Ten Formative Albums

This one has been floating around Facebook, and I started doing it there, but decided it warranted a blog post!
RULES: In your status update, list ten albums that have stayed with you over the years in some way. Don’t take too long on this list - just a few minutes, tops. These don’t need to be “great” records or critical darlings. Just records that have meant something to you personally.

1. Neil Young - Live RustWhat's not to love, two sides of acoustic music I could play, two sides of guitar distortion I could play, and Neil Young's  vocals and harmonica playing seemed wholly within reach. Jimmy Fallon, I (along with a significant portion of my peer group with access to a guitar and a harmonic holder) did Neil Young impressions first

2. Lou Reed - Rock and Roll Animal I was a little old and a little uncool to get The Velvet Underground - but this album unlocked the whole NYC glam / punk / new wave scene for me.

3. The Who - Tommy I did a college thesis on this album, and to this date I can pretty much sing it through. I've never collected many Who albums, but this one I've always updated to the latest format.

4. On a Winter's Night (compilation) Not the more recent xmas / holiday release, this one is from North Star Records (1990). My intros to acoustic / singer songwriter music, and I discovered so many artists here that went on to become faves: John Gorka, Patty Larkin, Bill Morrissey, Julie Gold, Hugh Blumenfeld, Christine Lavin, David Wilcox, Cheryl Wheeler, David Mallett. There's a lifetime of music to listen to right there.

5. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run I could pick any of a half dozen Springsteen albums (Darkness, The River, Wild, Innocent, Nebraska), but hey - Jungleland.

6. The Clash - London Calling Sandanista is a close second. If I've got the stereo blasting as I pull into the yoga studio, it's probably this album.

7. The Kinks - Kink KroniklesA little young and uncool to collect Kinks albums back in the day, but I wore out my vinyl copy of this one

8. The Cars - The Cars It's a little dated but it takes me right back to high school and it launched my rock music career. I still remember hearing that they mixed it on car stereo speakers so it would sound good in the car.

9. Dar Williams - The Honesty Room I was a Dar fan before THR came out - I actually own one of her pre-CD cassettes. So I've felt a little protective of her over the years and proud of her success. I bought my first copy of this from her at Roaring Brook Nature Center (where she was the featured performer for Open Mic night, not even a headliner) You never forget your first love. 

10. Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive
Back in '77-'78 you either wore out Saturday Night Fever or you wore out this disk. This one was everywhere. If there were ubiquitous cell phones or digital cameras (or even videotape recorders) back in the day, one would be able to dig up footage of me faking the "do you feel like I do" vocoder bits, playing my Peavey T-60 through a wah-wah pedal at an end of school year lawn party. Any rock star aspirations I've entertained were born of this album. 

Burger Prank Foiled

 The preliminary version (pretty much as told, with some things I forgot) at last night's edition of "The Mouth" at the Mark Twain House.  Thanks to Chion Wolf and Jacques Lamarre for hosting. The theme of last night's story-telling was "I Fought the Law: Encounters with law Enforcement".

An ironic twist - as I sat down, the story-teller sitting next to me, leaned over and whispered "That would not happen to be Marian High School, would it?" - turns out he grew up in Framingham and graduated from North High School in 1978. Small world!

In February of 1979, the band A Taste of Honey won the Best New artist Grammy Award on the strength of their hit “Boogie Oogie Oogie”.

In March of that year, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant melted down. In April, my father passed away after many years of struggling with cardio-vascular disease.

In June, I graduated from high school, and in August of that year – I was arrested.

But it all started with the Grammy Awards. “A Taste of Honey” had won the Best New Artist award that year, grabbing it away from our beloved favorites “The Cars”.   My friend Jim, the bass player of our high school basement rock band, with aspirations of making radical art, concocted a bit of social and cultural protest for this offense. We’d spray paint a Rolling Stones tongue, along with the tag “CARS REVENGE” on the billboard of radio station KISS 108, the local disco station whose advertising featured a pair of lips. The billboard he had identified was up three stories, on a factory alongside, and clearly visible from, the Massachusetts Turnpike.

So one night, a hand-picked group of friends drove in to Boston. We were able to get into the factory parking lot easily enough, and the building was designed in such a way that the three stories could be climbed one floor at a time. We each had been assigned our jobs – Jim did the painting, football lineman Kevin hoisted Jim on his shoulders, Mike (with his 70’s era Dodge Charger that you could sit five across) drove, one of the local track stars climbed the building and threw down a rope for the others. I think my job was to be nervous about it all and keep an eye out for the cops.

A lot could have gone wrong (not the least of which was Jim or Kevin falling off the sign) but nothing did – and we succeeded that night in our mission. No cops.

That evening gave birth to “The Maneuvers” – our code word for going out at night with an eye to making some sort of mild vandalism or mischief. I don’t remember all of the things we did that year – some were I am sure directed at or designed to impress classmates or fast food coworkers - although I do remember breaking into the Framingham State College gymnasium, and stealing a large plywood hand painted sign that said “The Pit” - the nickname for their student section – in order to place it atop the covered patio of the smoking area of my catholic high school, known somewhat less officially as “The Pit”. 

Now, that summer, we had graduated from high school and were heading out for college, and decided to enjoy one more evening of mischief. The goal that night was street signs – so we set out in Jim’s family ranch wagon, a cooler full of beer in the “hole” in the way back. We grabbed a lot of signs that night – we got our names, the names of friends. We had it down to a science – a rubber mallet, one of us climbed up on another’s back and gave the sign a couple of whacks – and it was off. We stowed the signs in the “way back” hole, and continued on.

Jim had a bigger catch in mind that night – we were going to grab a “Now Entering Framingham” sign. And we did indeed – this time with the aid of a ratchet set (there were a lot of mounting bolts) and a bit more time. We put that in the back of the wagon and set off back for Jim’s house. En route, we passed an “A frame” sign outside of a local burger joint, and one of us (possibly me, although it might have been any of us) suggested we swipe that sign and put it in front of the local McDonald’s, where a couple of us worked that year.

So after dropping the big sign off (but still with the street signs and beer in the hole), we headed back for the burger sign. Should be a piece of cake, park, swipe, drive away.

Unbeknownst to us, the Framingham Police were staking out the bank nearby. And, as one of the cops later reported, they noticed us and said “what the BLEEP are those kids up to?” Within seconds, we were busted.

Now, we were all “good kids” from the local catholic high school, and we were scared to death – we answered the cops questions, we were polite and suitably cowed. Well, except for Jim, who started to get mouthy with the cops. When the cops asked for help pulling the sign out of the car, Jim resisted “get it out yourself”, but I hissed “get over there” thinking about the storage hole full of purloined street signs, and the cooler full of beer, that I did *not* want the cops finding. As I remember it, the cooler was an inch taller than the storage home, and the door did not close fully. Even though I was not driving and it was not my car, I was also the only 18 year old (the legal drinking age back then) in a car full of 17 year olds, and all I could think of was 5 counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor charge.

But, the cops never checked the car, we put the sign back, and they let us park Jim’s car in the restaurant lot while they took us to the station.

Here’s what I remember from the arrest:

1.  I was wearing a red I SURVIVED THREE MILE ISLAND tee shirt. The nuclear accident had happened that March; my father had died that April. So when my family went down to Lancaster PA to bury Dad, I somehow managed to pick up a tee shirt. Somewhere in the bowels of the Framingham PD is a booking photo of me with this dumb shirt.
2. The cop taking my fingerprints was making small talk, and when he found out I was going to Worcester Polytechnic Institute that fall, was all excited because his brother went there, and I really ought to look him up if I need anything. Um, how about if you just let me go right now?
3. Jim seemed to enjoy the experience, swinging on the bars in his cell, and castigating the cops for taking his shoelaces and belt “I’m gonna hang myself over a sign? Come on!?”

Amazingly, we did not have to call out parents - we called a friend who had gotten paid that day and had enough cash to bail us out; we had to go to court the next day. I remember standing at my mom’s bedside that next morning “Mom….I need to talk to you about something”. Here she is, a widow less than four months, and already her kids are starting the long slide towards juvenile delinquency, starting with her oldest.

And to our great fortune, one of our party that night (who I’ll call J. Worthington Smythe III, not his real name which was a hell of a lot more ostentatious) was destined for Holy Cross, ROTC, law school, the bar and with any luck a career in politics, and had a father who had taken the same route. An arrest record on J. Worthington’s permanent file would NOT do – so J. Worthington II got the charges dropped to a misdemeanor, gtot the case nolo’d and had the records sealed – we had to pay a fine but no conviction record. Although to be honest, I’ve told some version of the story in job interviews. It’s the sort of “show me you have character” story that works in the engineering field.

  

And that weekend, in small, page 16 news tidbit about 2 column inches long, we made the paper: BURGER PRANK FOILED, with all of our names (and our college destinations!)  Jim cut it out, and taped it up in his bedroom. I would not be surprised if he still has it…

National Geographic

It's hard to begin to quantify how much of who I have become as a person was influenced by the fact that my parents subscribed to this magazine. My parents were not intellectuals or academics; dad was an IT guy in the 60s and 70s, mom was a nurse / full time mom. Neither was a huge reader (other than the newspaper; yet my childhood was vividly informed by a Merit Student Encyclopedia on the shelf, and National Geographic magazine once a month in the mail. I devoured them - in my room, in the bathtub, in the car, cover to cover.

My knowledge of the world with its continents, oceans, and nations, my love of nature, curiosity about space and exploration - and perhaps all of these coalescing into a spiritual curiosity - between the covers of this publication.

It's been a long long time but I decided today, out of the blue, to subscribe again, after many years hiatus. Happy to be back in the fold.

New Pope

So, we have a new pope. Or rather, THEY have a new pope.

A little background. I'm a former Roman Catholic. And my family was not simply cafeteria catholics, we were in, deep. I spent 12 years in catholic school, I served alter, I taught CCD, I played folk mass for years. My father was a deacon whose bridge partner was the monsignor, I was a lay eucharistic minister. I met my ex on the altar (she was playing music, and noticed me singing in the congragation), I was married by a bishop. I spent my honeymoon in Medjugorje, stalking the Blessed Virgin Mary. So yeah - hard core.

More to the point, I was the sort of little kid that the catholic church targeted for priesthood - bullied, learned, fey,  gender non-conforming. Over and over throughout my life, I was approached - by priests, nuns, adults - with the question "have you considered a vocation?". Which is what the catholic church did with little proto-queer kids back in the day. It explains a lot of the sex abuse scandals, IMHO, with a bunch of repressed gay men in positions of power and access to young men. On the other hand, I suspect had I been born in the gender I now inhabit, I probably would have made a fine nun...I had mad crushes on most of the nuns in my life.

So.....fast forward to today.  I'm adamantly non-catholic; I've been officially uninvited from partaking in the sacraments (thanks to an annulment that my ex sought, which resulted in the church peering rather closely at my gender transition). My issues extend past my own stuff - I would support married priests, women priests, LGBT priests, LGBT marriage, birth control. Pretty much the full litany of women's issues (although I'm not a fan of abortion, if I ruled the world it would remain legal but we'd track and reduce the number through birth control, education, and support for unplanned / unwanted pregnancies. And truthfully, my own spiritual quest has taken me way beyond christianity - not sure I can or will ever believe in the "one god, one savior, one path" aspects of most christian sects.

However - I am quite delighted to see this pope elected. A humble, man of the people (reportedly, he got on the bus with the other cardinals last night, rather than take the papal limo / motorcade) - he's most recently lived in a humble flat, taken mass transit, cooked his own meals. And today's news, he swung by the residence / inn where he had been staying to settle the bill and pick up his luggage. There is something of the buddhist in this new pope....and humble spiritual seekers of all flavors are welcome in my world.

And to my facebook and twitter fans / friends wailing and gnashing teeth about women's issues, GLBT issues, etc. - well, what do you expect, he's a faithful Roman Catholic and that's the church's policy - they would never elect a pope who believed otherwise.  If you identify as Roman Catholic and those issues are important to you, get out. I believe the church will change only if / when it loses all the cafeteria catholics whose hypocrisy allows them to pay lip service on sunday and then go vote and live the way they want.  If you are not Roman Catholic, it's not your problem.  Get over it.....

Neil Young: Still Rocking

Way back in 2006, I saw Jonathon Demme's Neil Young biopic Heart of Gold. I blogged about it back then:

I thought how blessed Neil Young was to go toe to toe with mortality, to survive, and to be wise enough to throw his own goodbye party / concert and to film it. May we all be so fortunate.

Little did I know that Neil Young would survive his aneurysm survey, and keep right on rocking. And I was fortunate enough to see him as he came through Bridgeport (Webster Arena) last evening.

Now, Neil Young and I go way back. I thing I wore the grooves down on my Life Rust album (remember double albums?). I owned an erratic sampling of his works on album and cassette: his self titled first, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, American Star and Bars, Re*actor, Trans, Landing on Water, Freedom.  And when I made the jump to CD, I've picked up a bit over the years: Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Rust Never Sleeps, Decade, Life Rust, Sleeps with Angels, Mirror Ball, Ragged Glory. Not canonical by any means, but a good sampling.

And as an angry young rocker, Neil Young was an icon. Needle and the Damage Done was part of the walking D acoustic trilogy (also, Willin' by Lowell George and Friend of the Devil by the Grateful Dead). A guitar, and amp, and the right effects pedal, and one could blast out the riffs to Hey Hey, My My. Every band I've ever played in had some Neil Young in the set list - Powderfinger, Hey Hey My My, Like a Hurricane. Even today, the Guinea Pigs play Cinnamon Girl.  Neil Young's music is nothing if not messy, emotional, heartfelt.

First thought: Is that the set from Rust Never Sleeps? Indeed it was. No idea if Crazy Horse gigs have had this set all along, but dude - that album came out in 1979, the year I graduated from high school. And yet, here it still is, 30+ years later.  It was both reassuring (some things never change....they stay the way they are....) and kind of sad.

Similarly, the intro to Needle  and the Damage Done (with the lightning graphics and sound, and the Woodstock "please get off those towers...no rain" recording) was straight out of Live Rust. For someone who often obstinantly refuses to play the greatest hits (the folks behind us were kvetching about previous concerts where he did nothing old or classic), Mr Young is awfully faithful to the past.

And there were Greatest Hits - Mr. Soul, Hey Hey My My, Cinnamon Girl, Powderfinger, Needle and the Damage Done were all woven into newer material. It felt a little polarized - old FM classics or brand new material. Not a lot of middle ground, mining the many albums of material out there.

I was struck by a certain level of goofiness, bordering on surrealism, that infused the concert. The big amps and microphone, and the video monitors (trimmed out to look like 60's TV sets hung in the arena) reminded me of a bunch of kids playing in the basement - Neil and the band (with the exception of the keyboard player) hugged the center of the stage, facing inward towards each other as if avoiding eye contact with the audience. This was their fun time playing, and we got to watch and listen, if we dared.

Their set opened with the National Anthem (dude, you are Canadian, right?) complete with flag unfurled behind the band - serious or making fun? Hard to say. During one song, an old pump organ was rolled out on stage, and when the short organ instrumental rolled around (played by the keyboardist on a more modern instrument) the old pump organ was spotlit, unplayed. At one point, the roadies crumpled papers and bags in front of a fan, blowing across the stage for no real reason other than perhaps the joy of watching things blow across the stage. You get the feeling that maybe back in '75, someone decided to screw with Neil and send stuff blowing across the stage via a cooling fan, and they decided to keep the bit. There was a lot of that going on. Like some weirdly serious, weirdly comic ritual that has evolved over 40 years - nobody knows why they are doing all these things, they made sense once upon a time.

Me at 51 is a far different person than me at 18. I grew tired of the endless guitar riffing, and the prolonged (10 minutes maybe?) of messing around with feedback and sonic blasting.  I wanted a little more song and a little less riffing. But, 35 years down the road Neil Young is still rocking it out. He was up there amusing himself in 79, and he's still up there amusing himself today. We can choose to come along.

The second song in was the anthem Powderfinger - and it was like I was scratching a 35 year old itch to hear the song played live, after playing it so often in my own basement rock past. It did not disappoint.

Jonathon Demme has a follow-up film (Journeys) - part of an accidental Trilogy - and I need to see that. 2006's Heart of Gold was amazingly moving. But for now, I'll let the ears ring and the energy settle. Glad I finally got to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

Ten Years Ago

My previous post was a macro post - the big picture, so to speak. Drilling down to the personal, to my life ten years ago.

I was out in the Chicago area on Sept 11, 2001 for an industry conference out by the airport. Not sure if I flew out early that morning or the night before; I was safely on the ground in a rental car when the first tower was hit, I was listening to the local NPR affiliate. I was running out to an office supply store or pharmacy to pick up a cell phone charger, where the news was buzzing - I called my pilot friend Robert as I heard the news, "turn on CNN, some moron flew into the World Trade Center". Thinking it was a small private plane and nothing more than an accident, I imagined he'd be interested. As we talked, he conveyed to me "that was a lot bigger than a Cessna"; we made have been on the phone when the second plane hit, and he clicked off to call his brother who was employed on Wall Street.

Still unaware of the magnitude of things, I continued to my trade show; the conference quickly faded as we gathered around a few television sets to watch the unbelievable news. By lunchtime, it was clear that we were living in a different world; I returned to my hotel room. I remember hearing rumors that the Sears Tower or Hancock Tower in Chicago had been targeted; I remember looking up cautiously at each plane that flew overhead inbound to O'Hare.

I ended up stranded in Chicago for most of the week - waiting for airports to open. I withdrew from industry peers; spending time online, calling friends and family, watching the news in my hotel room, fretting about the cost of the hotel. Finally, I sought out a local gay bar, "Temptations" in Franklin Park which is now closed, where I sat at the bar and watched the news with a handful of locals - just seeking human contact. A couple of days later, I gave up waiting for the airports to open, and set out for home in my rental car, figuring it was easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. It took me two days to get home; I made a big loop around the city. I am sure the rental car agencies had a couple of months spent untangling the mess of relocated cars from that week.

In hindsight, that week was a turning point for me personally. Although I had yet to admit it to myself, I was mid-transition between genders - still legally and working as a male, but looking much more female. Yet I had not really mapped out a formal transition plan; I was freelancing, playing it by ear. Years later, one of my clients who was also at the conference reported being asked "Why is that woman (me) wearing a man's suit?". And though I had not packed for clubbing or venturing out, a pair of jeans and a tee shirt were sufficient to put me in the female category over at the bar that week.

In the aftermath of the attacks, my annual trade show trip to Chicago (November 2001) was cancelled, and business / business travel dried up significantly. So I was able to spend the next 12 months holed up in my consulting office, working remotely, mostly out of sight of my clients and customers. A year later, in the fall of 2002, I begged out of the trade show again - because my affect was clearly too feminine to pass as male. I realized that, although I feared the impact of transitioning on my career and livelihood, not transitioning was having the same affect. So I rather quickly set a transition date (January 1, 2003), and continued to stay out of sight, not wanting to reinforce my male gender that close to transition.

This time I told my main client what was up; they had me out to their west coast facility in January 2003 to do some training as the new me. It was, in retrospect, a very kind and generous gift to my insecure self; their "nothing to see here, move along" attitude set a positive tone for almost all of my clients.

I know that a lot of folks had post 9-11 career or life crises. Many trans persons decided to find a support group, seek counseling, etc. That was not the case with me; I had been on this path for a good decade prior to 2001. But in some ways, the terrorist attacks of 2001 opened the doorway for me to take the steps I needed to take. The post 9-11 slowdown made my transition a lot less complicated and a lot more inevitable.

Reunion

Last evening was an overdue (31) reunion of the Marian High School class of 1979.

We've been reuniting sporadically over the years. 5 and 10, surely. Not sure if we had a 15 - if so I did not make it. We did a big deal at 20 (I was in attendance, probably right on the cusp of my big life change). And now here we are at 31. Can it have been that long?

A reasonable turn-out, 45 or so pre-registered out of a class of 160 and a few dropped in, but that (I think) includes a handful of spouses and SOs. Kudos to the folks who planned this (Dawne, Eileen, Jacqui....you rock!). It was nice to see old friends and schoolmates.

Always a little disappointing regarding who did not show - a lot of what might have passed for my posse (or at least the clump of kids I knew best, by dint of taking similar classes) were absent. Going through the yearbook now - Nancy, Keats, Mary, Jeff, Winifred, Claudette, Joyce, Rich, Kevin, Mike, Andrea, Cheryl, BJ, Maura, Jim, John. All you guys were missed, by me at least.

A few random observations. A couple of my classmates could have walked out of their yearbook photos and into the reunion - Dan, Kevin, Lisa, Marcia - you guys are timeless. Pushing 50 and you look like kids! Others seem to have grown a few inches - almost as if high school was diminishing and somewhere along the line they figured life out and grew into themselves - people you want for friends. Others have aged a bit but still bringing their spirit and energy forward from high school to now. And a handful changed quite a bit - often for the better. The women especially changed hairstyles and fashion, or grew into themselves.

All in all, the class seems to have done very well - lots of kids, interesting careers and lifestyles, lot of great energy. One might suspect a bit of selective filtering (the folks who made a point of coming were happy to be seen) but on the other hand, perhaps those missing have amazing lives that they were not willing to step away from for the reunion. So let's just call us a typical cross-section and say "bravo!"

Although "Most Changed" was not one of the class superlatives to be elected (thanks for trying, organizers!), I nevertheless accrued a significant write-in vote. Kind of hard to top my journey in terms of changes. Tee hee.

A lovely time. Thanks for your kind words everyone. I'll try not to be a stranger going forward.....

Dad

Mom sent an email last night. "APRIL 19 IS DAD'S ANNIVERSARY. PLEASE SAY A PRAYER! LOVE, MOM" - I so often forget, although I often hit a bit of a sad spot this time of year.

April 19, 1979, my father, William Joseph Russell, passed away. He was at (then named) Framingham Union Hospital, in the midst of an angioplasty attempting to repair a heart damaged by a series of heart attacks. He was not yet 45; missing his birthday by a few days - I'm older now than he ever was; if one were to believe in a corporal afterlife where one retained ones age at death, my dad would be my junior when next we met....

It is perhaps indicative of where we were at the time that none of us were at the hospital - Dad had been in and out of the hospital repeatedly over the past year or so; my sister and I had grown used to stopping by to see him after high school (right now the block from the hospital) and later finding him puttering around the house as he recovered. On some level, his infirmity had become an annoyance; we wanted to ignore it and hope it would clear up, and let us get back to our lives. So on some level, this procedure and his passing were just one more thing in a slow but seemingly inevitable slide that we had grown accustomed to.

I remember driving the family in his 1973 AMC Hornet to the hospital to see him - as the eldest child who had just turned 18 myself, I suddenly assumed a heavy mantle of family responsibility; Mom seemed in no condition to drive. At the hospital, I went in to see him; not sure if they kept him alive via machines until we got there or not, but it was clear that he was gone. I had learned well his lessons regarding torquing down on my emotions, and I did not cry even as I stood over my father's lifeless body.

I don't remember a whole lot about the next few days. I remember a little black humor with my family at the funeral home regarding caskets (Dad wouldn't want something too ostentatious, dad won't care, that sort of thing); I remember tucking a guitar pick into Dad's suit pocket; thanking him for my music. I remember a reception following the funeral at the house; not quite an irish wake but with some lightness and spirit. At my graduation a month or so later, mom presented me with a typewriter that she and dad had picked out together.

Not too long afterwards, I left for college, beginning the slow pulling away from family. My brother took over my bedroom soon thereafter and I slept on the couch or an empty bunk bed when I came home for vacations and summer. I kind of missed the mourning and getting used to a house with one less person in it. My family got a dog soon thereafter - Kyla was a mix of Coyote, Labrador, and Samoyed, she was a companion, protector, and friend - and came to live with me in CT in her dotage. I was with her when she died....

Dad has been in my mind to a greater and lesser extent over the years. I think we miss him most at those times of ceremony and ritual - holidays, graduations, weddings, births. Mom has watched over us kids in the years since - at this point she has lived as a single mother and widow much longer than she lived with her husband.

I certainly I have danced with his ghost in my therapy, on the mat, at various retreats, workshops, and ceremonies. I have moved from numbness to anger to grief; from resentment to pity. For many years I assumed I might follow his lead and expected an early death; my various transformations and personal growth has effaced that surety; I feel like I have a lot of life ahead of me. Death has not touched me much in the years since; having taken Dad, the reaper has been mostly silent these many years save for grandparents and an aunt.

Rest in peace, Dad. Miss you and love you. Not sure I have a prayer today, but you remain in memory; tears have been shed.

Saab Stories

This morning on Where We Live.

I always thought the passenger side mirror was developed due to Saabs (joke). Because back in the day (late 70s / early 80s) it seemed like if someone came screaming up and passed in the right lane, s/he was driving a Saab. Or sat on your bumper and flashed the headlights if one was not doing 20 mph over the limit. I've never quite shaken the stereotype of the Saab driver as being a bit of a speed demon / hothead, although certainly other cars have filled that wanna-be race car driver niche in ensuing years.

Glastonbury Kids

Popped over to Cinestudio this afternoon for the premiere of a local film, glastonburykids, by Justin Donais.

Was not really planning to go, but I heard a small piece on Colin McEnroe's show, and drove up that way to check my PO Box and get out of the house before the snow came. When all my likely places to hang out for a few hours came up empty, I remembered the film, and headed over to the Trinity campus.

Pretty interesting and resonant on a few counts.

First, I too was one of those kids who got into trouble young. Not quite so egregious or destructive, but my posse went out on what we called "maneuvers" which was typically some form of minor vandalism with a social, political, or arts purpose. So we (for example) drove in to Boston to spray paint rolling stones lips on a Kiss 108 billboard (the local disco station back in the late 70's) with the words CARS REVENGE, ostensibly a protest of Taste of Honey winning the Best new Artist Grammy over our beloved Cars. That the billboard was three stories up, clearly visible from the Mass Pike, and we needed to scale the building on the outside (through various sub roofs and levels) added to the charm / mystique. For the record, I think I got about two floors up my friend Jim and Kevin did the dirty work.

Another "maneuver" involved breaking in to the local state college gym, stealing the plywood sign that hung over the student section "The Pit" and placing it on the roof of the outside smoking area (also called The Pit) of our high school.

Our final maneuver came the summer following senior year. After a night of sign stealing (mostly road signs with our names) we took a "Now Entering Framingham" sign. En route back from that little escapade we noticed an A-frame sign outside a local (as opposed to national) fast food place; since several of us worked at McD's, we decided it would be funny to grab the sign and put it in front of our restaurant. Unfortunately the police were staking out an adjacent bank watched us (What the heck are those kids doing?) and we were busted.

We spent a night in jail, got booked (the booking officer was all excited I was going to WPI and told me to look up his brother if I needed help there), bailed ourselves out. One of our number that night had a lawyer dad who got the case Nolo'd and closed - we ended up with a few months probation and a fine. Somewhere in the bowels of Framingham Police files there is a mug shot of me with a red "I survived three mile island" tee-shirt. It was written up in the paper - "Burger Prank Foiled" was the headline - and we were damned lucky the cops did not search the car and find the beer or other signs we had pilfered that evening. Stupid kids.

I just remember standing beside my mom's bed that morning to let her know what happened as I headed off to court. My dad had passed away just a few months before and already her worst fears were coming true as her eldest (the smart one) was headed to court. Poor mom!

So, glastonburykids kind of resonated on that line. But in addition, I spent a long year ferrying my mentee back and forth to the same courthouse that the kids in the film went to - as she struggled with an arrest and probation related to a stupid answering machine threat (I believe the exact words were "I'll stab you with a fork in your throat, b*tch") she made to a drag queen from the Polo Club; the DQ's ex boyfriend (who lived in Glastonbury, coincidentally) was dating my mentee. This 19 year old called the cops on a 16 year old high school kid who lived 20 miles away and had no way to even get to Hartford, and the cops arrested her. What a joke.

So I trucked her back and forth to court - first for the initial charge, and later when they picked her up for violating parole (she assumed parole officers could be ignored the same way the school guidance counselors could - she assumed wrong). She spent a night in jail - and I went and bailed her out. So I get where these parents are coming from. I must have spent more than 20 hours in that courthouse over a year.

Back to glastonburykids - good documentary. Interesting to see how these kids of privilege (cell phones, cars, little supervision) were left to roam and get into trouble. Interesting to see how "jackass" style stunts went from stupid to dangerous to criminal. And the film-maker did a nice job of slowly revealing the scope (and criminal nature) of the kids stunts.

The film-maker and 4 of the subjects were there this afternoon. The kids (for the most part) seem like they've got their lives back on track, although interestingly one of the kids NOT busted at the time of the documentary sounded (from his statements after the film) to have gottne in trouble later. So perhaps it was just a matter of time for all of them.

Cassette Tapes - Fini

I've gone from about 200 cassettes to 100. I initially started to just toss 'em all, but thought better of it. There is some local and difficult to recreate history there - Berlin Airlift? The Stompers? Go Van Gogh? early Dar Williams (pre Honesty Room)? early David Johanssen? the New York Dolls? And I am envisioning a different life once I move into my own place - with hopefully space and time for more conscious music listening. So I decided to hang on to some stuff.

I ended up tossing anything (purchased or dubbed) that I had access to in another format (CD or digital). Tapes that folks have given me over the years that I never really listened to (mostly folk artists). Exceptions were made for Springsteen and The Clash. And I probably chucked a few things that I did not have another copy of but was not really interested in.

I ended up going over to the CD rack quite a few times. Do I really have Marc Cohn? Freedy Johnston? Specific Indigo Girls or Suzanne Vega CDs? Most often, yes, I did have them.

I was struck by some unusual trends. I'd consider myself a big Warren Zevon fan - yet I only have two CDs - Greatest Hits and his penultimate Sentimental Journey. His debut and Excitable Boy - cassette only. Similarly, a lot of Neil Young on cassette only (although a lot of CDs as well) - because back in the day I'd find and buy his stuff in the cut-out bin. The Clash (as I mentioned) - all their stuff through Sandanista on cassette. I do not own any Talking Heads except on cassette. I think I own one John Hiatt CD (greatest hits) yet probably 3 or 4 dubbed cassettes (my ex, I recall, was a big fan). I own no Joni Mitchell, yet 4 of her early works made it into my dubbed cassette collection.

And a lot of the dubbed stuff that I copied from vinyl (long since sold) - I remember owning the albums. So a little bit of a trip down memory lane. And I still have a dozen or so cassettes of my usical history (a tape of a sophomore year in college jam session, an entire evening of music (180 minutes) at the Westboro KofC hall, a tape of studio recorded songs, and perhaps a 6-8 tapes of me solo - open mics recorded from the board or just hacking around with a small cassette recorder. need to go through those more carefully.

A more or less successful cleansing. Although later tonight I was in the basement working on another project in preparation for the move and found a showbox full of more cassettes. Doh! I went through those as well....

Peter Anthony is Leaving

Allow me to reminisce about my friend Peter Anthony, on the cusp of his departure for his homeland of Australia.

I met Peter back around 1990. Coming off a separation, I had started to venture out to an open mike in Bristol, held at a charming dive called "The Common Ground". Sunday nght was folk night (I saw folks like Dar Williams, The Nields, and Aztec Two Step) and Monday nights, Jon Lewis ran an open mike. I'd show up, perform a few songs (mostly covers, although I wrote a couple myself), drink a few pints, and play pool on a ridiculous bar table (small, with all sorts of walls and poles to interfere with shots) as I listened to the other musicians. It was a friendly place albeit a bit rough around the edges; we musicians all came to know each other and watch out for each other amidst the regulars. One of the other musicians was Peter Anthony.

Never could quite figure out Peter. When he first started, he played a beat up guitar held together with duct tape. Perhaps I imagined this but it often seemed to be missing a string or two. His playing did not seem to suffer - Peter could drag more emotion and energy out of a single guitar string than anyone I've met. He'd wander around the stage and one worried he might fall off the stage in a bit of instrumental reverie. If he was sans guitar, he would borrow one, and I occasionally worried about my guitar coming back to me in one piece (it always did).

Peter was Australian, and would occasionally be introduced as the Aussie Bob Dylan. In truth, he was somewhere in the mold of Paul Kelly, Billy Bragg, perhaps a little Richard Thompson.

Peter wrote, or perhaps reworked, some amazing songs. I say reworked because he'd often lead in with "This is a Paul Kelly song that I changed the words, and the music, to" so one was never quite sure of a song's provenance. "One More Boring Thursday Night in Adelaide" was Peter's masterpiece - we'd call for it as a closer to his set. A rollicking anthem, (think Springsteen's Jungleland, but more colorful). "The Shots are Getting Bigger" was, to my mind, the best drinking song ever written by a person who does not imbibe. "Begger on the Street of Love" would make one weep into one's pint glass. "Reckless" was just plain beautiful. "Pouring Petrol on a Burning Man" made one want to stomp feet and play conga's on the table. I am sure there are others (newer songs, less ingrained into my head) - he had quite the canon.

Over the years, I've connected with Peter at various acoustic music venues and open mikes. The Common Ground closed, and the open mike moved down to The Chunky Tomato for a time. The late Equinox Cafe (think that was the name, it's been years) in Manchester. Klekolo's in Middletown. Roaring Brook Nature Center. There were others. Peter would disappear for a while (and I did my own share of disappearing) and then I'd get a call or an email about a gig, and I'd go and listen.

Peter was, and is, a bit of an enigma - I think he'd concur, and proudly. He's been a copy editor at Forbes (ironic, given how politically left he seems), edited the Hartford Business Journal, a chef, a waiter. He has a rainbow flag tattoo on his inner arm. He carries a somewhat rumpled, tattered affect of someone who has perhaps slept in his clothes, or maybe just could not be bothered to fold them after laundering, and is too fond of that old flannel shirt to let a bit of wear and a few holes preclude putting it on. A rogue, a poet, a wise fool, a kind heart. Peter is all those things.

Peter's heading home, to Australia. He's had the bad fortune to come down with some chronic health issues, in a country with no real safety net or health system. So he's heading back home. Ironic that in the 21st century, the folk musicians are emigrating away from this "land of opportunity" - in years gone by the tale of a young lad or lass heading to America to escape famine and poverty became the stuff of folk music.

I'm hopefully getting together with Peter tomorrow morning - one last time. Perhaps the last time I will see him; Australia is a helluva long way from Connecticut, and neither of us has a lot of traveling left in us. But you never know.....

Peter has touched my life with his music, his smile, his impish nature, his fragility. Even though I only see him now and then, I'll miss him. And though I've lost family members and friends; it has been many years since I've said goodbye. I imagine I have many good-byes ahead of me as family and friends begin to age; this seems like the opening shot in the long good-bye.

A few tears then, for an old friend.