Have you seen Cameron Crowe's documentary: "Pearl Jam Twenty."
I'm so pissed about that. No, not the documentary. Just about my past. No maybe it didn't nearly kill me, but it did remind me of some things that nearly had.
First let me say that Pearl Jam is playing their first Seattle show in nine years on August 8th, 2018 in two days. I've blogged before about working with their bassist Jeff Ament at Tower Video back in the 80s when he was playing with his band Green River and before Mother Lovebone. Jeff was a great guy to work with, always a smile, always positive. I was his supervisor and when he left he turned his position as media buyer over to me. A job I'd also had at the Tacoma Tower Video store just after graduating from university and one I took in Seattle to be the top Tower media buyer worldwide at one point.
I sat there watching the documentary with its footage of the Seattle, remembering how I lived near downtown during the 80s, just being frustrated. So I thought it might be interesting to blog about it and get it off my chest. Maybe something will be interesting to someone. Or maybe someone will appreciate the frustration of what I went through. Especially, in hindsight.
I was working at Tower Video Mercer store in Seattle. I've mentioned all this before, but this time it is in the context of what Crowe's doc was all about.
At some point in the documentary they talk about Eddie's first time with the band, how they came together. Eddie was talking about his dad, saying he hadn't known who his dad was until after he was dead. In a way, I could relate. I knew my dad, but hardly. His choice I'm made to believe.
With all the documentary had to show, with my past, our city we lived in, in knowing Jeff, Ament (Pearl Jam bassist), in working with him at Tower Video, in his having passed on his position as media buyer to me, in my having missed out on all that was going on in Seattle mostly because I had no money, and so little adventure left to me back at that time. Trapped by nearly everyone I knew living in Tacoma or Bellingham, where I so recently had received my university degree in Psychology, as well as a minor in creative writing in fiction and screen and script writing.
But at that time I was at the bottom. I even came close to killing myself during those drug fueled days, those wild 1980s. But that's another story.
I remember showing up one day at the Video store and one of our employees whom I was close to, came in on her day off. She was hyper, there was blood all over her jeans, there was toilet paper taped to her wrists. It was obvious the kind of night she had. There were a lot of people in the store at that time. The girl she was living with was there.
I called her over. She came up to me, at the bar there, the effective barrier between the customers and their needs all day every day, and ourselves. I asked if she was okay. She said she was. I said, what is that about? She said, it's just what happened, why should I hide it? I looked around, everyone was busy, I pulled back the sleeves on my black jacket so she could see the toilet paper taped to my left wrist. Her eyes opened big, she looked at her writs, then at mine. Her eyes beckoned a question.
"You too? YOU? Why?" She was echoing my own questions. We both thought the other had the world by the tail. Funny how we misperceive reality in someone we know fairly well.
We both survived that experience. We talked about it, briefly. We both walked away and lived to this day.
Many filtered through Tower stores in Seattle back in those days. Bands did "in stories", signing things, selling albums.
Playboy playmates also did in stores. One I even got to go up to the Space Needle at midnight with for drinks. Teri Weigel was her name. She was like most playmates I met, smart, vivacious, personable and a surprise to some, very professional. It was drinks with her across the table from her and her playboy handler, as well as about six other Tower people, including the district manager, a rather slimy little man, no one much liked who worked with him.
I still have the photo Teri congoled me into taking with her around here somewhere but as I'm still moving into my new house at this time, my main hard drive is still in a box in the basement until I can open enough boxes to have room to set up our new sound studio that we will use to produce more new audiobooks of my stories and perhaps record some local musicians who have shown some interest.
Teri was engaged to a guy back home, a secret she only shared with my apartment mate's / store manager's soon to be fiancee, wife and then ex wife. I was to be his best man, as he was eventually mine with my own soon to be fiancee, then wife, my son's mother and eventually my own ex wife.
Those were wild times. Weed, alcohol and drug fueled times. One night stands, multiple night stands, but never quite enough. Adventure thankfully came to us at Tower.
One night I looked up as I was putting away video tape boxes on the "floor" of the store, the public area where people chose their films for the night and realized that at 6'2", I was being dwarfed, not by one, but by about six other guys. It was daunting. Stunned I wandered back to the counter where I asked an employee, "What the hell is going on?" One of them came to my aide saying, "Don't you recognize half of the Seattle Sonics Basketball team? They're hanging at one of their homes and just in for some tapes to watch."
But no. I hadn't recognized them. It was surreal. An odd feeling being the little guy in an entire room. But it was a relief nonetheless to find a reason I was feeling so very tiny all of a sudden.
There were times that rock bands were in the store also looking for videos to watch on their off times. Or sometimes they'd just stop by to hang out and chat. One time I caught the lead singer of one well known local band (Mud Honey? No, I don't think that was them... Soundgarden? Metal Church? Maybe?) on top of one of our store counters, acting the front man in an empty store, just feeling good and having a good day. There were some bizarre scenes at times in that store, now long gone.
It would seem just about everyone showed up at Tower Video for films to watch. Bruce Springsteen's manager showed up one night to get Bruce some films.
One night I was wandering around downtown by myself and almost ducked into a dance club I'd never been in that was down some stairs, but instead I moved on. I kept hesitating, something pulling me into that place, but I didn't go. Mostly for lack of money. I could have gotten in, but that would have defined my night. Instead I hit a few other places. When I got to work the next day, I discovered that had I gone in, Gwen Stefani and band No Doubt had been there dancing the night away.
So much was happening all around me during those years and somehow, I missed most of it. But then, had I been working at some retail outlet other than Tower, I probably would have missed all of it.
Getting back to Crowe's documentary...
I do have to say it was a pleasure and yet a rather painful thing to watch. So many memories of those years flooded back to me, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. All those things I missed that were all around me back in those days was devastating. I knew things were going on back in those days, but not to the extent to which I missed out of so very much. I was at one point at my lowest point in my life which in part explains why so much zipped by me. And so in that sense, it was great to see just what all was going on in Seattle at that time.
Crowe's produced a great little documentary and if you have any interest in the Seattle music scene or to be sure, Pearl Jam or the bands associated with their coming together originally, it's definitely something to check out.
But then, those are what memories indeed are, aren't they....
#concert #PearlJam #Seattle #Tower
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