp.
but the show and the music that hit me in a big way was The Partridge Family. What hit me was that it seemed cool to be in a musical family and that David Cassidy was this guy who was scoring all of these beautiful chicks. I said to myself that I had to learn from Keith Partridge and see if I could get lucky with the girls just like he did.
I also got into their music and bought their albums just so I could get an extra edge in thinking I was going to score with the girls. I soon realized, right after I moved back down to Santa Clara and after discovering The Rolling Stones, that the whole Partridge Family thing wasn't getting me anywhere with the chicks.
Little did I know that The Partridge Family had a connection to somebody with whom I did not even know who existed back then but would would become a major (huge!!!) force in my life later on in the late '70s. When you looked on the back of the albums and at the liner notes, you would always see songwriting and publishing credits. Well, when you saw them for the Partride Family albums, you saw a thing which would say Larel Canyon Publishing and then a couple of names. Those names were two guys named Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos. Now, a ton of you aren't going to have any idea of who these two people were. But they were to have a huge impact on the early career of somebody whom you will all know. Jim Cretecos ran the publishing company affecting this artist who would sign on and let Mike Appel become his first manager before he met a certain writer from Boston named Jon Landau. By now, you are probably wanting to know who it is. Well, this is where The Partridge Family had a connection to a guy whom, in the late Summer of 1972, just before I left for Santa Clara, was to perform an audition in front of the legendary talent scout John Hammond at the offices of Columbia Records. Hammond had discovered and had signed people like Bessie Smith and Bob Dylan. Ladies and Gentleman, the man who has a connection to The Partridge Family (by way of Cretecos and Appel) and who would eventually take over a huge chunk of my life was none other than a young Bruce Spingsteen.

Eugene 1970-1972 More Memories of Mine

I still have a massive music list to go through from this period. I just decided that I was in the mood to jot down more of my memories of things from the Eugene '70-'72 period.
One of the very first times I ever played basketball among other kids was at St. Paul. I still carry a reminder of one very painful time I was out with a combination of both guys and girls who were shooting a ball around during a recess break when I was in 3rd Grade. Somebody shot a ball at the basket and the person missed the shot. The ball bounced off the back of the backboard and shot out right over me. I decided to jump up to try to get it in case anybody else was going to try to get ot the ball before me. My timing was perfect for placing myself to the ball. However, my positioning wasn't so perfect. When I jumped up, the ball slammed right down on my right ring finger at the same time the height of my jump was meeting the ball. The impact of the ball meeting the point of my finger caused the ligament in the last digit of my finger (before it meets your fingernail) to get slammed down hard. It hurt like hell when it happened. The soreness in my finger took a long time to go away. To this day, I still have a crooked finger at that point. I literally cannot straighten that finger out. You can even see ever so slightly where the ligament tore up and decided to curl up a bit on the topside of my finger.
Though I was never on the recieving end of any pain while taking part in it, I do fondly remember the camel fights us guys loved to get involved in. I was a very popular guy for camel fights because I was as light as a feather. The guy who usually picked me most often was Brian M. At the time, he was one of the strongest people in our class. I don't think Brian and I ever lost a camel fight in all of the times I rode on him. I clearly recall riding on Matt A and Bill M. for certain. I could swear that I took part in a few matches riding on Tony W and Tom F's shoulders. Our camel fights used to get pretty intense. We'd all go out to the grass area beyond where the swings were and pound the shit out of each other to knock the riders off the camels and get them disqualified from finishing the match. It finally got to a point where our reputations began to spread and the school made us stop taking part in the matches. I look at it this way though. I used to feel really sorry for Brian M and any of the other guys I used to ride on. Like I said, there was a great advantage to having me as your rider. I was as light as a feather. However, there was a distinct disadvantage to having me ride on top of your shoulders. Since I was scared shitless of getting knocked off and getting hurt, I used to hold on to my camel really tight. When I mean tight, I mean I'm surprised I didn't make poor Brian's face turn blue and choke him to death. I had a morbid fear of falling from any height and breaking a bone.
The other thing I really got known for was my love of catching garter and gopher snakes. I picked it up from having gotten to know my backyard on Fir Acres Drive so well. In the Summer of '71, I really got into catching snakes and lizards and collecting them. We had extra fish tanks from our having lived in California that were not in use, so I used those. My Dad made lids for them and I was in business.
I had this one great portable small storage box that I used for an alligator lizard that I caught at my neighbor's house after Mom, her friend Peggy and I had come home from the coast. Mrs. Leach came over and told my Mom to please have me come over and grab this lizard that was driving their big Black labrador crazy. Excuse my French, but this alligator lizard was not a baby. He was also a mean fucker. He was hissing at me and threating to bit me. I was impressed enough that I told the Leaches to keep an eye on him while I ran back to the grage to get a pair of gloves. I finally caught him and became a close pet of mine for a good long while before he finally died during a cold wet spell when he should have been hibernating. I even took that lizard with me when I ran away from home one time to go over to the Freitases over on Tabor. The lizard and me arrived safely back home after I cooled down and had a nice meal.
That Fir Acres house was something else for scenery and where it was set off of Bond Lane. We had a bog pond back in the treeline behind our backyard. We used to frequently see Wood ducks fly in there. We also had a pair of Screech owls that used to like to land on the handrails of our upper deck area facing the backyard. They used to look at each other and talk to themselves. It was a very cute thing to see.
Now, back to the snakes. Over at St. Paul, my snake catching got to a point where I would ask any adult who happened to be around if they had a jar (with air holes) i could use when I caught one. It was not an uncommon sight to see me walking around with my latest catch and asking for jars. It really hit its zenith during 4th Grade. Sister Elizabeth got so exasperated with me that she finally got wise and started saving big jars for me in class for when I made a successful snake endeavor. I still recall the time that I didn't twist the jar down as much as I should have one day. It was after lunch and we were being taught when everybody but me suddenly heard a sound emanating from the floor. The lid had come off the jar. My snakes (I caught more than one that day) had decided to make a jailbreak. The lid was light enough for them to pop it off. The next thing I know is that I have girls in my class running the hell away from their desks to the other side of the classroom ans my snakes came slithering out of the jar. Sister just told me to grab them and to make sure I closed the jar tighter. I'm not sure, but I think after that incident, Sister Elizabeth told me that my snake hunting days were over.
My snakes struck at home too. I had a tank or a jar in the house (the same one from the story I just told you?) and the same thing happened. Except, in this case, the sankes made a successful jailbreak without my being there to see it. I found one right off the bat, but I could not find the other two. Mom wasn't too thrilled that there were two loose garter snakes in her house. Time went by and nobody knew where they were until one day, my Mom went walking through the side entrance door which led to our kitchen. When she walked through the door, she heard a strange plopping sound behind her. She turned around and didn't see anything until she looked own on the floor. The snake had somehow miraculously climbed its way completely up to the top of the door overhang and was hanging out there when it accidentally fell down. Mom was very thankful it didn't fall on her head. She called me and and I got it. I also found the other snake in the same little side room. Sadly, I was to lose a lot of my sankes I had accumulated during a rain storm and a visitation on the same night by some stranger dogs who came over and killed some of them. What they didn't kill, the rain did as water filled the tank I had next to a toolshed that was out back.
At the time, my Mom had a family of squirrels that she loved to give peanuts to over the two year period we were there. Over time, we would grow to not be too fond of squirrels from when we would, years later, have the Lorane Highway ranch.
When I used to go to St. Paul, I remember the room that the 7th and 8th Grade sports guys used to hang out in during lunch and recess. This was a room that Vidar Alexander had set up for the guys to be comfortable in. I used to peak in every once in a while and I'd see my brother Mike, Kevin C and Jon G. in there among others. I remember watching my brother playing basketball at games St Paul had. I will still never forget the girls cheerleaders dancing a routine to Carole King's "I Feel The Earth Move" at one game. I also recall the hilkarious time that the cheerleaders were going through the lineup of names on our basketball roster going (for example "Mike Mike/He's our man/ If he can't do it, Jon can and so forth. Well, one time, they went through the whole lineup and one of the girls just kid of muttered "if he can't do it/then nobody can" and I just doubled over.
Because of my having been used to being around older people, I spent a good chunk of 4th Grade having crush on Barbara H. in 8th Grade. Ah God! That was embarrassing. But you know? It proved that once I got something in my head, you weren't going to get me to change my mind. My class mate and her sister, Kelly, must have thought I was completely out of my mind. Don't worry Kelly, I still am. LOL! I remember I used to try to pry information out of Jody R. about Barbara. I knew Jody was a huge fan of the band Bread (so was I), so I tried to take advantage of her in my 4th Grade way in order to get at luck with Barbara.
Speaking of Kelly, she had the hilarious coincidence of once overhearing me complain about my girl problems to my Mother on one of the last days (perhaps the last day I was actually a member of St. Paul School) before I left for Santa Clara. Kelly gave me this look like she caught me in the act and it makes me laugh to this day.
I am running out of time. I will type more later tonight. Perhaps.

Eugene Playlist: 1970-1972 KEED Part 4

-Alice Cooper: "Only Women Bleed" (I think that's the title of the song) and "I'm Eighteen". This was my first exposure to the glitter of Shock Rock. It was definitely a little darker than the usual fare I was listening to.
-Cat Stevens-"Moonshadow", "Morning Has Broken", "Peace Train", "Wild World"-When I think of Cat Stevens (now Yusaf Islam), I think of an artist conveying gentle wisdom. He was another one of those people who was huge back during this time period. He was and still is a winner all the way around in my eyes.
-Emerson Lake & Palmer-"Lucky Man"-They nailed me between the eyes with "Lucky Man". The song also helped me with my growing disdain for the idea of war.
-Yes-"Starship Trooper", "Roundabout": What would the early '70s have been without Prog Rock from these two bands I have just mentioned? It was another musical perspective for me to consider. I would grow to only like certain albums from a few Prog bands, I am still grateful for what I do like.
-The Doors: "Love Her Madly", "Riders On The Storm" -The Doors hit me like a ton of bricks. I was exposed to the lyrical genius of Jim Morrison just as it was announced that he had died in Paris two years to the day later than Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. 1971 provided me with my own sense of discovery for this band even though my oldest brother had exposed me to the first album that he had when we lived on Franklin Street in Santa Clara.
Mind you, as a kid, Jim's lyrics would throw me for a loop at times because of his insertion of poetic images that I didn't understand. It was exactly the mysteriousness of what I was attempting to figure out what was going on in the songs which drew me into their music.
After Jim died, KEED played "Riders On The Storm" forever and clear though the Winter of '72. I started out thinking, for many years, that the song was about a literal killer. I would learn from one source that the song was Morrison's ode to Vietnam vets coming home from the war as changed people. It has only been int he last couple of years that I've changed how I feel about the song. The danger is not in the vet possibly killing your family. As a result of the role he had to play, the danger comes from what he has been through. If you gave him a ride, the stories or the way he's changed as a result of the war is what would kill your family. The absurd play he had been forced into will cause him to expose to your family the sickness of what was war does to people and to society. The erosion of man's humanity to self will ultimately kill all those who have been in contact with changed men. I think this was what Jim was trying to tell people. My love of The Doors has only grown so much deeper as the years have gone on. They were an extraordinary band.
-Tower of Power-"You're Still A Young Man"-Oh man! What a standout track from a great band. I used to sing this song to myself while listening to the radio and considered, in my kidlike way, the irony of being a young kid wanting a girlfriend and relating to this song. I really dug the arrangements ont he song as well. Power and taste collided to make a perfect mix. These guys are my East Bay Grease heroes. I love them. When I moved back to Santa Clara, they would knock me out with more songs.
-Blues Image-"Ride Captain Ride"-It's really ironic that a band out of Florida would make a song about leaving San Francisco behind so real to me. This is one of the most tastefully arranged and performed songs of the early '70s.
-Led Zeppelin-"Black Dog": Ah yes. I got exposed to the Mighty Zep when the 4th album was released. This song exploded out of my little radio/stereo set like a bolt of lightning. It was also one of my earliest exposures to Blues-type lyrics even though I could hardly figure out anything Robert Plant was singing. But this song planted what would turn out to be a deep seed in me. I think it was cultivated by Jimmy Page's guitar playing and John Bonham's drumming. By later in the '70s, Led Zeppelin would play a huge role in my life. There will be in-depth stories about that in future posts. You can count on that. Also, I didn't realize it at the time, but Jimmy Page had done some session work on some songs for Herman's Hermits.
-The Who-"Won't Get Fooled Again"-single edit version-This was my first exposure to a band who would eventually become one of my icon bands. Their impact on my life is immeasurable. Pete Townshend, Keith Moon & John Entwistle, as musicians, have been a profound influence on me. At this early stage, I had no idea of what was to come by 1978. It was one of those cases where slow exposure was to be the case before the explosion of epiphany. Though I will definitely write about him in the future, I have to say here right now that Pete Townshend is one of the most fascinating people I've ever read about or listened either though books, magazines or interviews. Pete will never be accused of being dull.
-Isaac Hayes-"Theme From Shaft": Can you dig it? I sure could. This song features the textbook example of Funk/Soul guitar and Hayes transforming himself into the character in Shaft through song. It's just a killer song and I feel so lucky to have ridden the tiger when it actually came out.
-Donnie Elbert-"Where Did Our Love Go?"-O.k. I realize that I'm going to say something sacriligeous to a lot of Soul fans out there, but I like Elbert's cover of the old Supremes song so much more than than The Supremes original. Elbert's voice twoward the end of the song just soars so much.

Eugene Playlist: 1970-1972 KEED Part 3

Elton John. The organic early version of Elton John. This was what I was exposed to when I moved up to Eugene for the first time. His second album album had come out (the self-titled album) and his single "Your Song" helped him to break through. The face to face intimacy of the song captured me. This is another one of those which made me want to have a girlfriend and sing these words to her. The great songwriters always manage to have this unique gift they pass along to their listeners. Elton John would be no exception.
Shortly thereafter, he released (I can't recall the exact title) "Making Friends". His approach was really winning me over. Plus, the whole idea that a piano player as a front man was novel to this kid. It was different and it helped to expand my sense of musical knowledge as possibilities.
My oldest brother, John, bought the Tumbleweed Connection album shortly after we moved up here. I wonder if this was one of the albums we bought when we went to Valley River Center for the first time and I heard George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" on the way over? My brother had this album on heavy rotation in his room for a spell. I was lucky enough to be there for a couple of listening sessions. The one song that really struck home to me was "Come Down In Time". I came upon the realization that Elton John was huge-at least in my mind. His ability to convey a sad song was without question as far as I was concerned.
He only got bigger as time went on when I was in Eugene. When he released the Madman Across The Water album, I couldn't take it anymore. "Mom? Could you take me down to Crystal Ship so that I can pick up an album?" The moment I first heard "Tiny Dancer" was when I knew that picking up Elton John albums was going to be a frequent occurance in my life during the '70s. This wasn't going to be a difficult thing because of how prolific he was back then. The entire Madman Across The Water album presented me with what happens when an organic sound meets orchestral arrangements and production. Paul Buckmaster's work on this album is inestimable. He was helping Elton John to provide the musical soundtrack to human emotion being conveyed through the lyrics of Bernie Taupin. All of this was having a sesimic impact on me. It's called emotional depth. I was getting it from Elton John.
During my last few months of living up here in Eugene for the first time, Elton John was prepping the release of the Honkey Chateau album. "Rocket Man" was released as a single. I dived right into it and the progression that Elton John was making into synthesizer and the hints of more elaborate production methods. He was walking a balance between his organic sound while beginning the process of taking bold new steps. In a very short time period just before I packed up and left for Santa Clara once again, the "Honkey Cat" single was released. It was very appropriate that I was leaving relatively small Eugene to go back to the Bay Area. It was mirroring issues the song was bringing up.
Elton John would continue to deepen his impact on me musically and personally clear up through 1976 solidly. Of course, I will discuss this more as time goes on.
-America: "I Need You", "Horse With No Name". These two guys came on and took me to a place of comfort in my mind. As a kid, it's very important for a mind to be filled with rich imagery. "Horse With No Name" provided me with that imagery in luxurious abundance. For that, I am eternally grateful. They would also continue to inspire me as the '70s progressed.
-Dave & Ansel Collins-"Double Barrel". For some reason, I have discovered certain genres in the opposite direction of the way most people do. Reggae and its offshoots is one of those cases. Most people would discover Bob Marley and then work on other bigger names of Reggae during their travels before they started to seek out the more obscure stuff. With me, it was the opposite. I discovered Reggae and the music of the Carribean because of "Double Barrel" with its emphasis on rhythm and overriding bass. I dug this song. Plus, I loved the intro. "I am am the magnificent W-O-O!" This song would help me to eventually make a connection to Johnny Nash when I moved back to Santa Clara.
-I also learned that great music was being made up North. Across the border. Canada. God Bless Canada. This period of time introduced me to The Stampeders and Five Man Eletrical Band. The Stampeders gave us "Sweet City Woman". Here's a song which gave us a footstomper with banjo in it. Five Man Electrical Band gave us an anthem. A defiant anthem of which I still proudly sing to myself to this day. How can anybody forget "Signs"? "And the sign said long-haired freaky people need not apply."
-Sly & the Family Stone-"It's A Family Affair"-This was my introduction to Funk music. Oh man! What an introduction. It was a drug induced cry from the soul. The song contained all of the greasiness of real life and "the kid who grows up to be someone you just love to burn".
-J.J. Cale-"Crazy Mama"-This song introduced me to Blues shuffles. Good God! I loved the guitar lines in this song.
-Jean Knight-"Mr. Big Stuff"-This song always made me crack a smile. Jean doesn't know it, but she taught not to be a jerk by singing about one. Thank you.
-Ides of March-"Vehicle"-Fantastic horn driven song with great drive. Let's own up to the gritty guitar solo in the middle of the song. There are so many bands on this Earth who would kill to come up with a song like this.
-Jimmy Castor Bunch-"Troglodyte (Cave Man)"-This is a Funk song which made me flat-out crack up. Plus, I've always been a horny cave man at heart. I always had a cave stereo to listen to as well. I related to this song, don't you think? "Gotta get a woman. Gotta get a woman. Gotta get a woman." LOL!
-Spinners-"It's A Shame"-This is a single from a group who would continue to slay me as the '70s wore on. This was their last single as Motown artists. I've always loved and admired Soul artists who introduced some cool guitar grooves at the beginning of a song.
-John Denver-"Take Me Home Country Roads"-This was a big song back then. There were a few more things by him that I would enjoy.

Eugene Playlist: 1970-1972 KEED Part 2

Hello. I'm back. I want to go through some heavy hitters from the time period as well as more isolated singles.

-Badfinger: the Straight Up album and the two great singles from it "Day After Day" and "Baby Blue". The other singles I heard were "Come and Get It" and "No Matter What"

Badfinger was a Welsh band who packed a solid 4 single wallop on me in a short span of time. As a result, they created a deep impact on me. It began when I started hearing McCartney's "Come and Get It" and then with "No Matter What". My brother Mike bought the great Straight Up album not long after it was released. I was exposed to some repeated playings of the album and it struck me that I really liked their stuff beyond the two singles from the album. Both "Day After Day" and "Baby Blue" were driving forces in my listening times to the radio. I was always hoping that either of those two songs would pop up whenever I had KEED on.

As a kid, I didn't fully know how deeply connected to The Beatles they were even though they were on the Apple label. George Harrison and Todd Rundgren shared production on the album. Harrison started out working on the album first before he was called away to do the whole Concert For Bangladesh project. A side result of this is that Badfinger were one of the bands who played as part of the house band for the concert. And then Rundgren took over the rest of the work after Harrison got called away.

Little did I know the hardships this marvelous band was going through in being screwed over by management types. As the decade of the '70s wore on and into the early '80s, their being pushed around like they did would eventually lead to the suicides of Pete Ham and Tom Evans. The drummer, Mike Gibbins, passed away a few years ago. Only Joey Molland is left.

If there is one album from back in the early '70s that I would categorize as being "The Best Album By A Non-Big Name Band", then my vote would go for Straight Up. There is not a single weak song on this album. BTW, you should know that there is a song on the album that should have been released as a single and been a smash. It is one of the most heartfelt and affecting songs I've ever heard. I consider it to be a masterpiece. It is called "Name of the Game". Anybody who cares about Rock and Roll or great music in general needs to be exposed to this song so they can discover the artisitc greatness which was Pete Ham. The lyrics are profound and the vocals are utterly convincing.

Word is going around that a remasters series of the Apple Badfinger catalog is forthcoming. Hopefully, it will be at some point in 2010. When the remasters come out, I highly urge you to please get a copy of Straight Up and take it to heart. Secondly, Badfinger's story is one that is required reading by anybody who wants to know about what made the old-time record business so cutthroat. Other than the book, Apple To The Core by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld (long out of print; the book is about the business end of the break-up of The Beatles-It is also definitely required reading), the book Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger by Dan Matovina is the the one book I would advise anybody to read. The book really drives home the point that musicians need to lawyer up even when their Art is all they know.

Badfinger were to be known for one other important contribution they made to the music of the early '70s. They were the ones who wrote "Without You". Do you remember that one? Well, you probably recall the great single by Harry Nilsson. Badfinger and Pete Ham were responsible for the existence of that song. Harry Nilsson found it and cut the definitive version of the song. Sadly, the song which sold millions for Harry, never saw barely a penny for Ham and Badfinger.

Carly Simon-"That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be", "Anticipation", "Legend In Your Own Time".

Carly was part of the famous singer-songwriter movement of the early '70s that a lot of critics would hold in disdain and contempt as time wore on. The one that really struck home with me was "Legend In Your Own Time". Since I was always pretty much alone most of the time, I always imagined that Carly was singing this song to me. The pace of the song is what really drove home what she was singing. I've always considered this particular tune to be Carly's greatest little gem. It's probably because of my personal attachment to it that makes me feel this way.

James Taylor-"Fire and Rain", "You've Got A Friend"-What can you say about two singles that helped to define the times? So many of us took the "Fire and Rain" single and made it our own based on what we were going through in our lives. James was using the song as a vehicle to describe getting through heroin addiction. "You've Got A Friend" was an anthem we all needed to get us through the post-'60s momentum that began to get lost with other movements as well as the various social fragmentation that was starting the process of becoming more accute.

Carole King-She is another example of "What Would the '70s Have Been Without Her?". The Tapestry album was a monster runaway smash. "I Feel The Earth Move" became a huge AM big seller as well as anthem for basketball playing Grade Schoolers like over at St. Paul. I still vividly remember the St. Paul Saints warming up before games and having the girl cheerleaders play this song while doing their dance routines. "It's Too Late" is a phenominal song unto itself and needs no explanation. "So Far Away" also came from this album as well.

After the success of the Tapestry album, I got hit unexpectedly by a song from her that I think is nearly criminally overlooked by people because of the shadow cast by Tapestry. Her next single after the Tapestry album was a song called "Sweet Seasons". I abosolutely love the paino and horn arrangements on this song. It always had good drive. Plus, Carole sings with such ease. She just killed me on this one. She would knock me out once again after I moved back to Santa Clara.

-The Chi-Lites-"Have You Seen Her?", "Oh Girl", "The Coldest Days of My Life" If I could explain the full impact of The Chi-Lites had on me as a kid back then, I'd be a genius. If there was one vital lesson Eugene Record and the Chi-Lites taught me is that it was o.k. to be a guy and to be vulnerable in showing your emotions. It is quite possible that "Oh Girl" was the one song I most wanted to hear on any given day when I was listening to KEED back then. It contains the greatest vulnerability line I've ever heard at the end of a Soul song-"Have you ever seen such a helpless man! Oh no."

The Chi-Lites also expanded my view of how music instruments could be used. They were the band that really forced me to focus on rhythm guitar in Soul music. They were the first band to make me realize that eletric harmonica existed. Plus, do I really need to say anything about the incredible harmony vocal work these guys pulled off? Seriously! Do I? I thank God that this group existed. They were incredibly important in the development of my personality.

-Joe Jeffrey Group-"My Pledge of Love"-Honest to God! I can't figure out why some people rip this song nowadays. I loved hearing it when KEED would dig it up and play it-which was often. If I'm recalling my facts correctly, this was a Black guy with a white group backing him. I never, for once, doubted the sincerity of the song. And hell, if I'm fucked up in the head for supporting this song, you might want to ask Steve Van Zandt of the E-Street Band about this song to his face. He's said he's a true believer in the song.

-Booker T. & The MG's-KEED also used to dig out this song from the '60s and play this one pretty frequently as well. I fell in love with this instrumental. It lay down the foundation for my love of Stax artists as I got older. Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn and Co. never letme down.

-The Undisputed Truth-"Smiling Faces Sometimes"-Here was a heavy single from a Motown group that layed a message on me. Don't ever for a moment think that I've forgotten the importance of the lessons being taught in this song. It has protected me on many occasions.

Steve's Eugene Playlist 1970-1972: KEED Part 1

Before I dive into anymore stories from the '70-'72 period up here in Eugene, I am going to be spending some amount of time on some posts that I'm referring to as my Playlist. When my classmates, fellow baseball teammates and others were or were not interacting with me during the course of an average day up here during that two year stretch, this was the music that was on my mind the whole time. It occupied me when I was alone or when I was hanging out with you. Please bear in mind that this incredible list of music I'm about to spew forth here is stuff that I remember. There were only a couple of times when I had to look something up either in my music collection or online. I've been carrying this stuff in my heart all of these years and I will continue to do so. What I did was that I spent about an hour or so rapidly writing down song titles and groups/artists who came up with the songs. And then, over a period of about a little over a week or so, songs would pop up in my head that I would remember and then I would jot them down on the legal paper I was writing the stuff down on. I will comment on the majority of the songs that I have listed. I am not listing these songs in any chronological order. The 1970-1972 period was one continuous classroom as far as I'm concerned. I may have passed my way through 3rd and 4th Grade during this time period, but I was really learning from the music I was listening to. I only have a few minutes to write about some for my first posting.
-"Precious and Few"-Climax: What a marvelous ballad single. It really had feeling. Did you know that the lead singer, Sonny Geraci, also sang the lead vocal on the great '60's single from The Outsiders "Time Won't Let Me"?
-"Lola"-The Kinks-I loved the drive of this song. It was also my first Kinks song that I got exposed to. I would later really fall in love with Dave Davies' song "Victoria". Though I never knew about what the song was about (a guy falling for a transvestite), it would take for me to become a latter aged teenager and young adult before I fully came to appreciate the Englishness and worldview that Ray Davis' songwriting was respected for.
-George Harrison-"What Is Life?"-This was the next big one after "My Sweet Lord". I dearly loved the guitar and the Phil Spector production. The whole All Things Must Pass album was on heavy rotation in both of my brother's rooms-espcially my oldest brother.
-Frederick Knight-"I've Been Lonely For So Long"-I absolutely dug this little Soul gem. It taught me that it was possible to merge Soul with Country.
-Luther Ingram-"If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right)"-Deep Soul. Deep feeling. It's a flat-out great vocal performance about love outside of marriage. This gem set me up for an incredibly special song later in '72 when I moved back to Santa Clara.
-Delaney & Bonnie-"Never Ending Song of Love"-What can I say about this? I wanted to meet a girl and be able to sing along to it to her face. That's how much I loved this song. I had no idea that Eric Clapton had an association with Delaney & Bonnie. I would learn about it later on in life and more fully appreciate it.
-Derek & the Dominos-"Layla"-This was a massive song for all of the younger generation. Again, a song about an affair that just sears the heart. It includes what may be the most famous piano break in Rock history. And let's own up to the fact that Eric Clapton and Duane Allman left everybody slackjawed on not just this song. They left us that way for the whole album. I wouldn't discover the full album until later on in life.
Well, I have to run for now. It's going to take a long while to finish the list that I've created for this time period. Please enjoy this in the meantime. And for God's sake, if you have copies of this stuff, dig 'em out and play 'em. You'll feel better.

1971: The Second Explosion-Marvin Enters My Life

Over the years, I've had many watershed moments occur in my life. They signalled major shifts in my development in profound ways. When I look back on the many different moments, I can think of no one other occurance which hit me as profoundly as the one I'm about to describe to you now.
This was the second musical explosion. Of all of the musical moments I've ever gone through in my life, this is the one that hit me with the greatest impact.
It was cold at the time of year I first heard Marvin Gaye's new single in early 1971 called "What's Going On". The song really struck me as being very different. It also had an urgency and emotional depth that lured me in completely. The voices you hear at the beginning of the song are those of Lem Barney and Mel Farr of the Detroit Lions defensive backfield. They speak in the vernacular of the day and I identified with it right away. And then the saxophone kicks in before Marvin starts singing those opening lines. It was so incredibly dramatic to these young ears. I began to carry the song around with me to school over at St. Paul's in very heavy rotation in my head. Though other music was always in my head (even during this time), I really began obsessing over it. I didn't know it at the time, but I was unconsciously working out what the song really meant to me even though it was obvious. It's just that the moment of clarity hadn't quite come yet. I needn't have worried. It was coming.
I can still clearly visualize and feel the day it happened. I can still feel the moment of impact when it all came together for me.
It was during a morning recess at St. Paul's. I decided to head out to teh area of the schoolyard where the swings were. I guess I decided that I didn't need to communicate to anybody at that particular moment in time. It was damned cold outside and I was bundled up. As it turns out, the weather was appropriate to the song. I noticed that there was a swing open to me and that it was at a comfortable height for me to be able to just hop on and work things out while I was on it. When I got there, I had a choice of either sitting on it facing the school or looking out the other way. I chose to look out the other way. That way was in the direction of the Coburg Hills. It gave me an expansive view. This too was appropriate. I was about to undergo a revolutionary expansion of my mind.
So there I was. I was swinging on the swing and getting the desired height I wanted from the force of my going back and forth. The cool air was hitting my face. And then it happened. "What's Going On" popped into my head. When it did, I was listening to the song straight through as if I was at home on Fir Acres Drive on my radio. It was playing with ease in my head. All at once, as I was thinking of the song, I began to remember thinking about all of the times I had been watching the news with any interest (going back to 1968 on the old Lorane Ranch and on up to the then present day) and seeing all of the reports on the latest casualty figures coming from Vietnam. I was also having visions of the past and present film coverage of the war in the field. It completely fucking hit me at that moment with tremendous force that I did not like the fact that people were being killed. I did not like the fact that there was war. I also realized that this song was really important. This song was telling me that all music was important even if it wasn't about war. As a young child, I became my own little activist as I swung on that swing and looked out at the Coburg Hills. I began imagining that the Coburg Hills were the hot valleys of Vietnam and that there were people with guns killing each other while I was freezing in the cool weather.
What "What's Going On" did for me was encapsulate all of the music I ever heard before that moment and all that I would ever listen to in the future in state of forward progress in my thinking. My own personal evolution had just taken a tremendously great leap. From here on out, my connection was going to grow more personal and also more interconnected with what was going on around in the real world and with how human beings related to each other in so many different regards.
I have spent many years telling people about my love/hate relationship with Oregon and how I commonly refer to myself as a misplaced Californian in having lived here over the past little over 30 years. But I can honestly say that the greatest moment of an event having an impact on me happened right here in Eugene. It is the one I just described to you.
Marvin continued my expansion with the follow-up single that came out later in 1971. That was "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)". The Back To Earth movement was getting into major gear as the disillushionment of the '60s was setting in further within the collective consciousness of all of us living through the times. Marvin Gaye set a tone of seriousness that was on a different level than anybody else and it cut right through me so clearly with straight ahead vision.
Marvin Gaye and the "What's Going On" single changed my life. It also altered the course of my life as well. I carry it with me. For all of his troubles he had in his life, I carry this moment of impact as a tribute to him for getting it all rolling for me. "What's Going On" made the impact of what I had felt with George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" in the Fall of 1970 on my way to Valley River Center seem so much more clearer to me. It even made me realize why "Hey Jude" from The Beatles hit me so hard. I understood now. My intuitive voice that doesn't always speak in words as we know it became much more developed as a result of "What's Going On". From here on out, my sense of sophistication with music was only going grow even deeper. I learned that music isn't background entertainment. It's a front and center, demanding of your full attention cultural barometer of what is happening in your life as you are living it.
It is here that I want to take a moment to urge all of you to please consider getting yourself a copy of the What's Going On album and listen to the whole thing yourself. It is a 5-star album. Every track on the album is strong and profound. It is an album that is universal to all of us. It is also unique to the Black experience as well. It is an album that should be a lesson to white people like myself to learn from. For those of you who have standard CD players, please go out and buy the 2-CD Deluxe Edition of What's Going On on Universal. You can hear the original album mix as well as the mix Marvin envisioned it having before it was changed to become what we would know as the album. You will also hear the original single mix of "What's Going On" that I heard before the album even came out. You will also hear an unreleased live performance from 1972 of Marvin performing the entire album. For the record, I never owned a copy of the full album until the early 1980's. The rest of the album would have hit me like a ton of bricks had I bought a copy and brought it home with me.
This is a landmark album which needs to be required as being in anybody's music collection. It radically altered the musical landscape for everybody-to say the least for Soul Music. That's the other thing. Listening and taking in these precious singles of Marvin Gaye fully legitimized that Soul Music was vital and definitely great music for me to be listening to as well as Rock and Roll.
For those of you fortunate enough to have Universal or SACD players, I encourage you to pick up another copy of What's Going On to supplement the 2-disc Deluxe Edition from Universal Music. I highly encourage you to get the Gold SACD hybrid of What's Going On from Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. Though it is only a 2-channel mix, the SACD will bring out elements as only SACDS can. If you are capable of having both kinds of systems, I highly encourage you to get two of the copies I have mentioned. They can also be found at online retailers as well.
In closing this post for now. I just want to say that What's Going On as we know it came from a very troubled soul in Marvin. A late friend of mine who played in the NFL in the '50s and '60s discussed Marvin a few times. One of the teams he played for was the Detroit Lions. He used to hang out at some of the watering holes that a lot of Motown people used to go to to unwind. The word going around about Marvin back then was that Marvin was an incredible talent and that people were blown away by that talent. Unfortunately, they were also saying that he was a very disturbed man who had very deep moods. The story is well known among music fans, but Marvin once tried out for the Detroit Lions because he had an obsession with wanting to do it. That's how Lem Barney and Mel Farr became associated with Marvin. They became his friend while the Lions players were trying to get down to the serious business at hand of trying to prepare for another season. They had to do this while this great singer had it in his head that he wanted to be an NFL football player. My friend used to tell me that that people in the Lions organization thought the poor guy was a little nuts. But that was Marvin. Bless him for it. I can't imagine "What's Going On" without Lem and Mel being on the track.
For all of my friends and classmates in California that I wouldn't get to see again until the Fall of '72, the changed person you saw when I walked into the schoolyard across the street to start 5th Grade was so changed because of the event I have just described to you. If you want to know why I took to music as my identity and when you communicated with me, I point you straight to this moment. That's the one that did it for me.
To those people whom I know at this current moment in time, I say the same thing. Look to that moment on a cold day in 1971. That's the one. That's the epicenter of my personality.

The First Expansions: Third & Fourth Grades Fall of 1970-Late Summer 1972

Dad drove me up to Eugene in the late Summer of 1970. Instead of taking the usual route to the Lorane Ranch to spend the Summer like I did back in '68 and '69, we headed straight to Eugene and the place I would call home for almost the next two years. Little did I know of the impending musical explosion which was going to occur for me. In hindsight, the elements were definitely setting themselves in place.
You, the reader, are going to have to keep in mind that I had finally been on a path of somekind of social normalcy by the time 2nd Grade was nearly through. The shell which was surrounding me as a result of all of the health matters was beginning to break down. So, when my parents decided to move up to Eugene, the forward progress was halted. Since I was being thrown into a new situation, I went in reverse. I went into the private world mode that I had been used to since kindergarten.
This section of time will take me more than one post to cover. I also consider the 3rd and 4th Grade period of my life here to have been almost one continual school run instead of being totally distinguished from the other.
I arrived at the new house on what used to be 180 Fir Acres Drive. The house is still there, but it is now part of Bond Lane. When I lived there, it was a gorgeous tri-level home built by a couple from Kansas (if I'm recalling correctly). It may well have been the most perfectly built house that I've ever lived in. It had, among other things, laundry shoots you could throw your clothes in that went straight to the laundry room downstairs. It also had a radio/intercom system throughout the house so that all my Mom had to do to call us into dinner was to alert us on the intercom. The house was set on at least a half an acre of land. The backyard was spectacular. Back when I lived there, there was a piece of property in front of us with a field where there was a horse living in it. On the other end of Fir Acres Drive, there was the old Fir Acres Market which is now a Dairy Mart.
Almost immediately upon my arrival at the new house, I set up shop in what would be my bedroom for a short time. I had my record player and my Monkees & Herman's Hermits records all set to go. I also had a radio set up as well. When my Dad left to go back to Santa Clara to proceed with the rest of the move up, I was left alone in the house with my Grandfather. It was during this time that the role of the radio was going to grow in great significance. I can still remember hearing Stevie Wonder's cover version of "We Can Work It Out" on the little radio as I was hanging out in the red carpet of the room.
Once Mom and my brothers came rolling in with my Dad, my room got set up and that's when things began to take off for me. The first big explosion of my mind happened. It took place in September of 1970 as Dad loaded all of us up into the station wagon and took us over to our first trip to Valley River Center. The radio was on in the car. It was up loud enough for me to get a qaulity listen in to what was being played. And then it happened. I heard the beautiful acoustic guitar opening. And then came the great electric guitar accompaniment. Right afterwards came a familiar voice that I knew from the late '60s so very well. "My Sweet Lord/Omm My Lord/I really want to see You/". We all knew that The Beatles no longer existed as they had actually broken up in early 1970 even though the Let It Be album was still up in the charts competing with Simon & Garfunkel's last album Bridge Over Troubled Water. It was when I heard "My Sweet Lord" on the radio that evening that something got set off inside of me. My sensitivity towards music got raised up quite a few notches more. There was an emotional depth that I was jumping towards. That jump made it so that when I happened to hear "Let It Be' and "Bridge Over Troubled Water", I was really getting into the music and the words of what was being said. I may not have understood the literal meaning of some things, but my intuitive musical voice was accelerating.
This trip to Valley River Center was centered on us three boys going to Crystal Ship Records for our first time to get our first Oregon records-at least it was for me. I don't know about my brothers. I came away with buying the American version of The Beatles-A Hard Days Night soundtrack album. It was also the first time I would ever lay my eyes on the coolest purchase bags I've ever laid my eyes on. Crystal Ship made the coolest bags on Earth in my eyes with the big Crystal Ship on it. I was always very reluctant to part with my bags. In fact, I kept most of them for a very long period of time and I kept them in great shape too. This wasn't to be my first trip to a Crystal Ship store, It wouldn't be the only particular one either. I would discover the one downtown.
Because of radio, this was also the time when I began to expand my musical vocabulary beyond the records I happened to have. I was being opened up to more than one kind of music. Hearing Stevie Wonder's version of The Beatles "We Can Work It Out" opened me up to Soul Music. But I also started to learn and actually remember one-shot artists. The earliest one I recall wrapping myself around was R. Dean Taylor's "Indiana Wants Me". Another familiar voice opened my eyes to another form of music I was to be exposed to. It was dear Mike Nesmith of my beloved Monkees (who had also essentially broken up) with his new Country single "Joanne".
More Soul Music was beginning to jolt me awake into a new form of taking in information to my heart and soul. Two great Motown singles nailed my attention when we all first moved in. I learned that guitars weren't the only thing which could make me open up to hearing somebody else's sadness and pleading. "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" from Jr. Walker & the All-Stars snuck into my heart and affected me. I identified with the song because I wanted a girlfriend too. Walker's sax playing spoke volumes to me-such Soul, you know? Speaking of Soul, I got laid out flat by the urgent in your face vocal delivery of the post Diana Ross Supremes doing "Stoned Love". I was in the early stages of realizing that Black people carried a message I needed to hear.
An occurance happened during the early morning of September 19th, 1970 which would set into motion something which would become a watershed even for me when I had moved back to Santa Clara. I went downstairs with my brother Mike (who slept in another room upstairs) to go and get something and my brothers met up in the downstairs hallway (John slept in a bedroom downstairs). I was standing right next to them and I was able to hear their conversation perfectly because they were speaking up more than was normal for them. On their radios, they both had started getting into FM. They had KZEL on. And then they began to talk in front of me. "Did you hear the news?" "Did you hear about what happened to Hendrix?" To the both of them, this was big news. I picked up on it and really zeroed in on it. This was a musician and they really cared about the news on this guy. This musican died and my brothers heard it on their respective radios before they got up. The name Jimi Hendrix stuck in my head like glue. It was not to be until 1973 that Jimi was to really make his way into my life. But I suspect that my angels wanted me to take stock of other music before I took the step towards Jimi. They wanted to set me up for maximum impact later on and that other impacts were necessary for me to be experienced beforehand.
My Dad really liked the fact that I took to Nesmith's "Joanne" as he liked the song a lot. He was one of the typical parents of the time. To do Country music idioms was to be respectable and a sign that you were moving up in music sophistication. I was also being exposed to his other favorite at the time-Jerry Reed. My Dad had a thing about his two big singles from back in 1970. He absolutely loved "When You're Hot You're Hot" and "Amos Moses". Well, I liked them too because they were making my Dad happy. A happy Dad made me feel comfortable. So, I could dig it.
There was another Country song that I bet my Dad thought might have been a little weird and couldn't figure out just what the hell they were really suggesting. I couldn't make heads not tails of what the song was about either. What had me convinced was the music itself and the genuine delivery I was getting from Roger McGuinn. My first Byrds single I ever fell in love with was "Chestnut Mare". It was a Country/Folk song about a man's love for a mystical horse. The part about when the singer finally manages to ride on the horse and then goes off the cliff with it just captivated me. Unfortunately, I could not figure out most of the words, but I knew something big was happening in the song and that they both went over the cliff. Dramatic imagery was setting itself into my life.
I had all of this music and much more going on inside of me as I entered a new school. It was St. Paul Elementary. I made it to 3rd Grade and was presented with a whole new set of people I had never even known existed before. It was downright shit-inducing. At least one nice thing was the fact that my new teacher was Mrs. Conte. I recognized right away that she was pleasant to look at. The only thing with her is that I don't remember much about her at all. As a result of going backwards in a socail way, I don't think I interacted with her a whole hell of a lot. I think I also reverted back to my intuitive method of learning all of my lessons again. It was almost all book learning all over again. I can't even remember where I sat in 3rd Grade. I can't recall if Mrs. Conte was a stationary teacher or if she walked around much when she was teaching. Really, I don't know how the hell I got through it at all. Apparently, I was doing something right. I didn't know it until 4th Grade, but Mrs. Conte and others were noting that I was a great reader.
For as young as I was, I can only remember two things-maybe three about Mrs. Conte which stands out to me. If she's still alive, I hope this doesn't embarrass her, but it's human and honest. It's also something that young boys have had happen to them throughout the ages. 1)Mrs. Conte was the first teacher I ever had with whom I developed a bit of a lust for even though I still didn't know about sex yet (although I had a bit of an idea based on watching horses screw on the Lorane Ranch LOL!) 2)The one interaction with her that I most definitely recall with calirty concerned the time that I chose Matt A. to have the honor of being locked up in the boy's bathroom with me so that he could listen to a tape recording I made of a horror movies I taped off of our t.v set. Mrs. Conte got mad at me for turning the bathroom into my private room away from home and not being able to allow the other guys to go and take a leak when they needed to. Mrs. Conte took away my tape recorder from me for about a week or 10 days as punishment. I was bummed out although I didn't mind being chewed out by a pretty lady. 3) I can't recall if this actually happened or not, but I could swear that, on Halloween of 1970 or 1971, I got some candy from her at her place and that I got to see her husband very briefly for the one and only time.
Now I can make a little sidenote. I mentioned the tape recorder just now. Well, you see. I was developing an artistic and bootlegging side to my personality at an early age because of my hearing. It was up here in Eugene that I began to make my first tape recordings. I developed a love of taping shows so that I could listen to them again later on in order to really get a flavor for the episodes I was watching. This would be where images began to grown in importance to me.
My music world was beginning to grow immense and intimate at the same time. My mind was ripe for further expansion. Another mega-ton explosion was not too far off. This next one was going to radically change things for me. I always point to this particular one as being exceptionally important to me as it influences me to this day. I will post more about this period time soon. It is going to take me a few posts to tell you about 1970-1972.

Two More '60s Incidents of Importance

Before I start jumping off towards the time I moved up to Eugene in 1970, I have a few loose ends I wish to tie up. There are two memories that I can think of that really stand out to me.
I can't seem to pin down exactly when it was. It was either 1968 or 1969. I was walking down Franklin Street in front of my house. I was getting ready to go back into my house when some older gentleman approached me on the same sidewalk to my house as I was on. I didn't quite to know what to make of this as this person saw me and started to slow down. He looked down at me and he said that he had something to give me. He pulled it out of one of his pockets and he then pinned this thing on my shirt. It was a red, white and blue peace sign medal that was made up just like a real veteran's war medal. I still have it and I wear it on my jeans jacket that I usually wear in the Spring, Summer and early Fall. This was very likely my real one true '60s moment although I'd like to think that the music I was listening to and being exposed to was also part of the real deal as well.
I never saw that guy again. My Dad did once tell me that there was a house down the street from us and set across the street that I was to avoid going near. I'm wondering if the guy who gave me the medal came from that house? My Dad also use to half-jokingly/half seriously tell me that I was going to get sent to a hippie house across the street if I didn't behave every so often. The liklihood is that my Dad knew of the people who lived there and either knew as fact or strongly suspected that a young person there was dabbling in the drug culture. This was one of the reasons why Dad used to haul me and my brothers up to the old Lorane ranch every Summer back then. He just didn't want us kids to get involved with anything drug oriented.
In fact, as a favor to my late family physician, Dr. Kirschner, his son came up to our ranch one Summer to do hay work and generally get the ol' Conservative work ethic thing going in him as a way of breaking him of the temptations of the drug stuff. I think he had begun dabbling. Probably as far as he ever got was pot. A lot of people don't realize that things got scary in the late '60s as it was no longer just pot and some LSD. Every person I've ever spoken to from down there who was old enough or have read about in interviews all tell me or say the same thing. The real Summer of Love was in 1966 up in San Francisco-not 1967 when it was practically an advertisement. By 1967, the major creeps who didn't care about human beings at all started moving into the area to pedal the harder stuff which would create major problems. That's when heroin and angel dust, among other things, began to take over. I suspect that my Dad knew all of this based on what he was hearing from the Chief of Police.
The other thing which really stands out to me which I have forgotten to mention in other posts is the fact that the Franklin Street house that I lived in was a block down from a Carmelite Monastery. It was a walled Monastery that you could not see into. It had a large gate where you had to gain permission to enter. All you could see from my house were all of the huge trees growing in the practically block-long square.
I would hear the nuns ring the bells there everyday a couple of times a day. I was lucky enough to be able to go into the hallowed ground a few times when I lived down there. Since my Dad loved to fish and counted numerous priests among his friends, he used to like to drop off donations of black bass that he used to catch at Calaveras Lake to the nuns in there.
I never got to actually get out of the truck to walk into the residence there. Dad did. But I can tell you that I was awestruck, even as a young child, as to how beautiful it was in there. There was so much lush greenery in there. Plus, it was so serene as well because I guess the nuns were of the type of order where talking was held to a bare minimum.
Even though I have problems with organized religion as an adult, I actually have pleasant memories of the Monastery. I should also say that I've always held an intuitive greater esteem for nuns than I ever did for priests in general. I'll be explaining more of the reasons why I've felt this way when I get around to typing about the big '72-'76 years.
I've been tempted to write about my '60s sports experiences, but I think I am going to put them in a separate post one of these days. For all of my great ability to remember things, I am hazy on when I actually played my first season of Little League baseball. I can't recall if I played in 1969 and did not play in the Summer of '70 because of my impending move or if I actually played in the Summer of 1970 and then moved right up to Eugene shortly afterwards.
Then came the move to Eugene and the big changes. It included two definite early explosions that set off a revolution in my way of viewing the world.

The State of My Health

Before I go on telling more stories and covering musical ground, I have to get this off of my chest. I feel the need to let people know about the state of my health. I am having days where I could swear that when people ask me if I'm doing o.k., they are really saying "How bad off are you?" This is getting really annoying because I've gotten pretty adept at hearing the way people use their voices to ask me something as simple as this.
For the record, I am not on my last legs! I am not in bad physical shape. I was given the clean bill of health for my heart back in 1974 when my last angiogram was performed on me. Yes, I deal with severe Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I have not had any flareups in quite a few months. In fact, I don't think I've had any bad shitting attacks at all this year that I can recall. Having Bowel Syndrome forces you to become very diligent and disciplined as far as what you can eat. It will scare the shit out of you people when I list my daily food intake for you in a post coming fairly soon from now. I've been dealing with IBS for the past little over 15 years since I was diagnosed. It took me 2 years to figure out what I could eat after I lost being able to eat everything under the sun for all of my life up to the early '90s.
Now, what some of you people need to get over is that, yes, I am thin. Get over it! Do I dress up like Nanook of the North in the Fall, Winter and a chunk of Spring? Yes. Get over it! Skinny people get cold. Do I look like death warmed over when I come in to work out in the morning? Sometimes. It's probably because I slept warm and stayed up too late the night before. I get a little grouchy when I haven't slept enough. Get over it!
I sometimes get to feeling like people are being nice to me because they see me as this fragile little guy. Have they bothered to check out the weight that I do on some of the machines at Oz Fitness? Yes, my workouts are very short-15 minutes tops if nobody is talking to me. Would I like to do more than one set on the machines? Yes. If only my Bowel Syndrome would allow me to eat more. But what some of you don't understand is that, of the food that I can eat, I can't pig out on it. I have to eat the same amount of the same food everyday in order to not throw my system out of whack and feel like shit-literally and figuratively. This is what forces the diligence and discipline upon myself. You also don't see the fact that I take my wonderful dog out for a 20 minute walk every morning of everyday, rain or shine, in order to keep up my cardio and bowel health. After I come home from Oz, I take her out for the walk. Then, on the mornings I don't go to Oz, I take her out at almost the same time as when I come home from a workout. I am not on my last legs, people. This leads me to my next point. You will have to forgive me for my crudity, directness and being straight to the point. This is directed at the ladies. I am putting it in the next paragraph so that it will stand out and that you will understand it very clearly. O.k., Here comes the next paragraph.>>>>>>>>>>>
I am not in such bad shape that I can't fuck!!.
Instead of some of you people just talking to me like a normal person, I think you are guarded against wondering if everything is physically o.k. with me or not. What is happening, as a result, is that I am getting isolated even more and more. When you do that, it gets me to feeling like I'm ugly (as in unattractive), have done something wrong to displease people and it causes me to get a little defensive. Add to that, like everybody else in life, I deal with a few dickheads here and there who piss me off because they are what they are. Understand where I'm coming from. o.k.?
In something which I will write about one of these times, I went to Nevada back in 1989 and 2001. I did not go to Las Vegas to gamble. My isolation made me finally have to go to brothels in order to even feel like I was having anything even resembling the experiences you were. For each time I went to the houses out in the desert, I spent at least two hours with the ladies I chose to be with. In a few cases, they could have gotten in trouble with their house madames because they spent longer than the two hours we booked ourselves for. Trust me when I tell you, the two hours were not spent talking (with one exception). They were spent having sex. If I'm supposed to be in such bad shape, then why did I spend two hours with these women and doing the wild thing? In one case, I spent two hours with two ladies at once.
If you want to talk about my psychological health, I think I can easily say that I'm confused in a lot of ways and hurt in others. I'm now in my late 40's (48 to be exact). I don't think things are ever going to be fully normal for me. But I'd like to think that there are some women out there who can help me to catch up. I have never wanted kids. My dog is my kid. That's enough for me to handle. An animal will always be my kid. They aren't as full of shit as kids anyway. I don't care how old you are (be legal please-I don't do that underage shit), but your maturity is the key. Please be mature so that you can break through a lot of bullshit.
The other part of my psychological health is based upon embitterment. Don't put me through things I've been going through since Grade School and had repeated in High School and College. Don't play on the stereotype that, since I'm thin, wear hearing aids and have never had a girlfriend (ie-a lover; I've had plenty of female buddies-only friends), don't assume that I'm going to roll over easily and accept your introducing me to some obese, Rubinesque women or substance absuing loser or some kind of religious reborn again nut-job. Set me up with someone that you yourself would want to be with or associated with.
Isolation is a weird thing. People say that you must have a moral structure. Isolation doesn't allow me to have much of one with the way things are going. I have my idealizations of what I'd like to see happen. I'd like to be with a woman in the regular way. She's single or just divorced. But if I can't have things happen in the normal way, then I can't rule out the possibility of being in a not so entirely ideal situation if only because I'm human and have needs too. I don't believe in having affairs with women who are in happy marriages. If they are in open or convenience marriages, then I can see myself with a woman for a short time in that situation if I am forced into it and have no choice. If things are going badly in a marriage, I can see a short fling happening as well. But it's not something I want to have to be caught in a cycle over. If I'm allowed to live in a normal fashion, then I stand a better chance at a relationship in the more relatively normal way. I'll end up meeting a single woman and we proceed from there. I came close to having an affair with an older woman a few years back, but I decided she was too old for me and I got the impression that she was too unstable psychologically-in other words, she was a bit of a nut. I walked away from it.
I don't want to go back to Nevada ever again. I've been there and done that. It's time for me to experience things that everybody else does.
I also have other pressures I'm dealing with which I will not discuss on my blog as of yet. It invovles family and I consider it too dangerous to be posting about. I have about 3 really close friends who know what I'm talking about and are kept very closely informed of the situation as it happens. I am in great hope that this situation will be of considerably less stress to me within the next year to year and half. By then, I hope that a few cycles I've been put through will have been mostly broken by then. I am aware of them. I have been aware of them for a long time. That awareness has helped me a lot.
I am generally doing fine. Yes, I'm a bit eccentric. I think outside the box in some areas and I've lived a life off of the beaten path. Please don't hold my health against me. I would like for it to be better, but I am not some ambulance case. I'm doing fine with the cards I've been handed. I don't work. I don't think I was ever meant to. But I'm fully functional. So please, allow me to live a normal life. It causes a person to live inside their head too much.
We now bring you back to your regular programming...

More Early California Remembrances & Thoughts

I have more thoughts which came to me after leaving my last post. I'll leave them in random thought order as they come to me...My brother John used to have a friend of his named Gary Yoshino. I miss him and have become curious as to what has become of him. My brother only used to know hima nd talk to him back during the early days of my being in Santa Clara and before the move up to Eugene in 1970. He used to live towards Cupertino towards the Homestead Road area (if I'm recalling street names and areas correctly. I remember going to Gary's house a couple of times and having to climb up the steps to get to his front door. I also have remember the inside of his house and the sliding glass door area that led to his backyard. When I look back on him, I think it was really good for my brothers and myself to have been exposed to some diversity back in the '60s. I wish I could see him again because I have a fascination with people of Japanese ancestry. I tied to see if I could find him on Facebook. I found a Gary Yoshino. I e-mailed this person, but I never got an answer back. So, I'm pretty certain that this was not the Gary Yoshino I once knew. Gary, if you are out there, please say hello. I'd love to reconnect...Speaking of that area out near Cupertino, that's the area where my Mom would take me to get swimming lessons. I can still remember being in the station wagon with her on our way out and I would have the radio on while taking in some music. It seemed like everytime we would go out there, somebody would be playing Herb Albert & the Tiujuana Brass. Come to think of it, Mom bought me an album from them back then. Anyway, what I remember from the swimming lessons was that the swimming part and having to get used to putting my head underwater part wasn't very fun, but the phenomenon of being handled by a nice female instructor in the water was a new feeling. I quite enjoyed that...I can still see myself on the upstairs landing of the Franklin Street house and the day that my Mom spent quite a bit of time trying to get me to learn how to tie my shoes correctly. I drove her absolutely bananas. On top of it, when I finally did catch on, I developed a variation to tying my shoes which I still do to this day. My Mom was so fascinated by this development, she made sure that Father Mei (a dear family friend of ours from the University of Santa Clara) got a demonstration from me about how I tied my shoes. Father learned my technique and he was fascinated as well. Well hell, I was a screwball even back then...Franklin Street was where I had my first pets. I don't remember it, but my parents had a Beagle when I was still in the rug-rat stage and when I was starting my first attempts at standing up. According to my Mom, the damned dog used to love to come up and steal my cookies from out of my hand. He was supposed to have been pretty agressive that way. After too much stealing on the dog's part, Mom informed my Dad that the dog had to go. I was not to have a dog until I got my true first dog on Christmas Day 1969-my buddy Chainsaw...I did however, get along with a cat we had. His name was Sylvester. We got along because fine because of the fact that I was scared to death of his needle-like claws. Since I hated needles from all of the heart problems and doctor work being done on me, I wasn't getting anywhere near those claws of his. When I did have occasion to actually pet him, I always petted him from behind and never too far up front of his back and his face. I just didn't want to risk getting nailed. But basically, he was a pretty good guy. We inherited him from some neighbors who had to move out of state. Slyvester had a major run-in with a Mockingbird who took to dive-bombing him every chance it had to make life miserable for the poor cat. Sylvester finally couldn't take it anymore and decided he needed to get some revenge. He took to climbing up into a small tree we had in the backyard (I can't remember what kind of tree it was) where he would wait for long periods of time before he would give up. He would then go back up at other times and wait a long time. Finally, the right day arrived and everything fell into place for him. He got up into the tree and waited very patiently. The Mockingbird made a landing into the tree not knowing that he had company. Slyvester waited for the right time and then he pounced on the bird and finished him off for good...The Franklin Street house was a really cool old house, but there was one part of the downstairs I never really liked. In front of the bathroom downstairs that I used to use frequently (and was next to my Grandfather's room), there was metal/steel (?) grate that must have been where some house heat must have come through that I hated to walk on for some reason. I grew to tolerate it, but I never cared for it. I was always worried that I'd fall in it or trip over it in some screwball fashion...I was always around older people. I've always been endeared to maturity. I still consider maturity to be an incredibly important factor in choosing friends and also in wishing I could choose women...My first friend was my next door neighbor Tommy. We are still friends to this day. Tommy must be about 5 or 6 years younger than I am. I had a late start on having friends who were kids like me because of all of the heart stuff I went through...I used to hang out on the top part of the barbecue grill made out of brick outside and look into Tommy's yard when he was taking a nap or when he was gone. I spent a lot of quality time up on top of that thing. Sometimes Mrs. Rudd would see me up there and tell me if it was o.k. to come over to see Tommy and his brother Jeff or not... Nancy Rudd is a special person. Whenever I was over and Tommy happened to be taking an afternoon nap, she would let me go in front of her stereo console she had in the living room where she would play her Ray Charles and Nat King Cole records for me. Whenever I hear Brother Ray, I always think of her. Her husband, Bob, is a fantastic person as well. He used to play in the PCL back in the '50s...I will always identify my dear friends, The Rudds, with the two vehicles they owned. They had a Volkswagen Bug and a green Chevy truck...Across the street from the Franklin Street house was my Dad's place of business. He owned the Santa Clara Sports Shop. He fitted people like Dan Pastorini and Dennis Awtrey with with tennis shoes. He was the best tennis racquet stringer in the Santa Clara Valley. He probably single handedly gave Converse a huge lift by the number of their shoes he sold in the store. He once had Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees as a customer in the store. He knew when the La Cosa Nostra guys were coming in to buy handguns. They would buy more than one and they always paid for them with cash and then he'd let the late Frank Sapena (the Police Chief) know about it. I will always remember that store for the two bears and the wolf mounts out in the front of the store that were donated to the store for viewing purposes by Chick Karahawa (I think that is how his name was spelled). I can still remember Mom pressing up uniforms and numbers for the Santa Clara Westside Little League teams upstairs. I can still see my Grandfather and my Uncle George bullshitting their way through an afternoon in the two chairs that were in front a of Levi's jeans bin we had that up near a pillar...I still remember a horrible auto wreck in front of the store one day and all of the glass that was everywhere...Back at home, we had fish tanks in our television room. In one of the tanks, we had black bass in it. One of my Dad's favorite things to do was to bring unsuspecting people over to the house for a little bit of fun at their expense. He'd open the tank up at the top and he'd say for them to stick their finger into the water and then one of the bass would try to bite their fingers...We had a parakeet that we all loved very much. His name was Pete. We'd leave the cage door open during the daytime and he would occasionally take a quick flight around the television room and go right back into his cage. Then, we would close his door for the night and put the cage cover on over him so that he'd have some nice rest...When I think of that t.v. room, I think back on all of the Looney Tunes, Popeye and Hanna-Barbera cartoons I watched there as wellas, Godzilla movies, Ultraman, The Green Hornet, Batman and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. I also used to watch the Jackie Gleason Show quite a bit...Probably the most innocent thing that ever happened to me when I was at the Franklin Street house and the most telling of the kind of kid I was occurred the day that I noticed that I was taking pity on both of brother's pet horned toads (lizards) they had in a dry aquarium. I said to myself, "Man! That has got be a pretty cramped thing living in there." So, I decided they could use some exercise. I grabbed them out of their aquarium so that they could stretch their legs out. I took them way out towards the back garage area where there was white concrete laid out and right next door to a neighbor's house. I was hanging out there with them and watching over them when something hit me. I had this sudden urge to have to go pee. So, me and my trust I placed in animals at this young stage of my life, I told the horned toads to just stay put and that I'd be right back because I had to go to the bathroom. I got done going to the bathroom and I felt much better. When I returned to the place where I had set them down, they were nowhere in sight. I looked for them everywhere. They really let me down. Although I felt pretty good after having taken that piss, I didn't feel so good knowing that I lost both of my brother's horned toads. After all of these years of jealousy among them towards me, I sometimes wonder if the roots of some of that jealousy goes back to when I lost those horned toads?...One of the greatest musical moments occurred at an Altar Boy Picnic in what have must have been 1969. In the area over by the pool at this place we used to have to travel to every year (in May-If I'm recalling correctly), I witnessed the galvanizing eeeffcts of what music can do in bring people together. There was ajukebox next to the swimming pool there. From a distance, I saw my brother drop some money into the slot and then my brother John and George Migliaccio led the whole camp in singing along to "Hey Jude" from The Beatles. That moment has stayed with me always...I remember my oldest brother (John) playing his CCR records in his bedroom. There were actually times when he let me listen to them with him...I also remember the time when John and I were hanging out on his bed and listening to a transistor radio while listening to a report of the coming breakup of The Beatles. I can still see my brother looking over at me and saying "Paul is a baby." Little did any of us know that Paul was the one who was right in seeing that Allen Klein was ripping off the band and that it was John, George and Ringo who were making the wrong move when it came to Klein. They should have listened to Paul and got the Eastman firm to take on Klein for all four of them...There are more memories I can recall, but I have run out of time for now. I will tell more Franklin Street stories later.