(not)Walkabout Thoughts #97d - A Teen's College Tales from 1973

Still on the strength training. 91 degrees here today.

Yesterday, I kind of went down a rabbit hole that took up most of my day. I found a blog I wrote in 2010 about my experience at the UW in 1973, in trying to get in there, taking my SATs, and time I spent the night before at the Zeta Psi frat over Christmas holiday vacation, with the frat's president and treasurer. I'll never forget it.

One night in 1973 at a UW Frat house

Zeta Psi Fraternity, University of Washington, Seattle

I jist thought I'd read it to see if I had forgotten things. I'd forgotten a few things. This is why after all, we write, film, or document our lives so we can remember what really happened. 

So I thought I'd edit that 2010 blog, add some things, and repost it.

I knew I had taken photos back then and thought I'd update the blog and add those photos. So I went through my old photos today and found them. I scanned them in, they have always been pretty foggy or not great due to bad lighting. I enhanced the photos as we now have the capability to enhance them in ways we did not have in the 70s.

I put them in the blog. When I looked at them, I was quite pleased.

I had been wondering when I had gone to the UW to take my SATs. Something I had never planned on, never studied for. In looking at the photos, however, I solved the case. Christmas decorations were up at the frat house. I was leaning toward thinking it was the Thanksgiving holiday, but apparently not. Case solved. 

I find little things like this very rewarding. 

I've never been a "tech bro" or a "frat boy" type. I'd never have considered joining a frat. It wasn't my idea as the blog attests to. But once I got involved, and checked it out, it seemed to my 18 year old self a pretty interesting idea. An adventure. 

I've always been into adventures. It's how I got into Civil Air Patrol Search and Rescue in junior high. I think all the sci fi books I read when I was young. Those my grandmother used to read to me before I could read. I was just into the adventure. Into an alternative to my boring life in 1960s Tacoma, Washington. I could do more in life, I wanted to do more.

Actual friends from the screenplay  ©1973 me

In my true crime/drama screenplay, "The Teenage Bodyguard" people (the producer & interviewed directors) who kept misunderstanding the main character's orientation that: "He just wants the girl," or "it's about sex", or "it's a teen romp", were the typical orientations. However, it was actually just about, boredom. Seeking adventure. Escape from a boring life that kills a person's life. The photo above has the protagonist on the right (the "teenage bodyguard"), and his friend on the left. 

The problems as I've experienced it in life weren't the adventures or even the dangers, but the misadventures. 

But that's part of the charm. Escaping the boredom into adventures, even "adventures" many perhaps wouldn't label as such, escaping from the dangers, or misadventures the adventure can turn into. Often because of ignorance, Selective Ignorance (there is good SI and very bad SI: MAGA), ill will, or simply the stupidity of others. Much as we see in politics today. 

And that's the issue. 

Anyway...it's an interesting blog on an late teen's adventures into the university and fraternity system.

Cheers1 Sláinte!

One night in 1973 at a UW Frat house

Walkabout Thoughts #77

Thoughts & Stream of Consciousness, rough and ready, from an award-winning filmmaker and author you’ve never heard of, while walking off long Covid, and listening to podcasts…

...walking day is 5/22/2024 (I would have had this out sooner, I just forgot about it and got wrapped up in watching the Kevin Spacey doc, and the 2 parts of The Jinx, and associated "All Good Things" film that I thought was better than its ratings).

 
Weather for the day… starting out, 56° cloudy, cool starting out 59° when I got home at noon.

Podcast WTF? Marc Maron Episode 1540 - Daniel Stern.

Then, Pod Save America, Ep., Trump Promises "A Unified Reich"

So, a little cool today. This week I noticed I’m not really feeling long Covid anymore. A few days ago I had a couple of glasses of wine with spaghetti for lunch. After a day's break from alcohol, I then had the rest of it with lunch yesterday

But I’m noticing a core feeling of feeling good. Like I’m feeling healthy again in spurts, every once in a while, a few times a day, a flash of better health. Just this deep feeling of...normal. Today is the day, it's been six weeks since I had a 3 day course of Paxlovid for my 3rd Covid infection. So I’m hoping it stays this way.

It was really hard to do the 1st mile today. At the beginning of every walk lately, there’s a... I don’t know, a tightness maybe, in my chest? After the first half mile or so it goes away. Not sure what that is. I think it’s a lack of exercise.

I’m now finishing my 3rd mile, after my first I didn’t feel like doing another mile. But I'd like to do 5 miles today.

I was really sick of this past winter and I’m really tired of this spring so far. Another week or two and this weird schizophrenic weather should settle down into summer, or so it looks anyway.

I noticed there's one book in the free little library kiosk today. Really makes me wonder if somebody sketchy didn’t just take all the books one day and sell them at a used bookstore. Maybe hitting a bunch of kiosks on the same day. We have some meth addict types around. You can’t miss them when they’re lurking through the streets looking pretty bad and obviously casing cars and houses. 

On this podcast, it’s a pretty good one because just about everybody knows this character actor Daniel SternDaniel Stern (most famously from Joe Peschi's accomplice in "Home Alone"). His stories about who he’s worked with and how he got started are pretty fun and interesting, especially if you’re into film.

I realized I’m very good at and have skills for a couple of things that have been very handy in my life. I’m very good at taking some thing that’s "there" and seeing its weaknesses and gems within that need to be polished. And that’s really all writing is. I mean you have got to write that first draft. Even if it’s a shitty first draft, on the second go around you can fix that. Only a couple of times in my life have I written a first draft that was just unfixable.

I realized that’s kind of what I did with my kids in raising them. Trying to take what they had and helped them make it better, rather than force them into what I wanted them to be or think that they should be. Thought I do think a parent needs to do a little of that, too.

I do want to mention that Saturday or maybe it was Friday night, I was looking for something to watch and started the Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended edition, which is like four hours for each movie. When I finished that on Sunday, I started on The Hobbit and finished that yesterday. I think I'd forgotten the last 40 minutes of The Hobbit movie.

I realized that I first read The Hobbit 54 years ago. I was 14 in 10th grade in my first year of high school. My cousin, who went to a different school, was a year behind me even though we’re separated by only three months. My mother said when she found I could start 1st grade because of my birthdaite, that was it, I was starting school to give her a break at home.

My cousin had suggested I read this book she thought I would like, "The Hobbit". I had been reading books incessantly for years. I would get grounded a lot as a child and would just go to my room and pick up a book and I’m suddenly... not in my bedroom. 

Anyway, I started showing up early to school and would go into our theater on the balcony at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington and would sit there and read until the bell rang. When I finished that book and raved about it, she said, "Well, since you loved The Hobbit so much..." and she gave me Lord of the Rings to read. Which was a shock. Because I loved The naivete The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings was a starkly more grown-up book. But after I got into LOR, I eventually grew to love it.

Getting drizzled on every now and then. I have to say I like it a little cooler. When it’s too warm out anymore, when I used to love hiking in the heat… Probably because of my age now it doesn’t react on me very well. I figure 1 mile in this weather is like 2 miles miles when it’s 70 something.

On the podcast...it’s interesting to hear him talk about the movie "Diner" (1982). And what he has to say about Paul ReiserPaul Reiser on that and how the Director Barry Levinson almost tossed the script. But they ended up sitting and shooting for a month, the actors talking in the diner, kind of following Paul Reiser‘s lead, who just came up with great shit in the moment. Then when he saw the film, finally, he was surprised to see that most of the film was just them riffing at a diner while embedded within the plot.

Finally, at the end of the podcast, they get to the reason why he’s there, which is that he wrote a book: “Home and Alone”.

For some reason, I was just thinking about missed opportunities...I've mentioned before some of those in business/art. I'd written a mainframe word processing manual when I worked for University of Washington's MCIS that was successful at two major hospitals (the then UW Hospital, now UWMC and its associated Harvorview Medical Center both now UW Medicine). But Digital Equipment Corporation killed it, because I broke the cardinal sin of pointing out "bugs" in their software. they could be vindictive as their company slowly disintegrated back in the late 80s. 

But here I was thinking of romantic missed opportunities...

In the mid 80s I worked in Seattle at the Tower Video, Mercer Street store with Jeff AmentJeff Ament of Pearl JamPearl Jam. Back then he was with Green River. He was our media buyer. I’ve told the story before. Jeff turned his position over to me as I was taking that on additionally since I was also a supervisor and I lived with the manager. 

Mark and I had moved up from Tacoma Tower stores where we had worked at Tower Records together and then Tower Video when he opened it and I had just graduated from Western Washington University up north past Seattle in Bellingham, near the Canadian border. Mark began at Records while I was still in the USAF. 

I began at Tower Posters next-door to earn some extra money aside from my VA educational benefits check. I got my AA degree at Ft Steilacoom Community College (now Pierce College),  with full college accreditation which we knew it was headed toward when I was going there. It was rated the best Comm. Col. in the state then. After I graduated I was done. I was surprised I'd even gotten a college degree. My girlfriend was going to go to a university so I thought I'd tag along. I had also promised her I'd get her through college. So we moved up to Western in Bellingham.

Anyway, Jeff said he wanted make a real effort at being a musician. So he was quitting his Tower job. I’ve always wanted to see him play, but I wasn’t making much money and I had no money for a concert ticket to see his band. Which obviously I regret, now. I kept hoping he would say, "Hey if you want to come see the band, I’ll get you in." I would’ve definitely gone. But he was very humble and maybe too humble to think I might want to see his stupid band. Which is funny because he’ll never know how bad I wanted to see his band. Living with the manager I held a weird position in the store. People were intimidated by that. Which I eventually won people over. But it took a while.

Anyway, I went down the street from Tower at lunch one day to get a gyro at the Greek place up Mercer St., and had a Celebrator Doppelbock beer (a beer that always made me feel very good and happy).It some with a plastic goat on a string and I would tie them to my buttons. An employee one day confessed they could tell how easy going I'd be after lunch by how many goats were tied to my shirt. I stopped doing that.

When I returned from lunch that day, an employee came up to me and said, "Hey Jeff was here looking for you." I questioned him on that because it didn’t make sense. But he said, "Come on. I know Jeff and he was here looking for you. I told him you were at lunch and so he left." I was bummed. I'd always liked Jeff.

So there is an opportunity I will never know what the hell it was about. As I remember it most of us at Tower were partiers. But Jeff didn’t smoke weed and said he wasn’t into drugs and stuff. He wanted to be a serious musician and I always respected that and his desire to go on to be one and get somewhere. And I told him that the day he told me he was quitting, that "Of everybody who worked at our three tower stores, if anyone could make it, it would be him. He seemed touch deeply by that. He looked down and thought and then looked at me and said “I really, really appreciate that man. Thanks” and I told him, 'Well it’s true and I really believe it."

Another missed opportunity…

When I worked at Tower Posters this really attractive redhead started working there. Summertimes she would put on a bikini and at lunchtime go out and lie on her car good, on a blanket in the sun, in the big parking lot. It was kind of intimidating to the other girls who worked at the store who would complain about it. But  none of the guys who worked there had a problem with it.

Then I switched to Tower Records next door. One night she showed up on a late shift on a slow night and tried to talk me into driving her to Seattle to see a band at the Paramount Theatre.

I was living alone at the time. My girlfriend had gone to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, south of Spokane.. She wanted to be a veterinarian but going through some things, being 18 and her firs time away from home. She was seeing guys and it kind of hurt. So we took a break from our relationship in order to possibly save our relationship. I'd been married and divorced, through the USAF. So I felt she just needed to get her freedom exercised if we were going to have a relationship at all. 

So that night that really good-looking redhead and I drove to Seattle. We park and go to the theatre and then she tells me we need tickets. I was like, "Wait, you brought me up here and you don’t have tickets?" Did I say she was really good-looking? So we (that is I) bought some from tickets from a scalper on the corner, two tickets I think were $20 (and left me nearly broke). I warned him, "If these are counterfeit, because I know that’s going around, I’m coming back for you." But he said, "No man they’re real," and he just seemed honest, so I bought them and we went inside and MotorheadMotorhead was playing. Lemmie, right there on stage. I didn't really know them at that time but at least I can say I was at one of their concerts and saw Lemmie on stage! All we saw was a sea of long black hair banging up and down in unison. Your traditional "headbangers" concert in 1981. I wasn’t as much into Motorhead then as I was somewhat more years later. But we just stood there in the back for about 15 minutes until she finally said, "Do you want to go? This really isn’t my taste of music." I wanted to stay, but I also really wanted to "get to know her better." So we left.

So I drive her home. I was having high hopes for us getting together that night. I know my girlfriend at a university far away was seeing other guys and I kind of wanted to build a buffer to that by dating some women myself. So when we got to her place, I walked her to her door when she said, "Thanks goodnight." Hey, I tried to talk my way in but it wasn't going to work. She was very cute and flirty, but it wasn't happening.

So I said goodnight and drove off. But I only got about a mile away when the car ran out of gas. I used to have that problem with that old 67 Impala beater. You had to guess about when the tank was actually empty and I never had much money. The days of putting a dollar or two in the tank, when gas was about about $1.19 a gallon.

I had grown up, first started driving in the early 70s when gas was around 30 cents a gallon. Good times in high school when you literally COULD search your couch for spare change that fell out of people's pockets and find enough to go for a drive. Now you seem to need to take a loan out for that. I went through the gas shortage years when the price bounced up to around a dollar a gallon. And people were not happy about it or OPEC.

So humiliated, I walked back to her place. She wasn’t buying that I ran out of gas. But I convinced her. Apparently, she and her younger sister lived with their dad and he was away on a business trip. She made me promise to stay in his bedroom. I was like, "Yeah fine whatever I just don’t wanna walk home at like midnight." So I got up the next morning and this extremely cute younger girl maybe 15(?) comes walking through and it’s her younger sister. They made me breakfast and I walked to the car and then walked to a gas station, got some gas and drove home.

Cut to that next year. My girlfriend had trouble with alcohol ("Wazzu" is a famous party school that Playboy that next year rated as a "professional party school that was not eligible for rating in their annual university party school rating", and she was up for two DUIs. Wazzu students would drive across the Idaho border where the drinking age went from 21 to 19. So her lawyer got her a deal and she moved home with me where I promised I would get her through the next three years of college. And I did. So we were then living together, and I’m working at night, and guess who shows up but the redhead. I'd always and since had a thing that I avoided redheads as "trouble". Good and fun trouble, but would ineventialy lead to not so great troubles. And I'm half Irish, so... 

So she shows up at work at Tower Records and wants me to go with her again. It seems obvious this is the night that I’m gonna get lucky with this woman. Finally. But too late.

I point out to her, "you’re too late. I live with my girlfriend now and I can’t do this. Had you gone for it last year it would have been an entirely different thing." That was painful. But I have self-respect so...I was polite and then went back to my cash register shift with my back to the giant glass pane window, front wall of Tower Records. I swear to God… I and another guy were at the register and it was a very slow night which didn't help things. As she sat in her car just outside the window behind me for a half hour, pouting and staring at me. Until finally I noticed, she had left. I never saw her again.

Missed opportunities…

Just switched over to Pod Save America because the WTF? podcast is over

We need to add some standards to our government requirements. Like you shouldn’t be able to be president if you’re convicted of a federal crime. I am for forgiveness, but with Trump...come on. 

And with the Supreme Court Justices there have to be ethics rules and with some fucking teeth.

OK, I did it. I made 5 miles again, finally! It’s been a while.

Two other things the podcast just mentioned. There’s a lot of Trump forcing his attorney's hands on his defense team and it’s pretty obvious because they keep doing things like asking for dismissal, which is just making them all look stupid.

And second, if you swap Biden in Trump‘s place for this trial and the shit Trump's pulled during his trial, the double standard would be obvious as Biden would be getting incessantly attacked because he's supposed to be the adult and actual law and order person between the two of them. Even though for decades, the Republican Party claimed to be THE party of law and order. Even though it’s actually just a party of toxic, capitalism and big business. Whatever...

On that note, I’ll bid you adieu…and leave you with that. 

It’s noon and time for lunch.

As always, I wish you all, all the greatest success and good health!
Just put in the time and effort for those successes.
Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!

New Musical Artist - Amanda Dewell

Amanda "Cat" Dewell, remember that name.

Live It Outloud! is a Ted Brown Music outreach program and a Rock Music Summer School out of Tacoma, WA. My sister's husband Joe Wilson is deep into running it, or helping run it. I'm not quite sure how that works out and it's pretty unimportant for our purposes here today.

I wrote about this last year and the year before when I went to their final concerts. It's about sixty miles for me to get there so that says something. Not a real long trip but more than popping down to the local theater. And it was great fun just to hang out and see everyone, too.

That first concert assured that I would see the second one, and so I did. I'll be there again, next time, too. I had a great time and the kids and their bands were very entertaining. Some of them unbelievably professional for their age and a few bands about ready to be touring. What is important here are the kids and how positively this is affecting them.

This is an awesome project!

Joe has been very pleased with the talents of these kids and those who excel in the program. Particularly one exceptional individual that I would like to point out here. I met her briefly at the first and second concert and she is very sweet and still quite young. Which makes her talent, all the more amazing. 

Perhaps I'll just let Joe talk about her in his own words:

"Years 2011, 2012, 2013 - Amanda Dewell AKA Cat Dewell. Available on Amazon and YouTube.

"Amanda came to us, an 11 yr old seemingly very shy girl, dressed like a rocker, (with the added dimension of also dressing in “Hello Kitty” Pj’s and slippers at times) and surprised everyone with a rendition of “Misery” by Paramore the first year.

"2012’s concert saw her play the cello and perform “Broken”. The audience appeared fixated on this young girl who wrote lyrics and melody to a song orchestrated with Jonathan Irwin. The appeal of that song got the attention of Mark Simmons at Pacific Studios, members of the Vicci Martinez band and a recording session was born. That song was subsequently made into a simple video that garnered 8000+ views in 6 months.

"Surprised at the reaction a decision was made to finish an EP, “Notes From the Out Crowd” and was released on iTunes, Amazon and all the other digital services the 1st of April. She was contacted by a lawyer in Seattle who worked for Nirvana and all the rest of the grunge scene at Sub-Pop Records during her 16 year tenure.

"She is looking into sync- licensing some of Amanda’s work for Television, Film and other venues. We’re learning how all this works and are privileged to have Amanda help us on this journey that will help other musicians in the program, past and present, find a way to get their music heard. Amanda will finish her album this summer with a release date in September."

And so, congrats to Cat! Congrats to Joe and the others behind the scenes!
Check her out and keep watching....

UPDATE 8/9/2015 - Cat's new CD should be available sometime in September 2015.