Jack Brummet at age 2 /3? with Santa Claus a/k/a Dick Cheney working his way through college

Click to enlarge Jack and Santa Claus, 1955/56

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Music That Matters

I have been jotting down notes on bands and singers, partly because I like lists, but also, in reaction to the list on the sidebar of Dean Ericksen's blog: "Music Worth Having Around."
A lot of people and bands I thought would be on this list didn't make it. Some bands I really like like Seattle's Band of Horses, The Raconteurs, or another Seattle band, The Fleet Foxes, haven't been around long enough to make the list. And there are literally hundreds of people and bands like Steely Dan, Yes, General Public, Leon Russell, Joe Jackson, Graham Parker, and others, that just don't hold up. In my booklet, anyhow. And yeah, I know I've missed dozens of people in all categories (let me know), and didn't even create one for classical/serious music...


Rock
The Beatles (all the way)
The Rolling Stones (up to Exile On Main Street)
John Lennon
The Kinks (up to, say, Schoolboys In Disgrace)
The Old 97's
Bob Dylan (up to Desire, and sporadically thereafter)
Rod Stewart (Faces and the early solo albums)
John Sebastian (the first solo record, and of course The Lovin' Spoonful, who had just enough hits to fill up a CD.
Paul Simon (the first couple of solo albums)
Rick Danko
Steve Miller (60's and early 70's SM, not "Fly Like An Eagle" and beyond)
Joni Mitchell
Chicago up through, say, VI
Bruce Springsteen
Elvis Costello
The Byrds
Split Enz/Crowded House/Finn Brothers
The Who
The Clash
The Pretenders
Talking Heads
Queen
Lou Reed
David Bowie
Cream
Velvet Underground
Derek and the Dominoes
Buffalo Springfield
The Grateful Dead
Los Lobos
The Posies (NW heroes)
Traveling Wilburys
Crosby Stills Nash/Crosby Stills Nash & Young
The Beach Boys
Brian Wilson (select, but not most, solo albums)
The Doors
The Sonics (NW heroes)
Nirvana (NW heroes)
Paul Revere and The Raiders (NW heroes)
Big Star (now 1/2 NW heroes)
Weezer
The Band
The English Beat
Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention
The Ramones
Janis Joplin
Sly and the Family Stone
The Youngbloods
Fleetwood Mac
Cream
Jimi Hendrix
The Dukes of Stratosphear
The Carpenters
Simon and Garfunkel
Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin (through Houses of the Holy)
Brian Eno
Nick Lowe/Rockpile
Buddy Holly
Chuck Berry
Derek and the Dominoes
The Allman Brothers

Country/Western/Bluegrass/folk (ish)
Woody Guthrie
Hank Williams (The King)
Bob Wills
Roy Orbison
George Jones
Willie Nelson
Chet Atkins
Merle Haggard
Emmylou Harris
Buddy & Julie Miller
Dolly Parton
Patsy Cline
Roy Rogers
Sons of The Pioneers
Gene Autry
Johnny Cash
The Carter Family
Earl Monroe
Old and In The Way
David Grisman
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
John Prine
Dwight Yoakum
Lucinda Williams
Lynette Anderson
Dale Watson
Bela Fleck

Jazz/swing/bebop/cool
Charflie Parker
Thelonius Monk
Art Tatum
Paul Winter
Charles Mingus
Duke Ellington
Lester Young
Benny Goodman
Glen Miller
Dizzy Gillespie
Bill Evans
Gerry Mulligan
Jacquo Pastorius
Miles Davis
Charles Lloyd
Jimmy Smith
Weather Report
Return To Forever
John McLaughlin
Count Basie
Chet Baker
Cab Calloway
Herbie Hancock
Bessie Smith
Nina Simone
Bud Powell
Stéphane Grappelli
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Branford Marsalis
Wayne Shorter
Louis Armstrong (solo, and with The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens)
Billie Holiday
The Beau Hunks
Sun Ra
Bill Frisell
Jimmy Smith
Keith Jarrett

Blues/R & B/Soul/reggae
James Brown
Wlly Dixon
Muddy Waters
Al Green
Sleepy John Estes
Jimmy Reed
The Supremes
Lightnin' Hopkins
Otis Redding
The Blind Boys if Alabama
Rev. Blind Gary Davis
Stevie Wonder
Etta James
Smokey Robinson
The Temptations
The Miracles
The Four Tops
Leadbelly
Furry Lewis
Elmore Johnson
Skip James
Jimmy Cliff
Bob Marley
Billie Holiday
Marvin Gaye
Michael Jackson (first few albums)
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All This Is That begins its 5th year today

click to enlarge


All This Is That is four years old today. So, I'm just going to ramble about that.

We've been farked five or six times, which is always fun, because 10,000-15,000 people show up. But the interesting thing about http://fark.com is that their readers are always looking for the next weird story. . .none of them become regulars. Once in a while we are someone's blog of the day, or a blog or website notes a--usually bizarre--post here, and between 30 and 500 people turn up.

Most of our readers Google into here. More than half the traffic on All This Is That comes from Google, Yahoo and other search engines; 40% of the visitors are regular readers. Most of our visitors come from the U.S. and Canada, England, Australia, Turkey, Japan, Germany, Croatia, Brazil, and Ireland, in that order.

Even though it's been four years, I still haven't gotten around to writing some stories I've promised (this year, for sure!). The content here, as you may have noticed, is random, and mostly generated by whatever strikes my fancy on any particular day. For the last year and a half a big focus has been the U.S. Presidential race. Six weeks in the last year were extended travelogues as I documented my travels in Mexico, England, Turkey and Greece. If I actually focused on something, we could generate tons of visitors. But I have never found any particular area I'd like to focus on. I'm not a niche kind of guy, I guess.

We've now hit Alien Lore story Number 145. I have published 150 original poems in the last four years. And we have published hundreds of weird stories. Some articles that come up at the top of a Google search: Looking for Nude Condoleezza Rice Photos?; Matt Bevalaqua, the killer; Enumclaw Horse Sex; The Brady Bunch Porn Movie; Clemenza's Godfather spaghetti sauce; and a few others). Every day dozens to hundreds of people come searching for those. A lot of people come looking for images and photos. Since even the early days, we've always published a lot of photos, paintings, and images. I've seen images I've created appear on dozens of other blogs and websites.

I've never written a word about my work (a/k/a "day job") in all this time. I think I'll keep it that way, even though I love my job, co-workers, and the business we're in...this gets too complicated as it is. . .

I still want to write these stories sometime (all are at least half-done):

My Worst Jobs, Part 6: The Fish: My five years working at Carl Fischer Music

Dad, or, John Newton Brummet II

The Kent Bus Depot (almost done!)

The Hook Arm, the Wooden Leg, False teeth, and Girdles - My people. One more hillbilly tale.

Growing Up Hillbilly (they stopped in Seattle because you'd need a boat to go further)

Growing up Kent: The Liquor Store, The Butcher, and The Barber

My life as an orderly

Well, I'll get around to it sometime. In the meantime, I've am enjoying not writing about politics for a while. Our Alien Lore readership has seriously dwindled with a dearth of content (interestingly, when I publish those stories, readership goes way up, but the regulars click away very quickly).

One in a while, I think about pulling the plug. But then I come to my senses. If a few hundred people a day show up, I must be doing something right. If I publish a book of poems--and I probably will sometime soon--it will sell a few hundred copies. If I publish a poem here, that many people will read it in one day. When I publish in a magazine that's good for my literary career, but, let's face it. . .no one reads 'em!

More soon. . .
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Jack Brummet: Growing Up Hillbilly:::An index of growing up tales

That's me at two. Click to enlarge

I am posting this (and, yeah, I know it's sort of a repeat)...well, just because. The way blogs work--or at least my rudimentary understanding of how I think they work--is you have to post something to have it appear uniquely on the internet and be able to reference it. So, I am posting a list of my Growing Up stories, or at least the ones I can still track down, to link to in my sidebar like I do with the poems. I even take stabs at writing a book about growing up hillbilly. I have at least five new ones in long-time germination (Dad; The Kent Bus Depot; The Hook Arm, the Wooden Leg, False teeth, and Girdles - My people; Growing Up Hillbilly (they stopped here because you'd need a boat to go further); The Liquor Store, The Butcher, and The Barber).

These are, so far, stories of things that I saw or that happened to me, mostly in the 1950's and 60's, but with some gems from the 70's, 80's, and 90's as well.



Jack, and John Newton Brummet II, camping on the Bumping River on Mount Rainier - click to enlarge


Articles, posts, and screeds, on Jack Brummet Growing Up:
The Greyhound Bus Depot in Kent, Washinton: Going To Red's

Square Dance At Valley Elementary
Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils
Cruising the Renton loop with a keg of nails
My Worst Jobs: McGoo
My Pathetic Political Career
The Month They Tried To Kill Me
My Worst Jobs - Brewburger
Stopping By Richard Nixon's
Defensive Daydreaming
My Worst Jobs - Design Insanity - Hype, Shuck, and Jive In The Dot-Com Years
My Worst Jobs - SALSA
Jerry Melin, still missing, still missed
18,906 Days On Turtle Island
The Day I went Bald
My Jobs (List Number 9)
My Favorite Rock and Jazz Shows More Shows I've seen over the years
Growing Up In Kent, Washington: Tarheels, Hayseeds, Hillbillies, and Crackers
Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life
Jerry Melin, Master Forger
My Worst job ever!:::::McGoo
Jerry Melin, still missing and still missed
Fishing With The Old Man
Uncle Romey
The Time I Got Drunk With Roy Rogers
Kent, Washington
It Can Happen Here: Japanese Relocation Camps, 1942-1946
More on the El Rancho Drive-in in Kent, Washington
Snack bar ads, intermission countdowns, and the El Rancho drive-in
A Blog for Phil Kendall
Four more images of Kent, Washington in the 40's and 50's
Kent, Washington's Meeker Street 1946
Too good to leave in the comments: Scooter and the Hell's Angel Heavy chug-a-lug
Scooter and $2 all you can drink beer day at the Sundowner circa 1973
My Grandma's tavern in Carnation, Wash.
My Dog Slugger
Hucking Eggs in Kent, Washington
Home-made Hillbilly Toys
Square Dance At Valley Elementary
Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils
How I came to be named Jack
Hillbilly Cred
Cruising the Renton loop with a keg of nails
My Worst Jobs: 50 Tons of Sand
My Pathetic Political Career
Defensive Daydreaming (the second poem in these links, and one of my favorites)
"Chicken Thieves Busy in Kent And Vicinity"
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Growing up: Hillbilly home-made toys

click young John/Jack to enlarge

If you've read any of these growing up stories, you remember I grew up poor. That didn't necessarily mean we didn't get toys (which my parent's generation would call "store-bought"). We did get toys for birthdays and Christmas, and in between, we played with toys my dad made (he also built boats, bikes, and even campers). There are a few he made I can't quite remember, but I know they involved bobbins, and wooden thread spools. He could create dozens of objects from rope. His Navy days had left him a master knotsman, and some of my favorite toys were his ropework. Here are some of the toys he made, and we played with. This is only a small part of his toys--the others are lost somewhere in the haze floating over the Green & White River Valley.

The Paper Hat. He could fold several styles of paper hats from newspapers. One was the one below--almost a Papal hat; another was a skull-cap sort of affair; and he could also create an excellent Pirate Hat as well. E-how tells you how to make your own, if you'd like to take a crack at it.



Dad also made several varieties of bathtub or pond motorboats. The illustration below shows one of his standards.


This was no work of genius, but he also made us tin can telephones (and tin can puddle jumpers):

One of my favorites was the Monkey Fist. It wasn't that useful if you weren't climbing mountains or tossing a rope from a ship, but it had this heft and symmetrical coolness that made you want one. We always had one tied to the dinner bell on our back porch (how tarheel is that? How many of you had a "dinner bell?").

There was a very simple toy called a Buzz-toy, that John, Sr. called a "zippo." This was possibly my most beloved toy. I could even make one myself when he showed me where to find the cord. He always used a kind of hybrid thread, with cotton and some sort of synthetic like nylon. You could really get these zippos zipping! If you had a strong cord, you could really get these things moving, and it generated a great low, rumbling whirring sound:

Other growing up stories on All This Is That:

The Time I Got Drunk With Roy Rogers

Kent, Washington

It Can Happen Here: Japanese Relocation Camps, 1942-1946

More on the El Rancho Drive-in in Kent, Washington

snack bar ads, intermission countdowns, and the El Rancho drive-in

All This Is That reheated: Hucking eggs in Kent, Washington

A Blog for Phil Kendall

Four more images of Kent, Washington in the 40's and 50's

Kent, Washington's Meeker Street 1946

Too good to leave in the comments: Scooter and the Hell's Angel Heavy chug-a-lug

Scooter and $2 all you can drink beer day at the Sundowner circa 1973

Fishing With The Old Man

Uncle Romey

Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life

My Grandma's tavern in Carnation, Wash.

My Dog Slugger

Hucking Eggs in Kent, Washington

Square Dance At Valley Elementary

Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils

Hillbilly Cred

Growing Up In Kent, Washington: Tarheels, Hayseeds, Hillbillies, and Crackers

Cruising the Renton loop with a keg of nails

My Worst Jobs: 50 Tons of Sand

My Pathetic Political Career

Defensive Daydreaming (the second poem in these links, and one of my favorites)

"Chicken Thieves Busy in Kent And Vicinity"

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"Chicken Thieves Busy in Kent And Vicinity"

Painting "Chickenthief" by Key West artist Mario Sanchez
click to enlarge

Every once in a while, I like to dig into the history of Kent, Washington, where I was born and lived for 19 years. This article comes from a microfiche of The Kent Advertiser-Journal, dated July 25, 1929). Interestingly, I worked for a year at a chicken hatchery in Kent--Westland Hatchery, which was torn down at least 20 years ago. This story, charmingly, uses the word "weenies" for hot dogs, and treats the use of sulphur--however it was used--as something a contemporary reader would immediately grasp. I still don't know how the sulphur was used. What I liked best were the number of grammatical howlers piled on top of the stylistic lapses.

On June 20th, Deputies Seidel and Latimer answered a call at the A.C. Frye & Co. at the foot of Pike St. and Railroad Avenue and arrested Joe Metland and W. H. Tulip. [Ed's note: I grew up near Railroad Avenue, where both sides of the tracks were "the wrong side." However, there is no Pike Street in downtown Kent. The name must have been changed sometime between 1929 and 1960].

Joe Metland was selling at the time to A. C. Frye & Co. 27 Rhode Island Red pullets and 5 Rhode Island hens that were taken the night before from Mr. Robert Wooding. R.F. D. 1, Auburn.

Metland admitted taking the chickens and showed the place where he had taken them.

He also admitted taking chickens from H. J. Hart, July 15th, 1929. They took 44 springers. They took 29 colored hens and nine light hens from Mr.s George C. Clark July 18th at night or the morning of the 16th.

Metland showed all three of these places and admitted that he and Tulip together stole the chickens. Tulip does not admit it.

The man that weighed in the chickens and bought them at Frye's from Metland and Tulip is Steven Elson, at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Pike Street. The bookkeeper is L. Magerstrom at the same place.

On July 15, 1929, Deputies Frank Seidel and Latimer answered a call on Ninth Ave So. between King and Weller [Ed's note: This seems to refer to a Seattle address] to a Mr. shoemaker's Poultry House. They found two men, one giving his name as C. H. Brandon, which is not his true name.

His true name they learned is Lawrence Frisco. The other man gave his name as Dae Hodgins. They had a Dodge truck and a crate of chickens with about twenty Rhode Island Reds and one or two speckled chickens in the bunch.

These chickens, we learned later, belonged to a Mr. Farnscomb, Route 11 Box 526. They arrested the two men and took Frisco to jail: and took Hodgins with them in the car.

Hodgins took them to Mr. Farnscombs place and showed where they had gotten the chickens the night before and poisoned two dogs. One of the dogs belonged to a Mr. Gills and the other one to Mr. Harber -- both across the street from Mr. Farnscombs. They used weenies with arsenic to poison the dogs and have some of the weenies as evidence. They are kept in the county morgue ice box. . . .

On July 10th they went to Wid Evans and stole eight chickens and poisoned the dog. Evans lives at Rt 3 Box 195, Kent.

About June 17th they stole 26 Rhode Island Reds and used sulphur to take the chickens from Mrs. M. C. Smith. Rt 1 Box 133, Auburn, Washington.

On June 19th they took 35 chickens and used sulphur in this case from Al Glenn, Auburn Fish Hatchery, Auburn, Washington.

On the 6th of July, they entered Mr. C. G. Hunter's Rt. 3, Kent and took 30 chickens the first time. On July 8th they got 15 chickens and cut the fence and poisoned three dogs using hamburgers and strychnine.

One June 24th they went to John De Leo's place, Rt 2 Box 92, Renton, Wash., and took 43 mixed chickens and drained the gas tank of his car.

A day or two after that they poisoned a dog in Coalfied of Mrs. L. E. Peterson and drained their gas tank and also poisoned a dog there belonging to Louise Meramakos.

Mr. H. Tuttle, Rt. 11 box 525, Seattle, had a pet rooster that he gave to Mr. Farnscomb and this rooster was stolen with the fifty hens, July 15th, from Farnscomb's and was identified by Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Farnscomb at Mr. Shoemaker's Poultry House in Seattle on july 15th. mr. and Mrs. Farnscomb identified the chickens. The man that bought the chickens from them or weighed them in is Leo Haverty, 508 9th Ave. So. and the bookkeepers name, who reported by phone to Mr. Latimer, is C. A. Toppenfus, 508 9th Ave So.

On the 16th day of May, Eugene Johnson and Jack Powell and Lawrence Frisco went to Samuel Stewarts, Rt. 2, Bothell, and took 3 white Leghorns and a kit of tools from a new Ford car, a grease gun and crank with 25 cents worth of potatoes and a new spare tire.

On July 15th, when Deputies Seidel and Latimer arrested Laurence Frisco and Dave Hodgins, they searched their car and found in the right hand side pocket two thirds of a bottle of strychnine which Hodgins told the deputies was the strychnine that was used to poison Farnscomb's dog. He told them that he rented a house form Mrs. Johnson at Coalfield Washington. They proceeded to this place and he showed them the remainder of Mr. Farnscomb's chickens and also thirteen chickens that belonged to Mr. H. H. Hunter, Kent.

___________________
Other stories from All This Is That about Kent, Washington (red=best of All This Is That)

Kent, Washington
It Can Happen Here: Japanese Relocation Camps, 1942-1946
More on the El Rancho Drive-in in Kent, Washington
snack bar ads, intermission countdowns, and the El Rancho drive-in
All This Is That reheated: Hucking eggs in Kent, Washington
A Blog for Phil Kendall
Four more images of Kent, Washington in the 40's and 50's
Kent, Washington's Meeker Street 1946
Too good to leave in the comments: Scooter and the Hell's Angel Heavy chug-a-lug
Scooter and $2 all you can drink beer day at the Sundowner circa 1973
Fishing With The Old Man
Uncle Romey
Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life
My Grandma's tavern in Carnation, Wash.
My Dog Slugger
Hucking Eggs in Kent, Washington
Square Dance At Valley Elementary
Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils
Hillbilly Cred
Growing Up In Kent, Washington: Tarheels, Hayseeds, Hillbillies, and Crackers
Cruising the Renton loop with a keg of nails
The Time I Got Drunk With Roy Rogers
My Worst Jobs: 50 Tons of Sand
My Pathetic Political Career
Defensive Daydreaming (the second poem in these links, and one of my favorites)
---o0o---

Photo: Vicki Lenti on the Staten Island Ferry with Our Lady Of The Harbor A/K/A The Statue Of Liberty In The Distance

Click Victoria Lenti to enlarge

One thing we often did when we lived in New York City was hop on the Staten Island Ferry and go back and forth across the harbor to the forgotten borough. The ferry was especially great on those 95 degree 99% humidity days. In 1979, when this picture was taken [I think], the Staten Island Ferry still cost ten cents, and for that dime, you could ride back and forth all day long.
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Happy Third Birthday All This Is That!

All This Is That turns three years old today, having published 2,170 articles, poems, paintings, rants, histories, tales of alien lore and gowing up hillbilly, lists, stories, essays, and pranks. All of All This Is That is still online, from day one to this post.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for coming back! Love each other, and come November 4, 2008, throw the bums out! /jack in Vancouver, British Columbia











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Painting: 1721 Iron Street

...Click 1721 Iron Street to enlarge...

A rendition of our house at 1721 Iron Street, mentioned in several recent articles (The big party and the only time I ever saw Phil Kendall fight; Poem: On seeing the photo of a long lost friend; Further ruminations on Phil Kendall ; Phil Kendall at both ends of his football career ; and on the In Memory of Phil Kendall blog.
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The big party and the only time I ever saw Phil Kendall fight

I only remember seeing Philip fight once, although I do not believe he was a complete stranger to fisticuffs. He was no shrinking violet, certainly. I don't think he was averse to fighting, but thought along the same lines as I did. What could ever be the point of duking it out with some brain-damaged moron? To teach him a lesson he would forget the instant he awoke from his beer-fogged stupor the next morning? To have another great tale to toss in when the fellas were chewing the fat? To gain credibility among the gang of knuckleheads we chose as our virtual family?

In fact, the one time I did see him fight was not so much a fight as him coming to the defense of a friend who was being pummeled on the ground by a nearly-retarded ex-football player from Kent, Washington. I remember watching some fights with him and I believe we also discussed the omniscient satisfaction of watching others pummel it out from a comfortable perch, beer in hand, on the sidelines. And we did indeed have several opportunities to watch memorable dust ups outside parties, and most often, outside bars and taverns.

I don't know if Philip and I were on the same page on fights or not, but my feeling was similar to how some of the lesser animals probably felt as they watched a couple of Tyrannosaurus Rex decimate each other. If they actually did succeed in seriously injuring themselves, well, then, the world would be just a little bit safer.

Within a few weeks of when Phil, Kevin, Jerry, and I moved in together at 1721 Iron Street, we decided to have a party to inaugurate the place. We wanted to meet more people. People, as used here, specifically refers to girls. We also wanted to have a good excuse to entice our old pals back in Kent, Washington to make the 80 mile trek up to Bellingham. And what was better enticement than two kegs of Rainier beer, college girls, and the various sundries that people brought along to enhance the merrymaking? As a side note, the party also occurred at the height of the Psilocybe semilanceata mushroom season.

We saved our money to buy plenty of beer. I also recall putting out some sorts of snacks--we did not create canapes, but did put out bowls of potato chips. Maybe even some clam dip. And salt peanuts. Ah, but we're moving ahead too quickly.

A couple of weeks before the party, we contacted everyone we knew in Bellingham and Kent. A lot of our old gang were still around the old home town and most agreed to make the trek north. We chatted up everyone we knew in Bellingham (alas, I knew about eight people there, since I'd only arrived at WWU a few weeks ago). It was looking good. Everyone we knew or had met was coming to the party.

That Friday, we broke out the Pine Sol™, mops, Windex™, and rags, and swabbed out 1721 Iron Street in the first and last serious cleaning she underwent that year. We didn't place vases of flowers around the house or put up candles and streamers, but the place was modestly respectable for a houseful of grungy bohos.

Also on Friday, unbeknown to us, Jerry made a run to campus and around town with dozens of Xeroxed™ fliers, to insure full attendance.
_____________________

3 KEGS ● 3 KEGS ● 3 KEGS
Beer on ice, food,
rock and roll, dates, etc.,
BIG FUN!
1721 Iron Street 8:00 October 8, 1973
Bring friends, leaf, and your thirst
______________________

Jerry stapled fliers to bulletin boards, on the doors of bathroom stalls, outside classrooms at college, in the hallways of dormitories, at the student union building, in the cafeteria, around the music listening room, in the gym, near the bars and taverns of State Street, and even on the telephone poles lining the streets of downtown Bellingham and Fairhaven. He papered every square inch of town where people were not likely to have previous plans, and it worked. They all began arriving at our crib promptly at 8:00.

There is nothing more nerve-racking, as you know, than waiting for your own party to start. Those kegs were singing out to us from the back porch. By 7:00, pre-party jitters prompted us to tap the first keg, and by the time of the first arrivals, we felt no pain.

By 10:00, 1721 Iron Street was throbbing wall to wall with hundreds of people. The rented sound system pumped out Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Humble Pie, Nils Lofgren, and The Beatles at about 120 decibels. It was fantastic! A dozen cars arrived from Kent, filled with old friends, friends of friends, and people who didn't know any of us but were providing transport, or other sundries. The house was elbow to elbow, the backyard was full of people, the front yard was full of people smoking, chugging beer, groping each other, laughing hysterically, firing up bongs, and drinking shots of Jack Daniels, Mescal, and Hennessey's. The party was better than we'd ever imagined. We were cooking with gas! There were hordes of women from the dorms, and every girl we'd ever met who succumbed to our invitation. High school girls from Kent rolled in. Dozens of boys and girls from the dorms showed up, on their first foray off campus.

Around 11:00, one of the visitors from Kent drove his Road Runner through the fence in our front yard and parked inches from our front door. In the backyard, one of our old classmates was crawling across the lawn, in the throes of an angel dust (a/k/a PCP) vision. Inside the house, things began to go awry. People were getting in snits over perceived and imaginary affronts. The ex-jocks and red-doggers (red-doggers: folks who enjoyed losing all control under the influence of barbiturates or Quaalude) from Kent, frustrated by a lack of success scoring with the college girls, and compounded with massive brewski intake, an unending succession of pipes and joints, and other comestibles, began to get surly. I remember Mort having a heated discussion regarding literacy with one of the knuckleheads from Kent. "He's literate. I'm literate. She's literate. You're illiterate." His name was Ace. Of course it was.

The best party ever suddenly pivoted and it was like the Sword of Damocles was hanging over the entire gathering. The vibe shifted dramatically following the demolition of our fence and events just ran downhill from there. Some of the more sensible folk began to sense violence in Pepperland--like the animals sense an incipient earthquake--and began easing toward the doors.

By midnight, the first fight erupted. The fights, naturally, were initiated by or mainly involved the attendees from our home town, and most of the culprits were friends of friends or friends of friends of friends. In any case, by the witching hour the beer, drugs, xenophobia, romantic frustration, noise, and even the long work week had taken their toll. A few preliminary dust-ups occurred, mostly settled before any serious damage was done. Twin brothers from Kent made it a mission to peg someone. They did. Mostly the attacked walked away, and were allowed to walk away.

Ace, with whom Mort was discussing literacy, soon decided to even the score for Mort's accusation of illiteracy ("whatever the f*** that is!"). And the first all out fight began.

They were rolling on the ground and Ace somehow got the advantage despite the barbiturates roiling his melon. He was about to bang on Mort's head with some object when Phil came charging from across the yard yelling. He put a workboot to the head of Ace, and ended the fight by dragging Ace off and leaving him in a heap on the lawn (Ace had a nice shiner the next morning...incredibly, he stayed overnight at our house). Other fights broke out now that the taste of blood was in the water. One departing car from Kent dug a doughnut in our front yard as they left, and hurled a wine bottle against the house. By the time the police arrived, there was no one to arrest and the minors were either gone, or safely hidden away.

Keelin remembers the party as being absolutely frightening and mortifying "scary and weird." Between Jerry's fliers and the belligerent out-of-towners, the party was doomed from the start.

The wreckage the next morning was, of course, considerable. We angrily swabbed out the place just as we had lovingly cleaned it the day before. We drank tomato juice and the leftover beer and the boys relived their moments of combat the night before. Either Phil or Kevin had a shiner (although nothing like Ace's). Mostly we were stunned. For a couple hours, our planned for party triumph actually looked like it would succeed. We would become the party masters of Western Washington University--a band of convivial Hugh Hefners who hosted the best parties in town. By the end of the party, virtually every guest fled in hopes of saving their own skins.

We had a party the next month. Mort recalled that party in an email to me. By nine o'clock about four guests had shown up. We sat huddled with the keg of beer around the wretched oil burner in our front room that supplied all the heat for the house. And four people showed! Thinking this was an anomaly, we threw another party a month later. If anything, even less people showed up. There was Phil, Mort, Jerry, me, and a couple of our most die-hard friends staring dejectedly at a door that never opened. More people would have shown up to an open house at a Leper Colony. We now had a reputation even worse than that of the rugby player's house at 1000 Indian Street. The word was out. If you want to take your life into your hands, go to a party at 1721 Iron Street. Thus ended our days as party hosts extraordinaire. We were scarred for life, or at least as long as we remained in that house.

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Poem: On seeing the photo of a long lost friend

These pictures open a door

I thought was shut forever.

Behind the door is a friend

Who never got to go grey.

The door creaks open

And I am afraid to look inside.

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Further ruminations on Phil Kendall

Hobart, Mort, and Pomeroy - click to enlarge

I have been enjoying the slow accumulation of writings, and letters and photos on the Philip Kendall blog, a site dedicated to the memory of our late, great friend. The three gents pictured above were one of my strongest impetuses for going to college. As I explained here earlier (or maybe it was there), Mort drew me in, and soon enough, Jerry a/k/a Bart, and Philip a/k/a Pomeroy (later Root), were my brothers. We knew we would be friends for life. I think we even talked about that sometimes.

We talked frequently about our good fortune, how "this is the life," and how studying, reading, drawing, drinking wine, talking and telling whoppers and jokes all night, partying, scheming for girls, and immersing ourselves in music was as good as life would ever be. We knew--despite our relative poverty, living on food stamps, and just barely scraping by--that our friendships and the life we were leading was as good as it gets. As it turns out, as life goes on, other things come to fill the vacuum. But nothing has ever taken the place of Phil and he is memorialized as a special case, because he is fixed in time. When he died in early 1975, Richard Nixon was still President, the world was billions of people smaller, the Vietnam war still raging, and Elvis Costello, CDs, bottled water, global warming, and PCs were still years away. Willie Nelson was a fresh-faced kid! When you look back in time, there is the young face of Philip, fixed in that distant, analog world.

This photo is taken at 1636 Humboldt Street in Bellingham the year before I moved in with them.

I have about five poems and stories about Phil in germination, but I've been struggling with them. It's difficult to make connections and to trace the heartline across this vast lacuna of 33 years. Jerry Melin also died long before his time. But his time was to last 25 years longer. Jerry died before he was fifty, and in those years there were countless letters and later, emails; drawings and doggerel; dinners and drinks; a shared vacation; road trips, children, visits, and phone calls. Philip is fixed in time as a fresh-faced 21 year old, and I can't even really think of him as an adult because he just barely got there. Kevin Curran and I were remarking that as big a part of our lives as he became, the time we knew him was only a few short years. In those few short years we developed a bond that was stronger than most of the friendships I've had since. And it has now come back to haunt me. The haunting is not the regrets and the slow missing of those many years; I am haunted by not being able to remember everything he ever said and did because in such a short transit and eclipse every action and every word takes on a far greater import than it would had he been able to live the last 3/4 of his life.

Seeing his face again re-opens the wounds of his death, but also the joy we had in knowing him. The pain of his death only slowly waned, and never entirely went away. His death has always been painful to remember. We just didn't have enough time. Whenever I look at that face, it reminds me of everything that has passed these last 33 years, and how he would be horrified and amused to see all that has transpired. What would he think of the war, genital grooming, tattoos and hardware, computers, punk rock, indy music, iPods, digital cameras, situational ethics, modern literature. Would he still love Dylan Thomas and Shakespeare? Would he have liked Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, and John Coltrane, or Buck Owens and Bob Wills? Would he still love The Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan? Pieter Brueghel? Tuna fish sandwiches? William Blake? I'll never know.
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Phil Kendall at both ends of his football career

Why am I so fascinated with these pictures of Phil Kendall? Mainly because at the time of his death, we had not begun taking pictures. We haven't seen a picture of him in nearly 33 years (except for a one inch square high school annual shot). I especially love this one, taken in Boston. This web site is still elliptical and evolving, but you can find out more about Phil and his life here.

click to enlarge

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Four more images of Kent, Washington in the 40's and 50's

This is perhaps the most ignominious picture of Kent, Washington to have ever appeared. The photo was taken days after the Pearl Harbor bombing, and shortly before the entire Japanese population of Kent was rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps (a/k/a relocation centers) in Idaho and California. I do not know who the moron pointing to the sign is, but I suspect he was still around when I was young and roaming the streets of Kent. I have seen this photo on more than one blog and web site. It is often used on sites about the internment camps, and about discrimination against the Japanese.

Click to enlarge this photograph of a pond and house 24804 128th Place SE in the middle 1950s. This site is very close to where my Uncle Romey's doomed "farm" was, and not far from my Great Aunt Ruth's place (about which I remember little except for her amazing fields of blueberries). It is also close to where my fabulous friends Dave Hokit and Maureen Roberts live, near Lake Meridian (which was ringed with one room cabins and fishing shacks when I was young). In his memoir of growing up in West Seattle, the poet Richard Hugo wrote about going on vacation to Lake Meridian every year, renting a cabin, and fishing for trout.

This is what the area surrounding Kent proper looked like when I was growing up. It does not look like this now, even as far out as Cumberland, Black Diamond, Ravensdale, Enumclaw, Lester, Four Corners, or Hobart. Those are the Cascade Mountains in the distance. One thing that hasn't changed: the pale grey to leaden nimbostratus clouds that have hung over my head most of my life.

Another flood in the Green River Valley. When I saw growing up, we had floods in the Valley every year. The valley was fed by several rivers. The White River and the Green River flowed out of the Cascade foothills to the east, and joined in a confluence near downtown Auburn. From there, the river traveled north and was met by the Black River (an outflow from Lake Washington) near what is now Tukwila. The combined rivers formed the Duwamish River which flowed (and still does) north into Elliott Bay.

South of the White/Green river confluence, was the Stuck River which flowed to Commencement Bay in South Puget Sound. The Stuck and the White rivers flowed so near to each other that during spring floods, the two rivers would sometimes merge, spilling water far to the north and south.

I grew up two blocks from the Green River. The floods never reached our house, but usually came right up to the block before ours. I do remember seeing moving vans roll up and haul people's furniture away when a flood was about to strike. That would be for people who could afford it. Most of us poor folk couldn't. We hung in, got out our prams and dinghies, and crossed our fingers. The floods ended in 1962 when the Howard Hanson dam was built upstream:

The Howard Hanson dam. The dam was built to save the farmers, and us, the hapless lowland residents of Kent. What really happened was that the valley was now safe for industry. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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Kent, Washington's Meeker Street 1946

This photograph shows Kent, Washington's Meeker Street, in 1946. . .seven years before I was born. I lived in the same house at 534-4th Avenue S. (at Crow Street), six blocks south of Meeker Street from the day I was born until 1971. Meeker Street didn't look much different in my youth, except the cars were about ten years newer (1953 Packards, 1957 Chevies, and Mercury Monterey squad cars). Even today in 2007, most of the same buildings exist on Meeker Street. Meeker Street was home to Shoff's Sporting Goods, Blessing's Jewelers, Dave Leonard's (R.I.P. -- he died a couple of months ago) Rexall Drugs; Grunstead's cafe; The White Spot Tavern, Red's Greyhound Bus Depot and Grill, the Big Bear Grocery store, the Cohen's hardware store, the Kent Barber Shop, J.C. Penney's, the Bible books store, the Club Tavern, The Pastime Tavern, Don Bell's Insurance. and the Ben Franklin five and dime store.
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Poem: Bible Stories 6/Jesus Walks On Water

After Jesus fed the crowd with the loaf of bread and fishes
He owned that audience
They were buzzing for months

About the amazing chef of all chefs
Who fed five thousand people
With a sack of groceries

His hands just started working
Faster and faster piling up hundreds of fish sandwiches
And he kept up with the crowd walking by

Piling up the heroes on the table even faster
And people came back for seconds and thirds
And when he was done there was more than he started with

The miracles were coming fast and furious now
And he needed to ice his wig down
It just didn't work consorting

With these too mortal disciples
After he'd just raised the dead or fed
A stadium with a loaf of bread and some fish

So Jesus sent the disciples ahead in the boat
And told them he'd catch up later
So the disciples started rowing

And singing foilk songs as they oared
The disciples were bobbing around
Working on their tans and telling whoppers

They pulled the corks on a few bottles
And fished for snapper
When a mighty wind rose up

The boat was thrown back and forth
And flung down into the trough of waves
Now the disciples dropped their bottles and poles

And were boohooing and wetting their pants
It was like Hurricane Bertha times seventy-seven
The wind shrieked and the rain came down in a torrent

The boards creaked and splintered
The boat shuddered and shook and was tossed around
The Sea of Galilee like a rubber duck

All of a sudden someone shouts "Look!"
And off in the distance was a smoky apparation
A great big gaslighted man in a purple robe

Was stomping across the water
And the waves parted before him
When the disciples saw Him

They thought it was a spook
Until he got closer to them
And yelled "Courage!"

"Don't be afraid" and Peter doubted him
"If that's you Lord let me come to you on the water"
And Jesus said "that's right baby! Hop in"

And Peter got out of the boat and started trudging
On the water toward Jesus but he saw the wind and was afraid
He forgot about Jesus and started to sink

'Lord, save me!'
And Jesus snatched up his hand and caught him
'You of little faith,' he said, 'why did you doubt?'"

The hands of grace pulled Peter to safety
And it wasn't so long from then
That Peter would deny even knowing Jesus.
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Backlink of the day: Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life

Jack's sister, Loa, Uncle Guy, and Jack


The backlink of the day—Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life—originally appeared here in January, 2006. Click here to read the story.
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Backlink :My worst job

someone else's bad job

I took the job as a salesman and writer as sort of a Hail Mary. . .I quit one bad job (doing data entry) for what ended up as another bad job. Things were tough in Seattle in 1983. I took the job working for an old college friend. My friend wanted a literary pal around, which he did not have with his squad of salespeople. What he did not take into account was my fundamental abnd utter unsuitability for a sales job. While the job was a nightmare, it has provided me with many years of laughter, and an enduring appreciation of the world portrayed in Glengarry Glen Ross.

While I am in transit on my vacation, I will be reprin This is a story from the very week I started this blog. From All This Is That, Friday, November 19, 2004.

In 1983, I let an old college friend--McGoo--talk me into coming to work for him. I didn't last long. It was one of the most painful and hilarious experiences of my life. We were a magazine for construction professionals with a plan center (where they could view blueprints and create bids for various open-bid projects). Our job: to sell subscriptions and advertising in the magazine.

Jagetafuckinorderyet?
McGoo tried for a short period to not allow anyone to leave the boiler room until they had "an order." You were not allowed to take a whiz until you got an order. "For the good of the order" was our watchword. I never quite knew if that meant for us, the brother- and sister-hood of salespeople, or just for the order itself.

Of the five salespeople under McGoo, I was the only one whose salary/draw was not garnished.

LeadsIn sales, it's all about the leads (as you know from seeing or reading Glenngarry Glen Ross). Of course, McGoo got the cream of the crop, and only so many would come in per week; the rest were continually recycled.

When you called the marks, you wrote down on the cards how they responded. McGoo would erase what you wrote, and nothing would happen. Then the card would be handed back out on two weeks later on Monday as one of your 20 "free" leads for the week. I would call someone at a construction company and their wife would answer and tell me that her husband had died last week. I would apologize and write on the card—remove from lead pool, customer died. And then the card would be handed out again that week as part of out precious leads (after that you were on your own, which basically meant calling everyone you knew in construction (for me that was approximately no one). Or, you hit the yellow pages which were even more fruitless than the worthless leads Mcgoo handed out. After he cherry-picked any choice ones that happened to fall in there.

Someone would call the poor widow every Monday morning. One guy told me that if we ever called him again he would come down and break our faces. I wrote that on the card. And I called him a couple weeks later.

The cards came back again and again. Finally, one really brain damaged guy came down with steam coming out of his ears and McGoo had to do some mighty fast dancing (natch', blaming it all on "those fuckin' morons in the boilerroom"). When you wrote TD on a lead, it meant you had been seriously turned down. In theory, the lead would lay fallow for a couple of months. But not under the McGoo system. A turndown was merely a moment of temporary insanity on the part of a recalcitrant customer, coupled with gross salesman incompetence. So you would end up calling the same guy every Monday and he'd tell you "nothing has changed. I still don't want the magazine, creep. Now don't call me again."

Your twenty precious leads would almost always dwindle down to maybe three real. if remote, possibilities. By this time, with a stack of turndowns, you were so desperate to get McGoo off your ass, you didn't try to sell them the real ripoff. . .you sold them the lowball subscription ($100). A lot of the guys were so desperate to salve Mcgoo that they would write up a fake sale. That took the heat off. But a couple weeks later when the cancelled subscription meant there was hell to pay. . .McGoo got his commissions early, so a cancellation meant they would actually dock him too.

Meanwhile, of course, McGoo's stack of leads were from people who sent in the fallout cards saying "Yes, I am interested in subscribing. Please contact me." So by the time we rolled in Monday morning (McGoo having arrived early to shuffle and cherrypick the fresh leads), McGoo would have four or five orders on the boards, and we would be in the hole. I forget what term he used for someone who didn't yet have an order, but it was something like shithead.

A conversation
"Jack get a godamned order on the books. Be a man."
"Christ, I'm trying, Jim."
"That's the difference between me and the rest of you shitheads. You're trying. You're dyin'. I'm doing. While you’re flogging the old salami, I’m soaking my hose in prime Grade A cooch."

Another Conversation
"I'm going to lunch, Jim."
"J'get a fucking order yet Jack?"
"No, but I'm hungry."
"Get back on the phone. Hungry salesmen make the best salesmen. No one cares whether shitheads eat or not. Get a fawkin' order and I'll buy you a fuckin' T-bone!"

Bill RyanA second generation Irishman, who drove about a 1966 Cadillac convertible. Didn’t go to college. Black sheep of his family. About a week after I started at Construction Data, his salary was garnisheed by some credit card company. One thing Bill needed was that monthly cash infusion to keep things juggled. . .he worked his debtors in some sort of bizarre pyramid scheme. He had a volcanic temper and was endlessly tailed by bill collectors, repo men, and rumpled private detectives. He thought Keelin was way too hot for a non-Irishman.

Pat Sherwin
He made Willy Loman look like a superhuman dynamo. “I had some fucking scores, I tell you Jack. I was salesman of the year twice, got a new Buick once and a trip to Hawaii another time. And here I sit with a sick wife, a fuckin' basket of picked over leads and a fuckin' punk kid tellin' me what to do and insulting me. Life is the green-apple shits, Jack."

My First Day On The Job
I rolled into the office at 8:30. McGoo, was, of course, glad to see me, chatting me up, introducing me around and he was truly happy to have some sort of lit brother working with him. After maybe an hour, he tossed me a pile of stuff to read. I read it in ten minutes.

“OK John, you’re ready to go.”

He handed me a freshly printed stack of lead cards.

“Well, it’s about time to get you on the books today. I want you to close one of these before lunch.”

“Jim, I’d really like to listen to some of the other guys do this for a while. I don’t know what to say to these people.”

“John, you can do it. You’re selling something they want that will make them money, and in return they give you theirs. You can listen to the rest of us all fawking night and it ain’t going to help you a bit. You’ve got to start working those taps and coming up with a magic script. It’s not really all that different from sex. You get them interested, you talk to them, you woo them. And then when things have heated up, you close. An’ you know what? Every time you close it feels every bit as good as when you finally get to stick the old salami in the jellyroll.”

My First Telephone Call“I’ve told every one of you sonofabitches that I didn’t want your goddamned magazine. EVER! I’ve told you never to call me. AND YOU CALL EVERY FUCKING WEEK.”

“I’m, sorry, Sir, but I was working with some information that said you might be interested in knowing more about Construction Data. Possibly I could send you a free copy of our magazine. Maybe you would like to come down here and tour our plan center facility.”

“I’m going to come down there and tour your heads if I hear from you assholes again.”

“Sorry you feel that way. If you ever do decide. . ." [CLICK].
Turndowns

I started to write notes on the card—saying don’t call this guy back. McGoo grabbed the card from my hand.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Making notes. “

“You don’t need to write anything on that card, John. Just a note. This was a soft turndown, so you write STD on the card, date it, and put it on the bottom of your stack. We send the leads back in to the main office every Friday night.”

Under the McGoo system, a turndown was merely a moment of temporary insanity. You had to call back fairly soon. . .in McGoo’s theory, if you called back often enough, eventually the mark might think “Hey, these guys are persistent. They must have something good going here.”

McGoo plunged on with my indoctrination.

“So he says no Johnnie. Simply mark it STD. We’ll turn that piece of dog shit sooner or later. He’ll bare his sphincter and beg us to give him a poke. He will crumble and eventually beg for a solid rodgering at top dollar!”

“If he doesn’t come down and cave our heads in first. . .”

“Ah, you missed it. These guys are more hot air than salesmen. And that’s why we eventually triumph. These guys are construction people, we’re pros. Ok. You’ve plunged in. Now, you gotta start with the lingo."

"They say you called them last month, ok, fine. You tell them you are calling back because they did seem interested and you are in a position this week to offer them significant price breaks on Construction Data, if they are able to act quickly.”

“I can’t say that. . .you know. . .it just doesn’t fall off the tongue. Significant price breaks sound phony.”

“Johnnie, me boy. There is no shame in making money. One thing you’ve got to get over is feeling self-conscious or embarrassed. Feel embarrassed at being a goddamned shithead!"

“But I feel like I’m running some scam on them. It’s hard to do…”

“The only people in this room who should be embarrassed are the people who don’t get an order. Now, I want you to get started again. Would a drink help? I’ve got five bucks. Let’s go across the street, I’ll have a club soda and you can have. . .what do you like to drink?”

So we went for a drink, McGoo, recently hooked up with AA, telling me all the while that I would make the breakthrough.

Some Advice from Mcgoo
“Once you get that first order. . .Johnnie me boy. . . you will become an inhuman selling dynamo.”

“I’m not quite there yet.”

“Johnnie, me boy, you don’t even need to sell this thing. . .it sells its fucking self. You are barely even a salesman! All you have to do is punch in a few numbers and start writing orders. You are going to get on the books big time.”

Back at the office, I glumly stare at my pathetic short stack of leads. OK. Number two.

“Like I said the last time, my husband died last year. I’m 75. Why would I need a five hundred dollar construction magazine?”

So I wrote STD on the card and put it at the bottom of the deck.

“John, my boy, you aren’t taking them all the way. You get their pants down around their ankles, and you don't stick it in! If you need a little hand on these, I’ll be your closer.”

The Business Cards, or, How I became Jack BrummetThe next day, McGoo handed me business cards.

“Jack Brummet. Circulation marketing and feature article writer?”

“I like that, yeah, Jack. John is a pussy name. Jack’s the name of a man's man. These are constuction guys. ”

I became Jack. And I still am.

My First Order
Later that day I closed my first order. I sold one year at the “full boat” price. I was “on the books” and flying high. 1 year= $549. 6 mos= $299. 6 mos=$100.

I was on the books and on top of the boilerroom board, until McGoo closed three in a row to remove me from my perch. I was on my second day. McGoo put the heavy pressure on Bill Ryan.

“Jaysus, Bill, Jack, a total frigging rookie comes in here and closed on a full boat. What have you done for me today?”

Within two hours, Bill had closed two big orders, put his name at the top of the board for the day, and departed work. The two orders were utterly bogus. Bill just signed up a couple of his leads for subscriptions.

"We'd Like To Put An Article About You In Our Publication"
As a fellow lit-brother to McGoo, I was ahead of the other salespeople in one regard. One regard I was never much able to capitalize on: we would write articles for our magazine, if we could get the contractors or suppliers to buy a large subscription or ad schedule. I would write absurd puff pieces on these various dimwits that they could pass around to their friends and family. Alas, my heart was in that even less than in selling overpriced subscriptions and advertisements.

Cancellations and deadbeats
Every two weeks, in came an accounting from the main office of people you sold to who had cancelled. Or who were deadbeats. Your commission was then deducted from your account, and you were in the hole. The Deadbeats, you called yourself.

It was always agony and explosions of anger on cancellation day. And whenever you lost a commission, McGoo lost his sales manager cut too. By the time half these cancellations rolled in, people had forgotten they had faked them in the first place. Bill Ryan specialized in writing up phony orders for corporations. The companies would actually pay the subscription about half the time. It was always a dark on cancellation day--especially for those of us who never made the nut, and were always underwater on our commissions.

Pat Sherwin, probably about 65 or so, was the hardest hit. He had an invalid wife and was just barely holding it all together. When he got cancelled, he was utterly gripped with panic and fear. And McGoo felt that those twin emotions were the best sales motivational tool ever developed. Pat would nearly be crying, having just lost $500 in commissions. McGoo would always offer to buy you a drink and tell you his solution to the problem. The solution was invariably "sell more!"

“Ain’t nothing going to happen here boys, ain’t nothing going to happen until I hear those phones dialing Dialing DIALING!!! I’ve walked in here about five times this morning and no one is on the motherfucking phone.

"NO ONE IS ON THE PHONE!!! What the fuck do you think? You think the fuckin’ customers are just going to call in and throw money at you? I’ll listen to you The Fuckin' Sales Force complain just as soon as I see they are actually working. I got three orders this morning while you were shaking off your goddamned hangovers!"

"I want every phone nigger in this room to book at least $250 by lunch. The orders are out there. The only question is are you men enough to close them? Or are you going to stand here all day blubbering about a bunch of goddamned cancellations?"

"You could be halfway out of the hole if you just got on the phones. Dial for dollars, boys, starting now. "
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