Hawaii: This is just the first part. Much more to follow.

My history with Hawaii began in 1972 when my mom and dad took us kids to the Big Island. We flew into Hilo and drove to Kona and stayed for about a week. I don’t remember a whole lot other than snorkeling in my “Vote” shirt that my mom made for me. The pattern had the word “vote” all across it. I remember buying a “Keep on Surfin’” sticker with the “Keep on Truckin” guys holding surfboards. And what exactly was the “Keep on Truckin” thing supposed to signify? Keep driving trucks? Keep on going as a 1970s self help kind of thing? Keep being cool because you walk with your feet way out in front of the rest of your body? Feckin’ weird. Anyway, that was a fun trip.

                 

The next Hawaii trip was in 1977 at the end of my 7^th grade year. My dad took us kids along with his second wife and her kids, Eric and Tammy. I had an orchestra concert planned for that week and the original plan was for me to do the concert and then dad and I would fly out a couple days after everyone else. However, I chose to go with everyone else and miss the concert. I am surprised that Mr. Granger didn’t dock me a grade for that. Were it my kid I probably would have made him/her do the concert, especially since it included “March to the Scaffold” from Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique . But at the time I was happy with my decision. On the way back on the plane Eric and I mixed our dinner leftovers together on a plate and put a sign that said “Continental Chef’s Surprise.” Our cute stewardess was (I thought) mock upset and made some comment that I forget. Another stewardess said “Don’t worry about her, she’s a witch!” Wow, well, we weren’t sure where to go with that.

               

We went the next year at the same time and I missed a test in physical science for which I did get docked. I thought it was unfair but my mom said to think of it from the teacher’s perspective: A kid gets to go to Hawaii and misses a test while the other students who may not be so fortunate are there finishing the class. Fair enough. Eric (stepbrother) and I did some cool Boogie Boarding at Turtle Bay on the north shore of Oahu. We also rented a big ol’ log surfboard in Waikiki and rode it tandem. Seriously fun. The hotel we stayed at in Kuilima had a totally hot girl working as a lifeguard at the pool. I think I “fantasized” about her every night. The snack bar also made really good turkey sandwiches.  So on the flight back we had the same stewardess we had the year before (the Continental Chef’s Surprise”) and I stupidly reminded her of our hijinks from the year before. Well, she gave me all kinds of grief for the rest of the flight. She didn’t bring me my dinner; she pretended to spill a tray of drinks on me. She finally brought my dinner but said they were short and it was actually her dinner that I ate. It was without the dessert…coconut ice cream. I said to Eric, “You helped make the Chef’s Surprise how come you aren’t getting hassled?” He said, “Because I didn’t remind her of it (implied…’you idiot!’)”. True enough. Anyway, towards the end of the flight she brought me a sundae from the first class meal. It was not one of my shining moments. I still thought she was hot, though. Definite cougar potential. Of course for a 13 year-old an 18 year-old would be definite cougar potential, but she was probably close to 40.

           
   The next trip was after high-school graduation. Dad gave me a ticket and some dough and along with the $$ I got from my mom and grandparents, Rob and I went to Waikiki for 10 days. My mom also got me one of the first Casio keyboards. I still have it, pretty sweet, or “BOSS” as was my initial reaction. So, since I was on a discounted ticket (dad was a pilot) I had trouble getting a flight as they were all overbooked. Rob went ahead and his grandpa stayed with me in the airport until I got on a flight. He kept talking up the gate folk with lines like, “Yep, his friend got on a flight earlier today and is waiting for him at the Honolulu Airport… we’ve been here since then.” “This young man and his friend are celebrating graduation with this trip; his friend caught an earlier flight and is waiting for him at in Honolulu.” It finally worked on a Western Airlines guy who took pity on me and gave me the last first class seat. Grandpa shook my hand and I went on board. Thanks Skip!

               

That was a great trip. We didn’t leave Waikiki, but the drinking age was 18 ( I had just turned, tho’ Rob was still 17) so we had much beer. Then the daughter of a sorority friend of my mom’s came with her boyfriend and took us to a comedy show (Andy Bumatai, very funny) and then to a topless bar (with just the boyfriend) called The Lollipop. Well, after that introduction we spent every following evening there drinking beer and looking at tits. They did table dances (though those weren’t topless) and we put our toe in the water with a blond who danced for us to “I Love Rock n’ Roll”, as it turned out she was a big Joan Jett fan. Thereafter we got table dances from all the girls until we each found a favorite. For Rob it was this chick in a rabbit skin bikini who would look you right in the eye while doing an incredibly sexy dance. Rob was totally knocked out by her and followed her from stage to stage to watch her. Mine was this hot local girl. She initially came up to me and asked if I wanted a table dance, I declined at first. Then Rob said to me, “Dude, she’s really hot and has a totally ‘tease’ face’”. He was right so I hunted her down and asked for a table dance. I had her dance for me every night for the rest of the trip. I even got a free one my final night. Rob was so smitten with his girl (Sorry, I realize this whole narrative couldn’t be much more sexist than it is. I’m just reporting it as I remember it) that he wrote her a note proclaiming his love and slipped it under the door of the club on the morning we left. Apparently he received a nice letter in return. Gawd, we spent a lot of money in that place. 1982 dollars it was $3 for a table dance, but we pretty much gave them $5 each time plus all the beer.

                

 When we got back dad asked, “So did you take a bus and check out the rest of the island?” Nope. “Did you go to the Polynesian Cultural Center, or the Sea Park?” Nope. “What the heck did you do?” I don’t remember if I actually told the truth at the time. Not that he would have had a major problem with it, but it was pool time and video games during the day (and checking out the Swedish chicks at our hotel) and Lollipop at night. We had fun!

                

 The summer of 1984, Rob and Eric took off to Hawaii, Rob came home after a few months but Eric ended up staying. For the rest of the year I was studying at Long Beach State and trying to form a reggae band with Rob. We wrote some pretty cool songs together but had trouble finding other musicians to play with us. We actually had Chris B. our friend and a really good drummer interested but finding a bass player was turning out to be impossible. We put ads in the Recycler and got a couple responses: One was this guy Glen who we thought was a perfect fit and was a good player, but turned out to be a total flake. The other was this dude from Compton. He was a super nice guy, but the ad said “willing to experiment” when we wanted it to say “must be willing to experiment.” That’s a different thing. So this dude had some ideas about doing like nursery rhymes or something like that, and also some kind of rap on Revelation. He really didn’t know much about reggae and seemed mystified by the bass lines we played for him. So that didn’t work out either. Then Rob had the idea to go to Hawaii and try to form a band there. It sounded plausible; I mean it is an island culture like Jamaica so there must be musicians wanting to play reggae! Well, not really. As it turns out Hawaii was rather reactionary in its musical taste. This is best exemplified by noting the number of requests I got from students while I was teaching there asking me to teach them America songs or Uriah Heep songs…there were a lot! So we never really found anyone to play with. However, we did work together and wrote some songs, and as it was the first time I had to live on my own, pay bills, buy food, etc…it was a valuable experience. And we had some great times, including my one experience with total transcendence, probably Nirvana:

We initially stayed at this semi-seedy hotel: The Honolulu Prince. Eric and Rob lived there before so we invaded Eric who was at the time enjoying solitude in the studio apartment. Yep, we ended up with three of us in one room. I slept on the floor. Fortunately, we all had different hours, at least at first so it wasn’t quite as bad as it might seem to an outsider. Nevertheless, the situation couldn’t last forever, so we eventually moved to a two bedroom apartment.

Rob and Eric took me to the Rose and Crown Pub my first night there and introduced me to Guinness Stout. The first glass was difficult, but thereafter I was hooked. Literally, It got to the point where we would crave it and couldn’t wait to get off work and indulge…and if we had Fig Newtons to go along with it…Valhalla! (I already used Nirvana in a sentence, and when one is discussing beer, Valhalla seems more appropriate)

I sold my 1976 Mustang II before leaving so I had about $1000.00 when I got to Hawaii, enough to last a while…remember it was 1985, but I didn’t want to wait too long before finding a job. Eric had been working two jobs, nights at the Shorebird buffet/bar and early mornings at Perry’s Smorgasbord.  Apparently he had slept in hungover and missed work at Perry’s enough times to where they told him “If it happens one more time don’t even bother coming in.” Well, it happened one more time just before I arrived. Rob had just gotten a job as a busboy at like $3.50 an hour. I applied for Eric’s old position…a “float”...the position involved keeping plates, silverware, soda etc all stocked…and it paid $4.50! I had never made that much before.

              

  It started at 6:00 AM…and what a deep evil black mood I was in every morning.  Getting up that early in freakin’ Hawaii to go schlep crappy food to tourists sucked! My direct supervisor was this effeminate guy name Norm, nothing wrong with effeminism, I enjoy doing a bit of drag myself, but imagine an effeminate twenty-something who apparently loves working at a shitty place like Perry’s! He was totally gung-ho and I at 21 just couldn’t handle that. And the upper management guys were total dicks. One whose name I forget would come in sometimes and find things to complain about like the plates being stacked too high (they weren’t, Norm told me how high to go and I could tell he thought this guy was kind of a jerk…gotta give that to ol’ Norm).

            

    But the hugest prick was Dave who was, I don’t know…one of the owners or the head-head manager. The first time he walked in the sweet, older Hawaiian coffee server lady said “I’m going to hide in the lobby, that guy is an a-hole” Then I walked in the kitchen (where I once saw a guy breaking up lettuce heads on the floor for the salads) to get some orange juice for the float area and Dave yelled “Hey what the hell are you doing?!” Before I could answer he yelled at Norm, “What’s that table boy (hey, I have a name you nad!) doing with the orange juice!” Norm answered, “He’s not a table-boy, he’s a float!” And Dave said “Well that’s not his job!” It totally was my job but he had to save face. I saw one of these guys outside of work just walking down Kapahulu and in the context of the real world he looked like what he was, just a petty little man.

The Group

Rob, Eric W., John G. and myself. Eric and I were friends with Rob, Eric and I were friends with John.  John and Rob, not so much. Generally we hung out in twos or threes, sometimes supplemented by Jeff (with John) or Chris and Tom (with Rob)

Eric, John and I go back to second or third grade at Lee School where we all had Mrs. Fickus. I got to know Eric through the first bowling league I joined in 5^th grade. I had Sandi and Suzie M. on my team along with a kid from Weaver whose name I forget. John and I started to hang out in sixth grade. We had Mr. Reichardt. I don’t remember what started the bond between us. He and David T were totally into the Three Stooges (to the extent that Reichardt was concerned). I hung out with Charlie C., Chris R., Steve A. at this time too.

Rob came to Lee school in the 4^th grade. He had Mrs. Nash and later Mr. Wilkinson. For years I thought Rob’s name was Cliff because everyone called him by his last name: Clifford. I remember him totally cracking me and Eric M. up (This Eric was my stepbrother for a while, another story) by calling someone a dildo. We had just learned that word. In fact not long after, my mom overheard me calling someone a dildo and said
 “Do you know what that means?” I didn’t really…I knew it was something “bad” but wasn’t sure exactly what or how. So, she told me to go look it up…which I did. I wasn’t completely sure what the definition was telling me, or what it was actually for, but mom seemed satisfied that I wouldn’t use the word so indiscriminately. I thought “Cliff” was gone by the time we were in sixth grade.

So, John, Eric and I all ended up at Oak Jr. High for seventh grade. John and I had the industrial arts electives and English together. I don’t think I had any classes with Eric, but we all ate lunch together. We, along with Charlie and Steve made fun of guys that looked like Joe Poor (he was a guy that lived behind me, we weren't actually making fun of poor people) and were constantly on paper detail for popping our cups and milk cartons. Woodshop was great. Some pretty bitchin’ chicks were in that class: Sue S. and Kelly S. They were always trying to get Starbursts out of our pocket. I really could have turned that more to my advantage.Dang!

After woodshop and metal class (each one for a quarter) we had home ec(onomics) which we called home wreck. The teacher was poor Mrs. Spencer who had a major lisp. She was rather Victorian in disposition. One time John and I were practicing and racing on the sewing machines and got going to fast and my machine stalled. I yelled “shit!” right as she was standing over me…she grabbed my arm and hauled me outside for a dressing down. Well not long after that Mr. Granger said he wanted me in the advanced band so I transferred out of home wreck. Band was cool. We had a kickass band and orchestra. Easily at the level of most high schools. Granger was a great director, later studied with Herbert Blomstedt. He’s now conducting the Santa Cruz Symphony.

In eighth grade I started bowling again. Eric was in the league with this new guy who I didn’t know. Then this new guy was introduced to our Sunday school class at Congregational church on Katella. His name was Rob and he lived near Mike, our teacher. I recognized him from bowling so we started talking about …bowling. We also had similar tastes in music: Queen, Zeppelin etc…It was like a year or so later that I figured out this was “Cliff”. In fact, I think it was Eric M. who made the connection.

There was a Christmas craft fair at the church, must have been 1977. Rob and I must have looked bored because his mom suggested we go to their house where his stepdad was making dinner: filet mignon and lasagna. It was pretty bitchin’.

Rob was the first guy I knew who got ONTV, a precursor to HBO etc…They showed porn late at night. I went over a couple times to check it out. One time it was the movie Easy with Jesse St. James (what a memory!) This would have been 1980 or maybe 1981. In a compelling performance she portrayed a teacher who started doing her students and later turned prostitute. Now, it was really cool of Rob’s mom to let us watch, but it was on early enough that she was still up and crossed the living room into the kitchen a few times during the course of the film. Rob would yell, “Mom, don’t look!” “Hurry up!” She’d be like, “I’m not looking, okay!” It was kinda hard to get into the movie under those circumstances. I mean to be honest, its hard to get into them while watching with another dude anyway, but when mom might walk through at any time it was just too much. I think we learned a lot by watching that movie.

It was with the help of both Rob and John that I built up a  collection of porn. John worked at a truck dispatch place for a while and would run across all these magazines. Since his folks really didn’t approve I had to keep them first in my fort in the garage rafters and then in my room. I had a tacit “don’t ask don’t tell” agreement with my mom. I used to “read” them behind this Reader’s Digest coffee-table book The World Around Us, the perimeter dimensions of which were larger than the magazines. Once mom came in and saw me struggling to keep a mag behind the book and said “You don’t have to hide anything, you know I don’t care what you read.” (I was probably 16 at the time) That was cool of her to say but of course I denied it; there are some things you just don’t want to openly admit.

Beginning probably in 1978 and continuing for the next 4 years or so, Rob’s grandparents (who were the nicest folks you would ever want to meet) took us to Baja each summer where his great aunt and uncle had a beach house. Those were damn fun times. Boogie boarding, curio shopping, buying switchblades (we weren’t in a gang or anything, we just thought they were cool), chess sets, firecrackers. And the food! They fed us well and often. The running joke line between me and Rob since those trips was “Here, have another tort!” We had tacos one night and his aunt kept offering me more, more, more! It was sweet, actually. And she made the comment about her sons who “go ape over bananas” That just killed us at the time.

There was a terrific pizza place, Giuseppe’s, where his grandpa let us have a bit of beer. The first kind I ever actually liked the taste of. It was Corona.

There was a sandwich place next door that advertised “pustrami sandwiches.” Um, we never went there.

There was a really cute girl Jackie, who I think was a friend of Rob’s family. She came out a couple of the years we stayed there, just for the day each time. We talked to her but both of us were too socially inept with the opposite sex to do anything more. 

Rob and I slept in this kind of loft which happened to be where his uncle kept his stash of Playboys and Penthouses. Needless to say we availed ourselves of this library and as we were packing to leave we both concurrently had the idea of absconding with a few issues. So we did and traded them back and forth over the years.

Now, here is an example of how cool Rob’s grandparents were: When we bought the switchblades they warned us that if on the way back home the border guards asked if we had them we would have to tell the truth and they would be confiscated…fair enough. Well, after we got through the border without a hitch Rob's grandma said that they would have reimbursed us if they had taken our knives. His grandparents would have paid us back for our confiscated contraband! That is certainly beyond the call of duty. I hope my fourteen year-old self would have had the strength of will to  refuse the offer had it become a reality.

I accidentally left the big brick of firecrackers I bought in my duffel bag and they went through the wash. There were many piles of dog crap that thus remained intact!

Dr. Demento was huge with all of us at the time. We each had several shows on tape, dang I wish we still had them. That was where I first heard punk rock/new wave. Devo: “Mongolid” and “Shrivel Up”, and Tuff Darts “Your Love is Like a Nuclear Waste. I also became familiar with Tom Lehrer of whom I am still a huge fan. Dr. Demento did a 50^th birthday Tom Lehrer special in 1978 and I taped it all. Not long after some friends from church lent me his albums which Rob and I taped. Jennifer E., the daughter of a professor my mom had in college introduced me to Dr. D. We had met a few times when we were babies and then again when we took a trip back east in 1972. They lived in South Hadley Massachusetts at that time. Well, Jennifer’s parents got divorced and she and her mom moved to Irvine in 1977, I think. So we met again at age twelve. We had a lot of similar interests, Sci-Fi, animals, Monty Python, Pink Floyd, champagne. We got to have a little champagne at her mom’s birthday where my mom served champagne and peaches. Of course model of moderation that I was, I chugged a full glass and got a bit wasted…age 13.  This fact my sister not long after matter-of-factly shared with my Christian Scientist grandparents. All considering they handled it well.

Everything I remember:

 This first section encompasses Fall 1979 through Spring 1980.

Oddly enough I really don’t remember much about any of my first days of school. The first day of high school???? Maybe I remember P.E. I kind of remember the days leading up to it. It was the first year I really wanted cool clothes. Well, I did want OP and Bolt stuff in Junior High but this was different. Mom took me to some place in Seal Beach…possibly the Shore Shop. So I got my rad Zeppelin and Britannia pants. Three pairs. One was kind of a dark pink and I said “Mom I can wear these with my new red shirt!” The metrosexual (in 1979!) proprietor just about passed a peach pit. “Nooo! You need a neutral color shirt!” He was right, of course. I never was good with colors.

Zep:

This was about the time Led Zeppelin’s In Through the Out Door came out. I, along with fully half the student body bought mine. It was more or less the soundtrack for the Fall semester.

Geometry:

Math (plane and solid geometry) was first period…with Mr. Leonard. “If and only if!” One time he asked me a question but I couldn’t tell if it was actually me he was asking, or Dan W. who sat behind me, so I didn’t say anything. Damn, I hate that almost as much as getting to an intersection at the same time as someone who doesn’t remember that the person on the right has right of way. Usually it’s the person on the right who doesn’t remember and they wave you on, irritated, never realizing that they are being a total douche. So anyway Mr. Leonard said “I’m going to have to tap this person on the shoulder, I’m talking to YOU!” I probably didn’t know the answer anyway. He was cool though! Drove a dune buggy with flower stickers on it. . .Geometry…the concepts  just didn’t sink in until I had trig in college. That I aced.

PE:

Second period was P.E with Coach Brody.Steve A. was there, that big guy who used to meditate on the tennis court was there, Randy J. was there, Gigi B. was there, Diane G. was there. They had Cactus Cooler in the locker room. We played softball and tennis. It was rather enjoyable on cold mornings. Dolphin shorts.

My mouth:

It was a trippy time. We used to eat in the cafeteria until we had a problem with a group of kids on the other side. Gerald and some other kid. Steve W.  was there too…more on him.  At some point one of them threw an orange slice and hit me. I looked over and yelled “FUCKHEAD!!!” It’s rare that I do something that spontaneous, but when I do it gets me into trouble. So I went back to eating. All of a sudden the sun was eclipsed and Steve W. was there looming over me…he was a big basketball player, albeit walking with a cane at the time. He did that quiet scary voice thing “Did you say something?” Uhuhnowellijustsaidfuckwhentheorangehitmethatsall! “You didn’t say anything?” NoIjustsaidfuckbecausetheorangehitmeiwasnttayinganythingtoyouguys…and he left. 

Later that day the kid whose name I don’t remember told John that he was going to fight me after school. John said, "Hey man, how come you can say shit to us and we can’t to you?" Apparently he said “that’s just the way it is man” Well, they never did come after me.

English:

English with Mr. Schroeder was cool. Jeannie with her really short Dolphin shorts. Then there was this dude: James S. He wore the same shirt every day…hardly said a word. Usually forgot a pen or just used like the inside cartridge of a pen to write. One time when we were picking parts of a play to read and Mr. Schroeder was writing them on the board, James went to the board and put “James: Stuntman” He seemed extra happy for the rest of the day…chuckling to himself the whole time. One other time we were discussing a poem or something that had to do with war or violence or killing. James, for the first and only time, said something: “I think the point is about killing in general whether its with guns or bombs” [Teacher “good point”] “or knives” [“yes”] “or gas” [“fine”] I think the guy was just one of those people that can’t hang with mainstream society. Super sensitive and with no internal defenses against the usual confusing high school peer pressure conformist adolescent sexuality bullshit. He wasn’t there for our junior year. Wonder what happened to him I hope he’s ok.

John and Cory:

Sometime during that year John became acquainted with Cory (Corleen, a girl) when they were both in the local police Explorer Scouts. I was in it for a while in ninth grade but quit just before they went to the academy for a weekend. I wasn’t really good about sticking with new endeavors plus I think it was interfering with Dungeons and Dragons sessions. Well, which would you choose? Total nerd…(but at least I wasn’t a fascist! J/k!).

John and Me, Cory and Marla:

At one dance John and I were hanging with Cory and Marla and John said “Let’s go into the bathroom and totally rub our eyes and see if the girls think we’re stoned!” So we went into the bathroom and totally rubbed our eyes and the girls thought we were stoned. Good story.

Me and Cory:

Cory had a friend named Marla we kind of hung with them at dances. At some point I was railroaded into asking Cory to go steady and we hadn’t even gone out or spent any time together or even really knew each other. She declined but was sweet about it,  and I was more or less relieved and embarrassed at the same time.

 Me, Holly, Stephanie, Eric, John and the other girls:

 Eric met this other girl, Gale, in driver’s ed (I think) and she happened to be a friend of Cory’s. Gale had a sister Debbie and Debbie had a friend: Holly. John kind of dug Marla, Eric had the hots for Gale. I don’t think anything came of either. So one evening this whole group (and me) was at Shakey’s which was one of the main hangouts. I don’t really remember too much about it except that I was wearing my blue terry-cloth shirt. You know those ones from the late 70s/early 80s. Shit, what was the brand? It had the name on the sleeve. Pretty popular at the time. It was like the only year where I was really in sync with the popular style. By the time preppy style came back I was so out of it. Although I did wear topsiders BECAUSE I COULD ACTUALLY SAIL YOU POSERS! The other thing I remember was Holly ripping up the upholstery on the chair she was sitting on. It was kind of trippy but pretty cool. I enjoyed watching her do this. Yeahhh. 

 So a few days or maybe a few weeks later John told me that he heard that some girl liked me. He said it probably wasn’t someone from “the group.” Well, he hoped it wasn’t because he was starting to like Holly. We knew it wasn’t Cory, Marla, Gail or Debbie. I don’t know how or why we knew this but we did. Well it turned out to be Holly…the chair ripper. As usual I was slow on the uptake until someone gave me her number and said, "goddammit, will you call her!?" So I did and was super nervous (first girlfriend). She was listening to Queen’s Night at the Opera (I could hear it in the background) “Love of My Life” was the song (not bad n’est pas?) so we talked about Queen (I had been a fan since seventh grade) and I don’t remember what else. Maybe tennis.


I was briefly on the tennis team before getting cut. While we were still playing each other to find out our rankings I was actually put in as #1 frosh-soph (where the hell does frosh come from?) so I had to play the #1 frosh-soph guy from some other school and got my ass kicked. I had never had tennis lessons before so actually  I did pretty good for having taught myself. I used to play Rob a lot and this guy from my French class My (pronounced Me). My (he’s Vietnamese) was cool. One time when we were playing at Laurel Park he hit this totally hard serve and it hit me right in the dick. NOT THE NUTS, THE DICK. That hurt like a sonofabitch. And it was immediate pain, not the wait for it…wait for it…slowly ascending pain that you get when you are hit in the balls. So ever since then, at least for Rob and I, getting hit in the package has been known as a My T… in his honor. 

The tennis team was a weird mix of folks like Steve A (he wasn’t weird, I said a weird MIX) who had been in my class since kindergarten and probably playing tennis for at least as long. He was killer. I remember in PE the semester before he would just toy with me/us (usually doubles). You know, just volleying. Then when he couldn’t stand the slow play he would wind up and send this gnarly shot over the net. I would literally see the dust (smoke?) burst off the ball. Thank God he never sent one into the old schlong or my entire twig and berry collection would have re-ascended never to return. There were also some punk guys from the band The Vandals and a rather large collection of nerds like me…who could, however, play better than me. The coach looked like the Marlboro Man.  I pretty much lost to everyone on our team. Not badly to everyone, but I just could never finish. I often won the first couple games (sets? I forget which is which. no, I think it’s games) and promptly lost a bunch in a row, then sometimes won one more.


So while all this was going on I was figuring out the relationship with Holly. She was a year older than me and had had a few boyfriends, so this disparity made for some difficulty and misunderstanding. I felt the need (after the first call) to call her like every night which must have seemed a bit desperate. However, aside from playing tennis with her once, I wasn’t  really good about arranging actual dates until a school dance came around.  It was a lot of fun at the dances though. Some pretty good live bands came through…I think some were from our school. Still playing mostly 70s standards but there were punked out kids pogo-ing and stuff too. It was weird. 

Now this is where things started to get complicated…at least for me. It was after the first dance I went to with Holly and before the second. I got a phone call one afternoon from a girl called Stephanie S. I didn’t know her but apparently she had sixth period PE too (was she on the girls' tennis team?) and had seen me and was smitten. She asked if I had a girlfriend and I said yes. She asked who it was and I told her and she said “shit!” and hung up the phone. She called back a few minutes later apologizing and asked how serious it was and I said something to the effect of “serious” and she implied that that really sucked because Holly was mean to her. So not only was I already with someone but I was with a nemesis of hers. Now I don’t think I actually knew who she was at the time. I don’t recall if I had someone point her out to me or what. As it turned out she was part of the punk crowd and hung out with Steve Pfauter and Joe Escalante of the Vandals (they are public figures so I use their whole names). She was cute. The punk look worked for her. 

The relationship between her and Holly was confirmed one day at school when she walked by Holly and me and Holly whispered “I hate her!” I played innocent and said “Who, that punk girl?” “Yes!” I really should have inquired further as I have no idea what caused their mutual antagonism. I don’t know if it went back to junior high if they both went to Pine. Holly did but I don’t know about Stephanie.  

Some time after this, things started to go weird with Holly. She became distant not really talking to me at school or on and the phone. I thought she was seeing, or interested  in, someone else, specifically this guy named Kevin. As it turned out he was seeing Holly's sister but I thought it was over. I had kind of made peace with the situation and then Holly left me a letter in my locked saying how sorry she was and that she was “figuring things out” and that she wasn’t a nice person when she did this. In retrospect, she was a 16 year old high-maintenance girl…I was a confused 15-year-old  and we had widely different amounts of relationship experience. 'Nuff said. Well, in the meantime, Stephanie had noticed that Holly and I weren’t together much at school and called me up again. I had certainly never been pursued like that before! Unfortunately, she called just as things were getting better again with Holly. Stephanie asked if Holly was going to the upcoming dance with me. At that time I actually didn’t know. Holly wasn’t sure if she was going to be there or something so I told Stephanie as much and she said “well, she probably won’t go so can you go with me?” This was more of a temptation than before as I thought the relationship with Holly was still unstable. But I didn’t see how it could be done. What if Holly could go (as it happened she did)? And if she didn’t, word would certainly get around and I definitely didn’t want that kind of drama…arrgh. Well Stephanie took it better this time and said she would maybe try again. I said “sure!” ERROR ERROR…I should have asked for her phone number!!! My brain really has a habit of sabotaging me a crucial moments. 

The dance with Holly was fine as it turned out and all was good. This was shortly before the beginning of my (and John, Eric, Jeff’s) criminal record, but that will be a separate story. Holly by the beginning of summer ended up moving to her mom’s house in La Verne and I didn’t hear from her again until the next Fall. Never did actually see her again…Stephanie never called back although I called every number with her last name in the phone book trying to track her down…that was a lot of damn numbers, she had a verrrry common last name…but it was for naught. Why did so many girls who were interested in me have such common last names? That totally worked against my self-sabotaging brain.


In junior high this girl Tina liked me in 7^th and the beginning of 8^th grade. I wanted to ask her to the 8^th grade Christmas dance and kept putting it off until like the day before whereupon I called every number with her last name in it again to no avail. She also had a super common last name. I went to the dance anyway hoping to meet her there, but she was with some other dude. I still probably could have salvaged the situation after the dance but I thought I had totally blown it.

Post-script: The next year Stephanie wasn’t at school. I thought I saw her early that fall with darker hair but I think it must have been her sister, Skipper. I say this because their picture was in the LA Times in a feature on punk and new wave. Skipper, Stephanie, and two other girls were pictured in the Starwood nightclub in Hollywood. Stephanie still had bleached-blond hair and Skipper had (dyed) dark hair. I didn’t see Skipper at all after that either. 30-years (!) later I found this picture online. It left me with some ambiguous feelings. I am doing graduate work in history and my main area of interest is Cold-War era culture in the U.S. and Europe. This, of course, encompasses 1980s Los Angeles and so part of me is really pissed at my 15-year old self for not making sure I was able to get back in contact with her. 

For one, as I said before…she was really cute. Second, I could have had direct experience with the last days of the classic era Hollywood/LA punk scene. It would probably have led to much more interesting concerts than Joe Perry/Brad Whitford-less Aerosmith or Dio-era Black Sabbath (tho’ I kind of enjoyed that show). Ok, we did see some good stuff. We saw X, the Blasters, Ian Hunter, The Alarm several times some of the Paisley Underground bands, Wailing Souls, Burning Spear, U2, Nightranger (ok, they sucked, but at least it was free!) Quiet Riot (I know, I know, plus I definitely lost a few hz hearing at that concert). Yes, I could have gone to the Starwood et al on my own or with Rob but we weren’t really familiar with that music except for X and there is nothing like familiarizing yourself with music in order to align yourself with a specific girl’s taste. I mean I wouldn’t get into Journey or Bryan Adams to impress a girl…I do have standards…but a more rebellious style? Sure. A hot metal chick could definitely have gotten me into the Tygers of Pantang or Norwegian Death Metal. 

The problem is that societal/cultural developments and movements really only interest me once they are in the past. It’s only retroactively that the late 70s/ early 80s hold this fascination for me. I was more into the 60s and earlier 70s at the time. Until I have a historical context with which to analyze a particular scene I’m not really interested. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy music that is contemporary, I do. But music to me is more than just the music itself. It is a part of a cultural matrix (“The matrix is a point of ceaseless input and output, a web of intersecting, crisscrossing impulses always in productive transit.”  Houston A. Baker Jr. Blues, Ideology and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory ) that involves politics, economics, local and world events and greater artistic movements. This matrix cannot be fully understood until a certain amount of time has passed so that it lies within the context of its future as well as its past. I am thus doomed (Really? I am Doomed? Like Prometheus is doomed to have his liver eaten out by an eagle every day for eternity? Jeez, talk about overstating!) to live with my back to the future always looking behind for meaning and artistic fulfillment. Maybe I would have been hit with a bottle at a gig or something and suffered brain damage or death and that’s why fate intervened and prevented Stephanie and I from ever getting together. Who knows?

The arrest:

There was another group get-together at Shakey’s sometime later that spring. I think it was a Saturday night. I don’t think Holly was there but the other girls were. And those girls ended up leaving early leaving me John, Eric and Jeff alone and behind. Waah! For some damn reason we decided to spend the rest of the evening exploring the “abandoned” building up Los Alamitos Blvd. Big mistake. We walked up the street to the building and tried the front door. John rammed his shoulder into it but it didn’t budge. Then we went around the alley in the back and tried to open the gate type door of the rear entrance. John and Jeff found a metal bar and tried to pry it open. I don’t recall how long we had been there at this point but I looked behind me and saw a head peeking around a corner from the house behind us. I said to the guys “Hey some neighbors are watching, we better go!” so we started to leave, heard someone yell “Stop or I’ll shoot!!” and we took off running back to the boulevard.

And we were met with three cop cars, lights shining on us and four or five cops with guns drawn facing us down. And down we went on the ground, face down. And I looked up after a second and was met with “keep your head down!!” Then I heard “get your head up!” So I looked up and saw a cop holding Jeff’s head up by his hair, showing him his shotgun and yelling at him “Don’t you know this could blow your fucking head off!” What could Jeff say? “Yes sir!!!” And then to me “Get your head down!!!” “Shit” I just kept saying “shit” under my breath. John was next to me and thought I was calling him a dick. After searching us and taking out keys and wallets they took us, two by two, into the cop cars and to the police station. We were fully interrogated, fingerprinted and had our mug shots taken. Mine actually looked pretty good! While the cop was fingerprinting me he made like walk and stay parallel/even with him as he did each finger and hand. At one point I got a little close and he said “You don’t have to buttfuck me, just stay alongside!” 

Ok. 

They put me and John, cuffed behind, in this locked room. Eric and Jeff actually got the cell. Then they interrogated each of us separately. John and I could see Eric while he was being questioned. Every time the cop wasn’t looking, Eric would look at us and give a wave and a shit-eating grin. That’s so Eric. While John was being questioned I slipped my cuffs from the back to the front. Well, they were pinching in the back! The cops apologized for the inconvenience. Then we had to face our parents. I don’t remember too much about that except Eric’s dad asking if they could keep us there overnight. Eric kind of wanted to. He’s such an adventurer! Oh yeah, his dad also asked if we had been drinking. The cops said no, but said they smelled pizza on our breath. Apparently John had burped during his fingerprinting and the pizza made itself known. Mmm Shakey’s!

Oh yeah, the building was not abandoned. It was a welding shop with all kinds of equipment and shit. We were charged with attempted burglary. I guess they thought we were going to carry welding equipment home to fence on foot. No, once they realized we were 15 year-old kids they put us through the ringer as a sort of scared straight thing. We weren’t really of a criminal mind anyway so it didn’t matter. Though I guess I was taking a risk every time I bought and/or smoked pot before I was 18. Especially when I bought it from (another) Eric at the donut shop where I worked during high school. Hello!!! Donuts???!!! Cops???!!!

Slippage:

 Two stories. This, I think, says something about humor and the instinctive human response. One day I was walking across campus on the way to math class…still geometry with Mr. Leonard. When I was almost at the building I totally slipped on a banana peel. Yes, I really did. No, this is not a joke. As this was in between classes, there were tons of students out and about. Now, this is the classic move in physical comedy, right? So laughter can be expected, right? Especially in a freakin’ high school! Guess what? Nobody laughed! In fact only one person said anything at all. This one guy said. ”Dude, are you alright? I didn’t think that happened in real life.” 

One other time I was walking to class behind the multipurpose room and I stepped in a muddy patch. I slipped and slipped, but through a major contortive effort I managed to stay upright. There was hardly anyone there…hardly. Just three girls. Jody was one, I don’t remember the others. Now, I didn’t even fall, remember? I remained heroically un-prone. So, do you think they laughed? Hell yes they did! Robustly! Heartily! What the hell! The moral: If life puts obstacles in your path, just go ahead and quietly fall on your ass. It draws much less attention than the arm-flailing and pinwheeling required to maintain your equilibrium. One additional note: None of my friends were there to witness either act. Had they been, great hilarity would have ensued regardless.

The ultimate question ...

Something I will be dealing with in the years to come: Can a counterculture ever create a movement that rejects all of the banal and reactionary elements which seem to be part and parcel of our current political and social makeup? Or, as Heath and Potter state in Nation of Rebels will it do so only at the expense of the gains that progressive politics have made via the current political system? Is the counterculture destined to always be adopted and exploited by consumer culture and thus rendered impotent?