Whichever Way the Wind Blows

Last summer I was introduced to reruns of a show from the early 90s named Tropical Heat, or as it was known in the US, Sweating Bullets – a part of Crimetime After Primetime *.  It was a basic private detective TV show set in on a fictional Florida Key, kind of a Rockford Files updated for the 90s.  I had not previously heard of it.  It took me several episodes to warm to it.  The show was a low budget affair that recycled a lot of actors that are often cringe worthy.  It was clearly a vehicle for fist fighting action and bikini clad women and the shirtless hero, Nick Slaughter, in sunny tropical beach environs.  I became obsessed.  When I first heard the terrible, reggae-lite theme song, all of my sensibilities rejected it, but soon enough, I began watching the opening of the show regularly on YouTube just to listen to the song.

 

Strangely I began to feel wistful while watching these subpar episodes of a show that I couldn’t find anyone who had ever even heard of before.  It reminded me of my late high school years, when I had mostly given up sleep and would find myself getting weepy over a silly plot from The Patty Duke Show at 3AM.  I tried chalking it up to spending too much time alone, but this felt deeper.  I began to feel an emotional attachment to all of it – the main characters, the environment, that awful theme - rivalling long lost happy memories, as one might reflect on a summer fling from a teenage week spent at a fun away camp – déjà vu. 

 All of this felt wrong to me.  Why?  Why was this stupid show getting to me?  Eventually, it dawned on me that I have a history of highly rating superfluous TV shows and movies.  Like the aforementioned Patty Duke Show.  The movie I’ve seen more than any other is the late 70s Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn vehicle Foul Play, though the original Fletch is a close second.  For years I have claimed that Ski School and its odd sequel, Ski School 2, are my favorite movies ever.  I’ve always said this with a sardonic tongue in my cheek, but knowing full well that I’d rather watch those than a universally acknowledged masterpieces. 

The answer I’ve come up with is that many of these characters, like the misfit ski school hero gang Section 8, Fletch, and Nick Slaughter are all wise cracking goofballs who say and do what they want – consequences be damned.  Of course they all have hearts of gold, but it’s the chaos they create with their honesty and combination of no bullshit and lack of concern for serious consequences that I find so appealing.  In Ski School, the thesis statement of the movie is: “in order to succeed you must lose your mind.”  Rumor has it that there may not have been a script, which would surprise no one who has seen the movie. 

I have lived my life following rules.  I’ve always been wound pretty tight.  One time my friend Wil convinced me to hop the commuter train for a few stops without paying the fare, and the entirety of the trip (<10 minutes), I was sweaty, itchy, and terrified.  Towards the end of our journey a pair of security guards boarded the train and my anxiety about being caught pushed me into a full on panic attack.  I didn’t get drunk or high growing up – not out of any kind of moral or health stance, but for fear of losing control.  This must be why characters who throw caution to the wind have such an appeal for me.  I’m not talking thrill seeking behavior, like skydiving or what not, I’m talking about those who challenge authority, when authority is in the way of justice - whatever that means. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that these shows and movies I’m referencing are very of their time and incredibly unrealistic.  There can be an uncomfortable level of misogyny, lack of diversity, and of course a prevailing white male privilege – I mean, only a white guy could get away with being such a wise-ass malcontent to the police or any authority and avoid any consequences right?  Newspaper reporter Fletch broke all of the rules AND essentially gives the middle finger to the police chief, Nick Slaughter regularly mocks the local police, the mischief making misfits from Ski School constantly play cruel pranks on essentially everyone and when confronted with possible retribution, simply double down and intensify their wacky pranks and beer consumption.  The only threatened reprimand for their misdeeds is that their skiing privileges will be taken way, so the inevitable conclusion is: “They can’t stop us from partying, so they can’t stop us from skiing.”  I’m also aware that these ridiculous characters would be frustrating in real life.  Whatever charm they may have would burn away the instant that they get you involved in some kind of horrific street fight, or worse. 

After slowly working my way through watching the entirety of the show Tropical Heat, I learned that there had been a documentary made in 2012 named Slaughter Nick for President, which chronicles lead actor Rob Stewart’s visit to Serbia fifteen years after the show’s demise.  Apparently, this show had developed a cult popularity in Serbia during the 1990s civil war in the former Yugoslavia.  It seems that the sunny environs and freewheeling, yet doggedly loyal, lead character, Nick Slaughter, resonated with some of the populace in amongst that country’s darkest days.  I think I managed to tap into this strange idealism in some small way. 

 

Recognizing that I have had a buttoned up fascination with the idea of being more of a risk taker has been valuable.  At this stage of my life, I’ve grown to be content with who I am to a certain level.  I do not want to push the envelope too far and suffer very real consequences from stupid actions – I never have – but now I refuse to feel regret over risks not taken.  Perhaps I can simply enjoy watching these goofy shows, enjoy watching the freedom that these fictional characters exhibit, and do my best to take small leaps every once in a while. 

My refusal to stream movies and be involved with all of the high quality television available today frustrates a lot of people.  I clearly watch way too much TV, but I have little patience for getting involved with something that demands time and attention.  I like my rabbit ears sketchily picking up broadcast channels mostly airing old family friendly reruns and other formulaic shows.  If I can watch Tropical Heat reruns on channel 29.4 most evenings and daydream about being a reckless hero, then you know what?  I’m good with that. 

 

 

 

 

* 

·        In 1991, the CBS television network had abandoned their many failed attempts at competing with NBC’s late night talk show dominance against Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show with similar talk shows hosted by a variety of celebrities.  Instead, they began filling that post late local news programming slot with a bunch of “edgy” hour long crime dramas that they advertised as Crimetime After Primetime.  Other than seeing the occasional promotion for these shows, I never bothered to watch any of them.  They were all unceremoniously canceled after a couple of years, as soon as CBS scored a deal with David Letterman to host a talk show against the Tonight Show.  The only show (I think) that survived was the colorful and titillating cop procedural Silk Stalkings, which moved to the cable channel USA and thrived throughout the entirety of the 90s.  At any rate, back then, I became obsessed with the idea of Crimetime After Primetime and would find any excuse to say it in my best gravelly  and deep announcer voice.  I have a strange memory of practicing the voice alone in a public restroom with especially interesting acoustics and emerging to a couple of mystified onlookers.

 

This Wreckage

Recently, I finished reading Mark Baumgarten’s 2012 profile of Olympia, Washington’s venerable K Records Love Rock Revolution: K Records and the Rise of Independent Music (Sasquatch) and Mike White’s 2015 book about Bristol England’s Popkiss: The Life and Afterlife of Sarah Records (Bloomsbury) and they got me to thinking.  Not only did they both bring back a lot of memories of my nascent explorations and discoveries of the so-called indie music scenes around the US and UK in the late 80s.  I was still young and exploring my tastes in music, books, movies, and culture in general, but what encountering these two labels, learning about the early punk and post-punk histories of the burgeoning “college rock” bands I already loved by then, as well as San Francisco punk labels and mail-order services such as Shredder, Tupelo, Communion, Allied and Blacklist did for me is teach me about independence and the spirit of doing things for one’s own.  Sure, this idea is old-hat now.  There’s even a TV channel named D.I.Y. that’s been around forever, but it’s not the D.I.Y. part that intrigues me as much anymore, because these days it’s all so much easier.  As Calvin Johnson, founder of K Records and that guy from Beat Happening with the deep voice, is quoted as saying in Baumgarten’s book: “(People) don’t need the record store or a record label.  They can just do their song on their laptop or their ukulele, and then it’s available instantly, all around the world.  It’s really the most basic form of punk rock revolution.”  It is really more the sense of community and connection that these labels (and others), bands, and zines created.  There was a true feeling of involvement by being engaged as a fan – one that feels oddly absent now that worldwide connection is just a device tap away with the omnipresence of social media.  And I’m not exactly sure what it is that’s missing.

 

When I first started ordering records from small labels and distributors directly via mail in the late 80s and early 90s, I began to not only receive the great music, but personal notes and correspondence.  Usually, it would be a “Thanks for the order” note on the back of a release schedule inserted into the record sleeve, but sometimes it would be more in depth and personal, like the now famous letters from Sarah Records founders Matt Haynes and Claire Wadd.  I remember directly ordering the very first SpinART Records 1992 compilation release “…one last kiss” and soon after even started to get occasional postcards in the mail from Lancaster, PA band Suddenly, Tammy! who had the second song on that compilation (indie version of sharing mailing lists?).  Or there’s the time I ordered PoPuP’s CD combining Magnetic Fields’ first two albums and received the disc along with a letter from Claudia Gonson wondering how I learned about the band.  Who would’ve ever thought I’d be carrying on casual correspondence with the artists from all over that had become my personal tastemakers.  I guess what I’m saying is that these direct contacts with bands and labels and zines tore down walls that went far beyond what I had ever understood before.  These people were doing stuff that was cool and that I admired, but they were clearly and tangibly real people.

As long as I can remember, I’ve always been the type of person, good or bad, who gets so fired up about the stuff that excites me – the stuff that gets me going – that I’ve always searched for ways to share those things with anyone and everyone.  Of course, with me, it’s pretty much always been music.  I was that guy who made mix tapes for friends (still do an annual summer mix!), wore concert shirts, left random lyrics on my school locker, created a fake radio station with its own music charts, did music for a handful of school dances, and finally a zine and this thing.  I’ve shared this before, but my friend Wil and I were inspired to start a zine named This Wreckage.  Like so many of them before, we wanted to revolutionize, if not the world, our little town.  We wanted to create an open forum for people to make something that is normally done by professional writers and visual artists.  It was meant to be freeform, and then, of course, at the end I would add a few poorly worded music reviews.  What we found is that most people don’t care.  Most people don’t read.  Most people couldn’t be bothered to actually take part, because they have their own lives and interests.  However, when people did decide to engage, we found it could be really powerful.  We received cool music from new bands that I still love to this day (and new music almost always spawns more discoveries), we had a few fun adventures, and believe it or not, met some really great people – one of which is a dear friend to this day.  Though we were small and misunderstood and really didn’t put forth a massive effort, and didn’t last very long, we still managed to reach a few people out there who tripped over the scrap paper littering the ground that were moved enough to say hello. 

I’m not 100% sure where I am going with this, but even though we now have unlimited access to pretty much all things we think are cool at any time we want, maybe it’s just me, but that personal engagement doesn’t feel as strong.  Even though it goes against so much what I have always believed about how everyone should have a forum to express themselves, perhaps things were better when there were more curators sifting through everything in order to present us with the cream of the crop.  Maybe it’s because I’m old, but for me, it’s too much.  It’s all too much.  Everyone’s social media account is like a mini zine based on their likes.  In a random five minute perusal of my Facebook feed I am presented with vacation and food photos (lots and lots of photos), news of a friend’s recent misfortune, two new bands I should check out, an old music video, some political statement followed by a lot of agreements and a few dissenters with little actual reasoned debate.  What I often get is overwhelmed and frustrated and I’ve become one of those people mentioned above: no longer engaged with anything beyond the tip of my nose.  I don’t want to be like that!  I don’t want to be the one who tells people to not freely express themselves in any way to see fit.  If I get involved with social media I want to feel connected and interested and inspired, but instead I simply feel exhausted.

It brings me to this position, where I feel like I either need to re-engage and try to connect again and push for a This Wreckage-type revival, in order to regain that feeling of community, in addition to the amazing music, that once was such a lifeline, or to simply withdraw like I’ve done the past year and not continue to muddy the waters with yet another voice (this blog) that no one needs to read, really wants to read, or frankly won’t spend the few moments to read anyway.  That’s when I remember the frustration and feeling of futility that Wil and I felt when trying to find an audience for This Wreckage twenty plus years ago, which was a big reason we gave it up.  We lost the fun.  That’s what I miss most: the fun.  This all feels like the complete life re-assessment and makeover that I’ve been mumbling about for several years now, but never seem to make happen.  It has to happen before I completely lose myself in the dreaded “life on repeat” – working a miserable job just to stay alive (only to hold onto health insurance), something I addressed here, sadly, over three years ago.  In that piece, Apathy and Exhaustion, I concluded that “This (turning around the downward spiral) feels an insurmountable task.”  It still does.

This Wreckage art by Arlon Gilliland

Apathy and Exhaustion

I’d like to think that it all went wrong on one dramatic day late last summer.  It would be nice to blame all of my troubles on that dreaded day, but the reality is that things began to slip long before that and it’s become a free-fall ever since.  What happened last summer?  Nothing special really.  I spent a nice morning with a woman who I had grown very fond of over a couple of months and after taking her to lunch as a thank you for helping me with some work; I made my big move and asked her out on a date.  The general response to the few times I have built up the nerve to ask such an outward and potentially life changing question of someone has always been some kind of awkward silence followed by a polite dismissal.  I am used to this and pretty much expect it.  This day was no different, and even though I should be used to being turned down, it is still disappointing and discouraging.  So, I found myself back in my office at work a few minutes later trying to figure out what I did wrong, when I received a phone call from my doctor.  She was contacting me to inform that my latest labs (blood tests) showed that my transplanted kidney was being rejected.  It was a ten minute stretch that I didn’t need.  It’s strange to think that day had held such promise.

The funny thing is that those two rejections no longer particularly bother me.  The kidney issue was resolved through a few changes in medication and a lot of labs and expense.  This process wasn’t easy, but things are back in control and have been for some time.  The other rejection?  Well, that one stings, as most of them do, but that pain mostly fades with time, despite the acute loneliness that such rejection leads to.

So I keep asking myself why I still feel so damn terrible all of the time.  I didn’t realize it then, but I think something turned inside of me a few months before the double rejection day.  The hope of winning the heart of a lovely, intelligent and driven woman was only a distraction that gave me temporary motivation.  Maybe it started when I decided I wanted to move from my apartment in the ‘burbs back into the city where I feel I belong - nearer my dwindling social life.  So, as my lease drew closer to expiring, I started to shop around.  In the meantime, I began the process of getting rid of things.  I discarded, recycled, or donated boxes and boxes worth of stuff that I had unwittingly collected over the years.  I made those tough decisions about several items that I’ve generally held onto over the years for sentimental reasons.  This time, most of those things were discarded.  It was time to change and simplify my life – to move forward.  This felt positive.  Along the way though, I seemed to have discarded many of my things and a big part of myself.  Many of my interests and hobbies – the things that have kept me distracted, entertained and inspired all of these years seem to have gone missing.  It’s like I’ve lost interest with everything I’ve always enjoyed.  Some of my extended family and co-workers call me “the golf guy,” yet I have only played one work-related round of golf in nearly two years, and I do not have any inclination or desire to play anytime in the future.  At the end of the 2013 season, I gave up my Portland Timbers tickets after 12 years of rabid fandom and have barely paid any attention to the team since.  I use to mainly write short stories and fiction when the urge struck, and enjoyed the feeling of creating and always felt a sense of accomplishment upon completion – well done or not.  Nowadays, my writing has been almost solely focused on promoting the music I love, which feels increasingly hollow and pointless (it’s not as though I command any kind of audience to spread the word anyhow).  This process lacks the creative spirit of the artists that I admire and that I so used to crave to emulate.  I’ve even found my lifelong passion for music on the wane.  It’s as though I’ve heard too much.  I’ve begun to question whether or not I am stuck in a rut as I listen to long-time favorites, or newer bands who remind me of music of days past, but very little seems truly new anymore.  Am I really seeking out new directions and branching out, or am I rehashing my teens and twenties over and over again?  Am I simply stuck on repeat?

I feel silly providing these examples of my current listlessness.  They are all unimportant, mundane and simple individually.  However, I’ve begun to notice that they are emblematic of a problem that I do not fully understand.  None of these things have progressed consciously.  It’s as if a trap door has opened beneath me.  It’s as though during my effort to simplify and improve my life by tossing away extraneous bits and pieces, I’ve thrown myself away.  I’ve blown out my pilot light.  I’ve lost my fire.  I’ve lost my ability to live.  I’ve become what I’ve always fought against.  I’ve become an automaton.  For example, I’m allowing my job – something I’ve always tried to keep from defining my person – to frustrate and confound me.  Every day feels like an impossible, frustrating and endlessly stressful trudge uphill with no hope of ever accomplishing anything.  It’s become a trap - a steeper hill to climb each day.  I’m stuck in a perpetual cycle of living paycheck to paycheck with a carrot dangling in my face promising something better on the horizon.  Only that something never materializes, no matter how hard I try to reach it.  Yet, I keep trying until my batteries run out.

I’ve been through a lot of difficult times in my life.  Everyone has, and as with anyone, I’ve faced life’s challenges and muddled my way through one way or another, but for some reason, this time, I do not know what to do.  I am at a loss.  Maybe, I’m simply exhausted.  For much of my life I’ve focused my energy to do battle against an ugly genetic disorder (VHL) and the multiple surgeries that I’ve endured.  Now that I’ve been fairly stable for the better part of ten years, the tiniest little thing these days can come along and knock me out – blown over like a feather.  The lingering effects of those battle scars have taken their toll.  I struggle with the concept that I’ll never feel truly physically well again.  And I don’t mean in the ‘I’m getting older’ kind of way, though that is very real.  I am in real physical pain all of the time, which leads to sleepless nights and way too much time to dwell on my shortcomings and the people that I miss and who I’ve lost.  I don’t want to lose anyone anymore.  I don’t know if I can deal with it again.

It’s time to find a direction to re-ignite that pilot light, but I do not have a clue what it would be, or what it could entail.  I’m not struggling to decide which fork in the road to take, because I’m no longer on a road of any kind.  This must be my so-called mid-life crisis.  I don’t really know what that means.  Maybe it’s the side effect of spending years and a lot of effort trying to achieve those dreams of youth and never quite doing so.  Maybe it’s the realization that those dreams were doomed to fail from the get go and there is no plan B lying in wait.  I’m tired of facing these challenges on my own.

As of now, I am trying to schedule small short-term activities each week that I can look forward to.  These are proverbial baby steps.  The hope is that one day I will once again find my stride and start moving towards positive goals that fuel and instill me with a reason to live and breathe and to feel like I’m worth something.  This feels an insurmountable task.

Fear of the Weather

It was late last August that I wrote a piece detailing my summer vacation, which can be read here. This was a vacation that included my new tradition of attending the LPGA’s annual visit to Portland (or North Plains – which is not very close to Portland, really) for the Safeway Classic. This event has inspired and excited me to no end since my first experience in 2010 and I wanted to share in some small way my enthusiasm and try and spread the word about these amazing golfers. Somehow this eventually turned into an invite from the LPGA itself encouraging me to write about the 2012 edition for their website’s “fan diary” section. When I first read that suggestion via email early in the morning so many months ago, I could be seen skipping through the streets like a cartoon Easter Bunny. “Why, of course, I’d love to write about the tournament,” I calmly stated back through email after waiting a few days as to not seem too freaky and come across as a sane individual (I believe I have presented a differing view if someone actually reads ‘Summerside’). Once the actual mania started to fade, two alternating beliefs have been most prevalent in my mind. The first being that I do not actually believe that this will happen, and secondly, if it were to happen – me being responsible for writing a daily log of the tournament from my perspective on a real website - that I will be completely blocked and only be able to write, at best, the most inane boring factoids about the event. Though the tournament officially kicks off this Friday (August 17th), there are already activities, practice rounds and Pro-Am’s happening out there, I am still lost between both of these worlds. For the last couple of months, my ability and ambition to write has been at a frustratingly low level, as evidenced by the old/recycled writing I’ve posted on this site during that time. And as I type these words right now, I’m not sure I actually believe that when I email whatever junk I conjure up in a few days that I will then see the material appear at LPGA.com. Despite receiving full week tournament passes for the event in an envelope marked with the LPGA logo, none of this feels possible or real.


If one were to actually read the piece I presented on August 23, 2011, they would find that I was pretty excited. I left out little fan-boy squealing details about how the pretty golfing star Paula Creamer lightly touched my shoulder as she approached a slightly wayward drive through the large gallery following her round on the 17th hole at Pumpkin Ridge’s Ghost Creek course. Life was good. I was lucky enough to fly off to Boise the prior weekend for an amazing birthday celebration for Ann and to visit with old friends, I was able to take time off from work, and I was doing what I wanted to do. In fact, the high from that weekend was contagious. I managed to carry it well into the first half of this year. It was that week where I semi-consciously decided that I had to start saying “yes” to life again. It sounds easy, but I had lost sight of that ability and had found myself floundering and living a life that mostly involved only going to work, catching up with too many television shows and rarely venturing anywhere outside of my work space and my meager apartment. I even started (semi) joking with my friends about my desire to become a shut-in. Regaining a desire to engage again filled me with energy. I found myself reconnecting with old friends and family, going out and experiencing things again, re-engaging with my passion for live music (I have seen more live music in 2012 then probably the prior three years combined!) and going to see anyone I want to despite having to work the next morning at 5 am. I have traveled more during this last year, started a regular exercise routine that had me in the best physical condition I’ve been in since the horrific run of surgeries began in 2000, and this summer I even joined a bowling league. Oh, and how can I forget the ongoing love affair with the Portland Timbers in my 11th year as a season ticket holder?  It has been a mini revival for me - an awakening from a slumber of complacency that crept in after the high of receiving a kidney transplant started to wear off a couple of years after the occurrence (and after, maybe not so coincidentally, my steroid regimen had been tapered down to a minimum). Leading up to my planned vacation for this summer, serendipitously other great activities started to line-up like last year. Two weeks ago, the Dum Dum Girls played a one off fundraiser show in Seattle and the weekend leading into my time off from work found another Seattle show featuring two great northwest bands (the Purrs, and Black Nite Crash) and especially, the Nebraska duo Drakes Hotel. These trips would offer me the chance to visit my old friend Wil and his family, and my niece and nephew. This was the type of adventure I was looking forward to.

Unfortunately, shortly after a great run of shows that ended with an amazing Dum Dum Girls set during Memorial Day weekend (story can be found here), I started to notice exhaustion setting in. At first I thought, maybe I was pushing myself too far. This was likely, so I allowed myself to slow down for a few weeks. Besides, there was a break in great shows for a month, so I wouldn’t be able to chide myself for not sticking with my big plans. It was around the 4th of July holiday, when a big gathering of great childhood friends were all to gather down at our old coastal stomping grounds to golf and shoot the shit that I realized that something else was going on. I was still feeling exhausted and fatigued. My limbs felt heavy and my body sore, as if I had recently been in a vicious car wreck. I was finding every day to day simple activity difficult and instead of getting better with extra rest, the symptoms were getting worse. It was time for my regular check-up with my excellent nephrologist, so I brought up my developing condition. She took this very seriously and immediately began running a series of labs and tests that have lasted for several weeks. This scenario has led to an irritating cycle of calling my doctor’s office for her to call me with test results (and the side effect of me developing a massive crush on her new receptionist), which have so far resulted in no diagnosis and no explanation for my decreasing energy level and increased fatigue and frustration.

photo by William Campbell

This is where I stand (or sit uncomfortably) now. Last weekend, my trip to Seattle started off promising, but due to my condition, uneventful. Wil, Carrie, the kids and I lounged around and chatted and had some laughs. Then Wil and I exited for the big show with the three bands. Upon arrival and small surge of genuine energy began to work its way through me. The anticipation for inspiring music and a new venue was growing. I was also hoping that my brother’s kids would show up. Low and behold, Chris Y from Drakes Hotel spotted us outside and came to say ‘hello’ and let us know that we were on the guest list (we met a few times when they were based in Portland a few years ago)! This was quite a surprise and an honor! The Drakes are a husband and wife duo who modestly makes amazing music. I’ve always thought that if I was a musician (and I am most definitely not), I would likely be found in a similarly small home recorded style set up. I appreciate what they’re trying to do and they do it very well. Their three albums dating back to 2007’s Tell Me Everything (there is a long lost older debut that is a greatly kept secret that I am not privy to other than via innuendo) are solid efforts that have routinely landed in my annual top albums list. Their newest offering, Logic Adopts Senses, will most likely fit this bill by year’s end. Their straightforward programmed beats and low end has always been a back drop to tasteful layers of tuneful guitar lines and Amy Drakes’ otherworldly and mysterious vocals. Normally, I would suggest that their style as two-piece would not translate well in a live setting, but they manage to exceed those expectations. As each song began a few more people approached the stage to take in the unique spectacle. Their quiet intensity grew with each song and Amy dazzled as she bounced down to her knees and back up lost in the moment and taking the few of us there with them. It’s a shame that they, as an opener only had the time to play such a short set. There were so many songs that I wanted to hear, especially after the rousing rendition of Tell Me Everything’s tension building “Wreck,” whose chorus offers a release that is oh so satisfying, and the rousing “Kids R Chrome,” which was not an early favorite when listening to the new album. It sure is now. Wow! This is where my dwindling energy took over. I had to stay in the back for most of Black Nite Crash’s set. I had to sit down. They sounded great, especially on their earliest material, but I’m not so sold on the newer material which I’m not familiar with (too derivative of the Doors for my taste). But disconcertingly, I could not hold out for the Purrs and we had to make an early exit.

Now, I am about to face the reality of going into the big golf event – the deal I’ve been building up in my head for a year – knowing that I may not be able to get through it. The week has not started out precipitously either. When I returned home from Seattle on Sunday, I found out that my work place would be extremely short-handed, so I agreed to work during my vacation Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then, we find out that Portland is about to enter a real 100 degree style heat wave during the tournament. All I can envision is heat stroke and an ambulance ride from the ninth hole to a hospital 20 miles away in Portland, after trying to caddy for one of the golfers during this Thursday’s Pro-Am (yes, I volunteered to caddy!!). What do I do? Do I admit defeat, as my resolve has taken a massive hit, as my fatigue has grown, or do I try my best and hope to get through the adventure? As Thursday nears, and now that I have secured a pair of my official caddy khaki shorts, I am realizing that my growing despondence over my health situation cannot and will not keep me from doing what I want to do. If I do pass out from exhaustion and heat stroke this Thursday on a fairway trailing behind someone like Morgan Pressel, then I would rather pass out there than at home alone in front of the TV watching golf. If I take a tumble off a side slope while following around Leta Lindley’s final round as a professional in Portland and make an embarrassing scene like my huge thudding crash land at bowling league on Monday night, then I will be crash landing doing what I want to do.

One more day of work and then it all begins….

Keep an eye out here for links to the fan diary that I may or may not be writing from the emergency room, which may or may not be posted at LPGA.com.

Why Why Why

A warm day sometime in 1990



I ran down the patchy grass slope toward the downstairs MPR entrance to the Commons. I started to dance around by swinging my arms around with my elbows held upright in an imaginary slam pit circle. I kicked my knees high in the air and circled back towards the basement double doors. Various misquoted lyrics from the Dead Kennedys “I Kill Children” flew from my mouth as Ian (inexplicably pronounced as ION) charged and tackled me. Julie was standing off to the side with her arms folded across her chest watching the display.

Owen stepped out from the doorway and shouted for us to all gather inside. Owen was the boss for one of my work study jobs. One was as a “manager” of the campus radio station and one was being part of the set-up crew. The set-up crew consisted of me, Brian, Ian and Owen. We were charged with transporting and setting up equipment for events all over campus. If there was to be a speech given by the University President in Marsh Hall, then we’d wheel the special fancy presidential podium over there along with the sound equipment. Whoever was the one actually wheeling the podium around would have no choice but to give an impromptu mobile lecture to all the unwilling audience members who were passing by. Since there was rarely any kind of actual event happening on campus, we spent most of our work time screwing screws into broken chairs that littered the MPR storage closet or checking on the raw meat sacrifice laid out on the floor of the boiler room for the giant beast that allegedly lived there and not in my mind. This day, however, was a different story. The Dharma Bums, a Portland band that was getting some national underground notice, were performing in the Commons on a Friday night and we had to set up staging and move all of the tables and chairs out of the cafeteria. This was a big score for this little college out in the middle of nowhere. This also meant that Owen was all business. He had asked us to recruit as many people as possible to help us out with this major project. We were only able to gather a few. Julie, who I had recently been spending time with, agreed to help out. As did “Dula” Dave, the dreadlocked mellow man I had befriended the prior year through the radio station. Unfortunately, he had already disappeared (we had also coined him “Dead Air” Dave because of his penchant for leaving during the middle of his radio show). Brian had recruited the mostly deaf Dungeons and Dragons playing Nate, and Ian had brought along Cynthia, who was a freshman who I always assumed Ian was seeing, but was never sure, and who always reminded me of The Pixies’ Kim Deal. Instead she was a fan of Paula Abdul and her plastic sounds.

As we all noisily gathered in the MPR scattered around Owen, who was inside waiting for us, I spotted the piano in the corner and raced toward it. Immediately, I began pounding the keys with authority and allowing the ringing discordance to linger in the low-ceilinged, wide open, sterile basement room. Ian followed me over and we began to bark out the sinister words to Swans’ early stand against fascism “I Crawled.” At that moment, I had a flash of déjà vu, because I had once before hammered out this, one of my greatest hits, on the piano at the church for Baccalaureate a year or so earlier with a different Ian from high school. That time we were shouted at for disrupting the proceedings. This time, Owen simply watched silent until we petered out, gave up our performance, and wandered over to join the rest of the group. This method of dealing with disruption was much more effective. His lack of intervention somehow sucked all the fun out of it.

Owen spoke to us about our game plan for the evening. I thought back to that weird Baccalaureate evening. I remember unwittingly sitting down when we were supposed to stand. I remember Andy, sitting next to me in the pews, dropping his freshly emptied can of Coke onto the floor, interrupting the proceedings and causing everyone to stop what they were doing, and focus their attention in our direction, until the rolling can finally came to rest all the way down near the front. I remembered Watson’s dad’s strange sermon about how we should all be praying for specific things in life. It sounded different than what I’d always heard, but whatever, right? Who needs to make a wish for world peace? If I want more of those short little extra crunchy French Fries in my large sized order, when I make my way through the drive-thru, then I had to go ahead and pray for such a thing. Then I found my thoughts drifting to the Dharma Bums. How many times had we all seen them open for some band at the Pine Street Theater? It had become so ridiculous that when they entered the MPR to meet with all of us in the set-up crew at that moment, they recognized me as the floppy haired guy who always stands stage left at shows. I asked the drummer who they were opening for that night. He did not respond.

Owen had stopped his huge list of instructions and the entire hubbub of meeting the band died down. We had been instructed about what our goals were and how much time we had to complete them in with far too few people, so we were dispersed back outside. I had missed everything having been lost in thought. I grabbed Ian as we headed out and asked him what we were supposed to do. He seemed annoyed. I figured it was because Nate was shouting to Brian something that should only have been shared between them, if at all, but Nate was never very good about keeping his voice down. Julie was standing away from the rest of us, though she was supposedly here with me and was good friends with Cynthia. I kept looking around for her attention and she kept avoiding me.

Earlier that day, I had told her that I loved her. Now, I had to track her down to join in on this group job. She looked at me with sympathy. She continued to watch from a distance and lit a cigarette. This surprised the hell out of me, because I didn’t know she smoked. I approached her and asked her what was wrong. She said that she didn’t want to talk with me. She was only there because she had already agreed to be there and because she needed the money – however minimal. She told me that I would never understand her. She told me that we would never work. She told me that she was sorry for me. She felt bad for me, because of what I had said to her. She said that because of it, she couldn’t believe a word I would ever say.

I was devastated, as she told me all of these things in front of everyone else. She continued on. She said that I did not treat her with respect - instead I was only in love with the idea of her. She pointed out that I rarely spent time with her and that I did not know her. Looking into her eyes, maybe for the first time, I could see the words: “Why did you have to say it” scroll across them over and over like a mantra. She clearly had lost all of that initial attraction and respect for me. She could only manage a mothering look of sympathy, hoping that I would learn from this lesson. I felt like a child in that moment that had just touched the hot burner on the stove despite warnings to not do so. I was that child and I knew she was right.





Story inspired by the 1995 song by Containe