Tuesday, March 23, 2010
On the lake in Udaipur, Part 1 (traveling mates)
Saturday, March 20, 2010
My Traveling Partners
Keelin Curran, Colin Whitcheloe, and Claire Brummet
at a fortification wall at a massive Fort we visited
Keelin standing at the sea wall with the Bay
of Bengal behind her
Claire and Colin with a pitcher of beer at
Leopolds in Mumbai. They--and many other
watering holes serve these silly "beer towers"
instead of pitchers
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Fish, Part 1 - My life at Carl Fischer, Inc.
Click to enlarge - view of The Fish from Cooper Square Park or The Bowery
I walked through these doors every day for over four years.
The Son of Sam murders were in full swing and the New York Daily News and New York post were filled with Son of Sam headlines every day--almost daring him to strike again. Mayor Abe Beame continued his haphazard and befuddled stewardship of the city. It was dirty, the subways were not air conditioned, there were transit strikes, garbage strikes, litter everywhere, and Times Square was still filled with strip clubs, grindhouses, bad Irish bars, pickpockets, and three card monte players.
New York City was at one of its various low points. . .but it would get worse. Within a year, the first people began showing signs of H.I.V., and the AIDS epidemic began to devastate the city and pick up steam as it spread. The crack epidemic had not yet hit. Punk and new wave music were in full flower and theatre was flourishing. The Boss roared to life. The Yankees were hot. We would attend a World Series game the next year. In fact, we would sneak in using a password for which we'd paid rogue stadium employees. But these random memories are not why we're here. We're here to talk about The Fish.
I bounced back from my first disastrous job at Brewburger (See My Worst Jobs, Part 3), and from my near-death experience in Long Island College Hospital from a collapsed lung that blossomed into double pneumonia (I was a patient there for 23 days). While I was in the hospital, on July 5th, 1977, I watched as the lights of the World Trade Center, and every building across the river and all around me, blinked off. Within a few hours massive looting broke out in the city, and they had to re-open The Tombs to hold the three thousand arrestees. The lights came back a couple of days later. At the worst of it, the hospital was around 103 degrees.
After a week of recovery at home, it was time to hit the job trail again. I grabbed a copy of The Village Voice and New York Times and started firing off resumes and pounding the streets. The letters and resumes: crickets. You were competing with Ivy League grads and their impressive resumes filled with prestigious internships and lists of community services and awards for even lowliest jobs at book publishers.
The silence from potential employers was deafening. I heard nothing back, and received a ream of polite mimeographed turndowns. In September, 1977, after a month of fruitless searching, I received two phone calls and one letter--all on the same day. The first was an offer from a publisher of adult fiction. I would receive a dollar a page for writing pulp porn. They would furnish a bare-bones plotline and list of characters, and after that, it was up to you. You would essentially write a book a week for a couple of hundred dollars.
The second offer of employment was with an adult "novelties" manufacturer and distributor. The job was manning the complaint desk and fielding phone calls , and mostly letters, from their consumers. Their largest product lines were dildos, "restraint devices," blow-up dolls, and a line of scented lubricants. My job would be to answer complaints and negotiate refunds and exchanges for defective merchandise for $2.35 an hour.
The third job offer came from a famous music publisher in the East Village near Broadway, Washington Square Park, and NYU, right across from Cooper Union, and just a couple blocks north of CBGB--Carl Fischer, Inc.
I did the sensible, but foolish thing. And along the way, I met some great friends like Pinky! and Cheryl, Neil Clegg, Crazy Richie, Fuzzy, Susan Ward nee Lurie, Dot Melin nee Jennin, Jim and Pamela Ahlberg, DelRoy, and Mary Farmer. And, in the end, probably missed out on a thousand hilarious stories at the novelty factory. I took the job at The Fish. It was a union job (the AFL-CIO Motion Picture Workers) and paid just under $10,000 a year.
Next up: The Fish, Part 2 -- How Fuzzy (aka Dwight Henry Thompson) taught a hillbilly boy from Seattle the ropes; how we came to be known at The Fish as White Dwight and N***er John. Fuzzy introduced me to Joey Ramone, Klaus Naomi, the poets Ted Berrigan, Tuli Kupferberg, and Allen Ginsberg. And mafia strip clubs, leather and S & M bars, gorgeous transvestites, the joys of chasing down anisette with Rolling Rock, and various other excesses and experiments, about which, more later. I think The Fish story may be good for about five installments...when you work with that many wacky people in a really strange company for four years, something pretty interesting will shake out. And it did.
---o0o---
Monday, July 20, 2009
Keelin Curran and Dave Hokit posing in Winthrop, Wash.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Friday, March 06, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Some last photos from Bucerias, touched up
Sra. Keelin - click to enlarge
Sra. Mo - click to enlarge
Senor Daveed - click to enlarge
Senor Juack - click to enlarge
Friday, February 01, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Cinema on the Riviera! by Senor Daveed Hokit
Even the most sought after guests on the see-and-be-seen party circuit here on the Riviera Nayarit occasionally take a break from the demanding night scene. For us, those nights have been satisfyingly filled with private screenings in our casa of some exciting films, two in particular that warrant review.
Credit must go to Juack (as he is known south of the border) for introducing Keelin, Maureen and I to these DVDs, which are a must in the carry-on of every savvy traveler. Run, don’t walk, to pick up Idiocracy, the new offering of director Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-Head; Office Space). Starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph in leading roles, this deep political satire shines due to the supporting performance of Dax Shepard as the astute lawyer in dumb downed America as it exists 500 years in the future; and the convincing performance from Terry Crews as caring President of the United States Camacho.
My favorite however, is the Happy Madison production of Grandma’s Boy, directed by Nicholaus Goossen. This techno-hip fart and bong comedy [jack note: this rich drama is focused on the world of making videogames] is brilliantly cast, with performances deserving of praise and recognition that are too numerous to list here. Especially gripping are the richly delivered scenes by Peter Dante as Dante, the charismatic stoner and dealer; his security advisor, Dr. Shakalu, played by Abdoulaye NGom; and the steamy Shirley Jones, who reappears on the big screen sexier than you imagined David Cassidy’s mom could ever be.
These two worthy films are so moving that Keelin and Maureen were unable to finish either of them. And, our enthusiasm for them was hardly dampened by the near deafening hum of our p-o-s DVD player, which completely drowned out the dialogue at times. This only put the movies on par with about 95% of our attempts at daytime conversation, where Juack, Maureen and I might as well not be able to hear the locals when they speak to us, because we can’t respond when they do. Thanks to Keelin, we can almost calculate bus fare and buy groceries, if you consider buying sour cream for our coffee getting it right.
Thanks to Juack for gently nudging us to give these two instant classics a chance, instead of the safer choices also in his backpack (e.g. The Godfather (I, II and III).
Friday, January 25, 2008
Mexico Travelling Partners
I arrive at the beach late (after having to do some work!)
Dave Hokit tries on a pink Puerto Vallarta hat, which the vendor refused to sell him because it was pink!
Maureen Roberts at Cocina de Jorges
Keelin emerges from the Pacific (81 degrees in the water today)
I joined Maureen, Dave, and Keelin one day into the vacation after a work thing in Los Angeles. They were glad to see me arrive, since I am in charge of both comic relief and cooking. I've been here 30 hours and have already cooked two dinners.
It is an incredible callback to be here again with all of them, since we have been here together on vacation twice before. This really isn't supposed to work, but we have taken at least ten vacations together (the Olympic Peninsula 2x, Methow Valley 3x, McCall Idaho, Lopez Island 2x, Orcas Island, and Salt Spring Island) since we met in 1986. This is the first one without our six children. And while we do miss The Youth, we're getting by somehow.
---o0o---
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Vaginas 'R Us::::life on the road in between airplanes::::::::heading for the beach in Mexico
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
Photographs from Keelin Curran and Maureen Roberts' recent Grand Canyon expedition
Monday, October 29, 2007
Keelin Curran and Maureen Roberts at the Grand Canyon
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
A Blog for Phil Kendall
One of my best friends. Phil Kendall, drowned under tragic and mysterious circumstances (e.g., he was being chased and jumped from a bridge into a canal) when he was traveling in Amsterdam in 1974. He was twenty years old. I became fast friends with him when he was a freshman at Western Washington University, and frequently traveled up to Bellingham to visit, talk, and "party" with Phil, Kevin Curran, and Jerry Melin.
This trio was responsible for introducing me to Keelin Curran, noted attorney, and my wife, best friend, and partner of 34 years. Yeah, they hooked me up with a righteous babe, but our friendship(s) transcended that even, and became the touchstone of all my loves and friendships since.
Four of Phil's sisters—Becky, Claudia, Kacia, and Kathi—recently decided to start a blog honoring his memory. Claudia contacted me a week ago and since then, I have been beating the drum for all our friends to contribute stories, photos, and memories of Phil. I am still contacting people. It has been wonderful to touch base with Claudia again, and go back and forth on our now somewhat hazy memories. Their blog is here. I am going to reprint our first contributions on All This Is That. After this, we'll just have a link to their blog, because this should be about Phil, and them. For you rockers, think of it as a very important side project.
Pat Spurgin remembers...
Pat Spurgin (a roommate of Phil's at 1721 Iron Street in the fall and winter of 73/74) wrote in an email to Keelin Curran:
"I am a little astounded because I have had a picture of Phil in my memory (I can't retrieve a nickname) and that blog pic is exactly what I had in mind, frozen from 1974 when I left Iron Street in my deep funk about pointlessness and distractedness.
Phil's sister (maybe it was Claudia) was quite wise one night back in '73-74 to not loan me her car after I drank the better part of a bottle of tequila and sailed off into the Bellingham night. It's an old story. I wound up laying in some front yard, sans glasses and one shoe, rescued by Bart & who? Imagine me driving. Wasn't it Phil who bought the Savoy Brown albums that stuck in my head for so long that I downloaded selected cuts off of i-tunes?
I must join in the wonderment and grief over things having gone so wrong.
Jack Brummet responds to Kevin Curran with a couple of Phil stories of his own
How moving. . .and loving. . .and your remembering is of such great clarity and depth and warmth. If you don't mind, I want to throw this on the Phil blog, and maybe this too.
Maybe this is perfect to set things in motion.
I knew Phil in high school--we were slight friends. But when I started coming to Bellingham, it was maybe after only one or two trips that I became fast friends with both Phil and Jerry. You and I were at that point old friends, and knew each other's families, and by then had a pretty long history (well, four years, say). Not surprisingly, Phil and I became friends sooner than Jerry and I did. In most ways, Phil was much more ebullient, and more open. Mel, as you remember, could also retract into toxic silence. Especially in the morning.
One other connection with Phil was books, Shakespeare, and poetry. Somehow you guys sucked me in to the point where I've been writing poems for like, what...35 years?
I agree with you on Phil's poem on the blog (See Sept. 7, on this blog). Startlingly mature. As Phil himself was easily the most mature of all of us. And yet he mostly always forgave our knucklehead ways. I think what Phil liked were my jokes, you know...my schtick...not jokes, but bent stories. I remember how much I liked telling him jokes, and stories of my hillbilly upbringing. He would just get the crazed look and howl and nearly fall to the floor. I can't remember his laugh exactly, but it was infectious and Falstaffian. It was such a great laugh that I always felt compelled to summon it up.
We got to know each other pretty quickly, and it wasn't very long before we were hooking up in Seattle too, even when you weren't around. And then, one day, something totally clicked between me and Mel. Or many things. One of us must have said or done something so funny and warped that it endeared us to each other forever.
So now, all of a sudden I had three brothers I loved in Bellingham, while I was stuck in Kent, at the Crisis Center. It was good work and important work, but at some moment in early 1973, I knew I had to go to college, and hang and create and party with you guys full time. This was not exactly easy for a poor hillbilly kid to do. In my entire family, only my mother had even graduated from high school. And my widowed mom had nary a nickel to contribute. Obviously scholarships were out. And my high school records screamed UNDERACHIEVER and rabble-rouser. It's another long story, but I was able to wheedle a letter of recommendation from both the Governor and the Mayor of Kent, and I was provisionally admitted to college in the fall (I was rid of the provisional part after my first successful quarter).
In the interim, the focus of my life became to hang with you [Kevin], Phil, and Jerry. I charged up to Bellingham every chance I got to drink it in. One of my favorite and most vibrant memories of those days were road trips to Seattle.
I especially remember the first road trip the four of us took after we were all living together. That car had a fog like Jeff Spiccoli's van as it rolled up to the prom. We were racing down to Seattle in Mel's still gleaming Pontiac, blasting the Stones' brand new Sticky Fingers, and rounding those looping I-5 turns, wending our way through the mountains with their sporadic clear-cuts, and digging "Can't You Hear Me Knockin."
And we played all our current favorites: The Dead's Europe 72; the Kinks Celluloid Heroes; Deep Purple; and Humble Pie's Rockin' The Fillmore. I don't know what we even did in Seattle, where we stayed, or anything. I do however most explicitly remember all four of us digging life to the max, and actually saying "this is the life. Whatever happens from here on, it won't get any better than this." We knew it for a fact. It was stew of friendship, being in college, being 20, and being free. And at that moment, on that road trip, we achieved a shimmering moment of eternal friendship.
As for Bleak House...it was a rathole, but I had so much fun and was so happy there that it shimmers in my memory. And that fun was all based on proximity to you, Phil and Mel. It became bleak later, I think, for outside reasons and the fact that Mel recruited a new roommate who was certifiably insane (and who, I heard later, would pick up the wedding cake at his brother's wedding and lob it at the bride and groom!). More about Bleak House next time. Maybe next time, we should delve into the pizza trick heist.
The Popcorn Story by Kevin Curran
Here is one of my favorites. While living on Humboldt Street Phil would suggest that we make some popcorn to enjoy during a bone head session. He always recalled that he had made the last batch and would insist that I had to prepare the next batch. I would agree and set off for the kitchen and as I created a racket pulling the oil, popcorn and pot onto the stovetop he would amble in and quietly take over. It was downright comical because it happened over and over again. He would suggest popcorn, make a big stink how he made it the last time, insist the it was my turn, and then as I had barely started he would gently push me out of the way and take over.
Eventually, I'd just raise a clatter and sure enough he'd show up to take over. I couldn't help but tell him, and while he smiled at me with that crooked grin he never again interrupted me during my popcorn turn. I wished I had kept it to myself not because I was getting over but because he just couldn't help himself and he was so glad to be hanging out making fun with a friend.
Kevin Curran Remembers Phil (installment one)
Kevin Curran writes from New York City:
The Phil blog touched me. I loved the pics and wonder if Phil in an apron was from our stay at bleak house. Here are my first thoughts.
I loved Philip. Our friendship lasted four years and yet I think of him frequently still and recently told Kris how much I miss him, even now. For a few years after his death I regularly dreamt that he had come home with some wild explanation for his absence. I would awaken flooded with joy until it sank in again with aching clarity that he was really gone.
I don't remember the exact moment we became friends. It may have occurred during high school football since we both played, though he was a year behind me at KM, surely our connection to Tom Brush was a factor. We may have attended the same writing class my senior year. I enjoyed rereading the poem that Phil’s sisters posted to the blog, it is really sweet and better than anything I remember writing then.
It was no accident that Phil and Jerry were friends. They both were athletic and smart and hilariously rebellious but I would say Phil’s brand was slightly less edgy and more prone to giggling than confrontation. I know that I met Jerry through Phil. I remember our friendship was well on its way during my stint at the Robo CarWash which began no later than early 1971. Phil would often pick me up after my shift on a Friday or Saturday evening. We hung out regularly after I graduated. I know that we shared in weekend shenanigans after I took up residence with BM, Smoothie and the monkey at the Comstock bachelor pad.
Phil purchased a small sports car around 1972, his senior year, (an MG midget maybe) which was toward the end of my year at the dog hospital.
I remember Phil driving up with the top down one sweet summer afternoon. He was brimming with a kind of Route 66 brio just as the car conked out in the parking lot. He fussed with that car throughout the summer and struggled to keep it on the road. He got the car to Bellingham in the fall of 1973 but I don't know how. He may have towed it behind a U HAUL. I remember it parked outside the Humboldt Street house for awhile but I don't remember that we ever took a ride in it that year. He either disposed of it or returned it to his family's home and I don’t think he had a car when we moved into bleak house on Iron Street the next fall.
Do you [Jack] remember your first trip to B’ham? It must have been winter quarter 1972-73. I remember that you and Milo made the trip and arrived after dark. I think that was that the first time you met Phil and Jerry. Our years on Humboldt and Iron Streets were full of stooges moments. I will put them together over the next few weeks. [to be continued]
An amusing (and shocking story from The Phil Zone) [another story from Jack Brummet]
I do remember one incredible and improbable story about Phil. Incredible, because, well, you'll see. Improbable because Phil was one of the smartest people I've known.
Kevin, Jerry, and Phil were sitting around their house on Humboldt Street one day, doing what we usually did (because it was cheap): talking. Eventually the talk somehow turned to amputations. I think they were talking about digital a/k/a finger amputations. Phil looked at them and said: "I know it hurt, but it will grow back, you know."
He was dead serious. When they finally realized he was serious, they, of course, howled and pounded the floor in mirth.
Sometime early in life, one of Phil's parents had told him that if you lost a finger or toe, it would grow back. And in the interim years, he had never seen or heard anything to ever make him think twice about that. Until that night in Bellingham. It was the most endearing thing he ever said.
I know this is hard to believe, but Phil confirmed the story to me not long after it happened. And I loved him all the more because of it.
---o0o---
Friday, August 24, 2007
Jack Brummet interviews Keelin Curran on marriage. . .
---o0o---