EllGab - Spite Board
Rikki Gins Lounge => Random Topics => Topic started by: Rikki Gins on March 06, 2024, 07:10:45 PM
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Feel free to write about your past experiences here. They don't have to be related to current events, or any other subject for that matter. Any past experience is fair game. How much you want to relate is up to you. For example, here is a slice of life experience that popped into my head just the other day...
Years ago. It was the middle of winter and there was a cold spell. I was walking out back, marveling at how icy everything was. I was about in the middle of the yard when I heard a strange sound. It was a buzzing kind of sound, almost like something vibrating. I turned toward the sound just in time to see my hanging bird bath (a glazed terra cotta dish) break in half. The two pieces fell down but they didn't hit the ground. They were dangling in the air, still attached to some small chains that were tied to the tree. Now that would have been something to catch on film, I remember thinking.
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I like it!
I'll have a few tasteful slices to add.
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I like it!
I'll have a few tasteful slices to add.
Great, @KSM! Looking forward to them.
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Hooray! I've been waiting on this thread. Got some ramblings in mind for it.
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Picture it - Cannes, France - mid 90's.
I am sitting at a hotel bar minding my own beeswax when this familiar looking man plops down beside me.
He mumbles a greeting in French and I answer him in English for reasons I will get into later.
He asks me if I am there for work and I let him know that my girlfriend is and I am tagging along for a few days.
The conversation turns to pizza and my new pal says he hasn't tried it.
I tell him about the oil - the same stuff Art Bell hijacked and called Pizza Punch - and he is getting interested.
The time comes where I have to go so I say goodbye to the man who said to call him Bobby.
2 days later I am back at the bar and Bobby is already seated and waves me over.
He tells me he has tried the pizza and he was not impressed.
I ask about the oil and he said they did not have any.
If they didn't have the oil then you have not tried the right pizza, Bobby.
I tell him he needs to go to a place off the beaten path to have it.
And then it happens, Rikki.
Bobby asks me DO YOU GOT A PLACE?
You bet your ass I got a place, Bobby!
10 minutes later we are in my rental car heading out for pizza.
I am chuckling to myself.
Life has taken me down one of those paths again.
How the hell have I ended up taking De Niro for pizza?
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Picture it - Cannes, France - mid 90's.
I am sitting at a hotel bar minding my own beeswax when this familiar looking man plops down beside me.
He mumbles a greeting in French and I answer him in English for reasons I will get into later.
He asks me if I am there for work and I let him know that my girlfriend is and I am tagging along for a few days.
The conversation turns to pizza and my new pal says he hasn't tried it.
I tell him about the oil - the same stuff Art Bell hijacked and called Pizza Punch - and he is getting interested.
The time comes where I have to go so I say goodbye to the man who said to call him Bobby.
2 days later I am back at the bar and Bobby is already seated and waves me over.
He tells me he has tried the pizza and he was not impressed.
I ask about the oil and he said they did not have any.
If they didn't have the oil then you have not tried the right pizza, Bobby.
I tell him he needs to go to a place off the beaten path to have it.
And then it happens, Rikki.
Bobby asks me DO YOU GOT A PLACE?
You bet your ass I got a place, Bobby!
10 minutes later we are in my rental car heading out for pizza.
I am chuckling to myself.
Life has taken me down one of those paths again.
How the hell have I ended up taking De Niro for pizza?
Wow! A positive "I met DeNiro" Story! Rare, I think. Most of the stories I have seen suggest that he can be a grade-A prick.
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Wow! A positive "I met DeNiro" Story! Rare, I think. Most of the stories I have seen suggest that he can be a grade-A prick.
Funny you should say that...
About 5 years later I get a call from a childhood friend.
His girlfriend is a makeup artists working on a movie in Montreal.
He sits in her chair and is a grumpy Gus.
She is trying to make small talk with him and getting grumbles back.
She heard the story so she mentions she knows someone who went to have pizza with him in Cannes.
He looks at her and laughs and says the pizza was ok but he did like the oil.
It was the only non-grumbled sentence he said to her in their week together.
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Around 20 years ago I was schedule to fly for work from Ecuador to Cali Columbia. We got hung up in Ecuador for a few more days and rescheduled. The original flight crashed into a volcano killing everyone.
Fast forward I was scheduled for a flight to SF from Newark for work. I moved the flight to a week later as we had issues with the merger going on. That original flight was the 911 flight that crashed in PA. The other crazy part was my brother was scheduling on the Boston 911 flight but took an earlier one.
I decided I should stay away from planes.
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Around 20 years ago I was schedule to fly for work from Ecuador to Cali Columbia. We got hung up in Ecuador for a few more days and rescheduled. The original flight crashed into a volcano killing everyone.
Fast forward I was scheduled for a flight to SF from Newark for work. I moved the flight to a week later as we had issues with the merger going on. That original flight was the 911 flight that crashed in PA. The other crazy part was my brother was scheduling on the Boston 911 flight but took an earlier one.
I decided I should stay away from planes.
Wow! Man, that's cutting it tooooo close!
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Funny you should say that...
About 5 years later I get a call from a childhood friend.
His girlfriend is a makeup artists working on a movie in Montreal.
He sits in her chair and is a grumpy Gus.
She is trying to make small talk with him and getting grumbles back.
She heard the story so she mentions she knows someone who went to have pizza with him in Cannes.
He looks at her and laughs and says the pizza was ok but he did like the oil.
It was the only non-grumbled sentence he said to her in their week together.
I saw a YT vid not long ago where a guy talks about sharing an elevator with his kids, then him. It goes south rather quickly. DeNiro decided to take the stairs. Wish I could find the vid again.
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My wife and I were in China back in 2007. We were in the middle of a city of nine million people and I ran into a guy I went to high school with. It is truly a small world.
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Funny you should say that...
His girlfriend is a makeup artists working on a movie in Montreal.
I wonder if they were filming The Score? Good movie.
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I wonder if they were filming The Score? Good movie.
I had a look and it was.
I know this because the makeup artist girlfriend was also excited to tell me there was a guy playing a slow adult in it.
My love of slow adults in movies is very well known.
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I had a look and it was.
I know this because the makeup artist girlfriend was also excited to tell me there was a guy playing a slow adult in it.
My love of slow adults in movies is very well known.
Haha! DeNiro, Brando (last movie) and Ed Norton playing a slow adult. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend.
i=0ao0BiDYIux_LnSu
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Haha! DeNiro, Brando (last movie) and Ed Norton playing a slow adult. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend.
i=0ao0BiDYIux_LnSu
I saw it but the only part I remember is OK THANK YOU and still find myself saying it like that to this day.
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Hooray! I've been waiting on this thread. Got some ramblings in mind for it.
Great, Wan! Can't wait.
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Oh my god, Bart, MAX & Billy. You fellows have made some fantastic slices out of your lives!
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Is there such a thing as a doleful slice of life?
If so, here's this moment that has stuck with me since it happened in 09.
A beautiful summer day I was out in the front yard watering the flowers and enjoying the lovely day while waiting for my daughter to get home from school on this Friday afternoon. Being Friday she would be one happy and cheery little girl. We had a corner lot and around the corner walked a guy with a backpack on his back. He caught my eye and I caught his. I nodded and he nodded back. He had a look of despair on his face and I couldn't help but acknowledge this as he diverted his eyes and walked on. He wasn't a homeless guy or a vagrant, he was clean shaven and his clothes were clean. There I was in my paradise of a day while he walked on to whatever was next for him with a look of..
I think about him often. Looked like he was taking a knife to a gunfight.
#melancholly
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Is there such a thing as a doleful slice of life?
If so, here's this moment that has stuck with me since it happened in 09.
A beautiful summer day I was out in the front yard watering the flowers and enjoying the lovely day while waiting for my daughter to get home from school on this Friday afternoon. Being Friday she would be one happy and cheery little girl. We had a corner lot and around the corner walked a guy with a backpack on his back. He caught my eye and I caught his. I nodded and he nodded back. He had a look of despair on his face and I couldn't help but acknowledge this as he diverted his eyes and walked on. He wasn't a homeless guy or a vagrant, he was clean shaven and his clothes were clean. There I was in my paradise of a day while he walked on to whatever was next for him with a look of..
I think about him often. Looked like he was taking a knife to a gunfight.
#melancholly
Any way we want to slice it, works. And yours worked. That was great, KSM!
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I moved to eastern North Carolina to work for a TV station that had tremendous coverage from FayetteNam in the south to Norfolk in the north and from the Outer Banks to west of Raleigh. I would take Saturdays and visit the various towns in y the area. I went to Goldsboro, the home of Seymour Johnson AFB, and about 2PM, I stopped at a fast food place. I got my lunch and sat at a table in the back. There was no one else there except for this tiny woman who was wiping down the tables. She was crying.
I asked if I could help her, and she sat down at my table. "I'm just so worried about my baby."
She hadn't known she was pregnant. Her periods continued as usual. The baby was several months premature and was rushed to a children's hospital in Raleigh - about 80-miles away. The one bright thing was that her boyfriend was in the Air Force so his insurance covered the baby. The bad thing g was that he was being deployed to the Gulf War in two days. April, the woman, had no car and had to depend on friends to take her to the hospital. It had been nearly a week since she had seen the baby.
I often wonder what happened to them.
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Years ago, I was travelling across country by bus to see some relatives for the first time. The journey would take several days and there was a sense of excitement, as well as trepidation. Inevitably, some strange fate would find me along the way.
Somewhere midtrip, a peculiar tall, thin individual, with long bedraggled yellow hair, got on the bus. There were other seats available, but he chose the seat next to me. Obsessively, he rambled on and drew me reluctantly into conversation. Over the length of the trip he eventually dozed off, yet for some reason kept resting his head deeply onto my shoulder. There was no escaping this so I chose the empty seat in front of us. Periodically, he would violently kick behind the seat where I was sitting. I moved again to the back of the bus, wedged in against other sympathetic fellow travellers. Everyone gave him a wide margin. In time, he was spitting, throwing drinks and apparently threatening a young woman in the seat behind him. She let the driver know and at the next rest stop the authorities were waiting for him.
Several weeks later, after I had returned home, there were reports of a women murdered in a seedy downtown east end Vancouver hotel. Description and background of the assailant was provided in the account.
It was him.
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Rainman's post reminds me of a past occurrence, though lots less dynamic. I had entered an L.A. restaurant, shortly before closing and, due to the fact that I was a bit short on cash, ordered a mug of hot chocolate. You know, the kind where you get a big dollop of whipped cream on top. I began to sip it and it was quite delicious. There was no hurry for me to finish because other customers were still there, finishing up their meals.
After a couple minutes, somebody from the establishment walked to the front and locked the doors (the kind that would let you leave but that would lock behind you.) I remember sitting there, savoring my hot chocolate and enjoying being in a brightly lit enclosure during the dark of night. A little while later, a fidgety, long haired guy hopped up on something approached the locked glass door and tried to enter. He pushed and shoved and banged on it with his fists. Everyone inside ignored him and this made him mad. I was just taking another sip of my drink when the guy started to spit all over the door, rubbing the slobber in with his hands.
Now, If there's one thing that makes me nauseas, it's watching people spit. I honestly can't remember what happened to the guy, I kind of think he wandered away after a few minutes. I do remember not being able to finish my nice cup of hot chocolate. It was still half full when I left.
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It was on my 7th day of being awake and was walking to a convenience store I think was called Zooms in Hampton Beach.
My sleep deprived mind was thinking that some vitamin C would be exactly what I needed.
I got a bottle of OJ and a sassy bottle of Banana-Orange.
I walked out the front door and downed the bottle of OJ.
There was a beach bum type fella walking into the store to pay for his gas who saw me enjoy my juice and said, "Orange juice, am I right?" and went for the high five.
I am not much of a high fiver but I obliged him on this one.
He was right, Rikki.
He was right.
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It was on my 7th day of being awake and was walking to a convenience store I think was called Zooms in Hampton Beach.
My sleep deprived mind was thinking that some vitamin C would be exactly what I needed.
I got a bottle of OJ and a sassy bottle of Banana-Orange.
I walked out the front door and downed the bottle of OJ.
There was a beach bum type fella walking into the store to pay for his gas who saw me enjoy my juice and said, "Orange juice, am I right?" and went for the high five.
I am not much of a high fiver but I obliged him on this one.
He was right, Rikki.
He was right.
Ha, I like that, Bart. By chance, did the vitamin C happen to help any? Two days without sleep is my record. Back in 1969 I once worked at the famous Metlox Pottery Company in Manhattan Beach, California. I was an industrial kiln operator there. One night they fired a couple guys and were suddenly short handed. I wound up working six consecutive 8 hour shifts. It was hot work and I'm not sure how I made it through, except that the facility was close to the ocean and I could occasionally revive myself by breathing in some refreshing sea air through a screen. (There were no windows there, just some big screens, oddly enough.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metlox_Pottery
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Ha, I like that, Bart. By chance, did the vitamin C happen to help any? Two days without sleep is my record. Back in 1969 I once worked at the famous Metlox Pottery Company in Manhattan Beach, California. I was an industrial kiln operator there. One night they fired a couple guys and were suddenly short handed. I wound up working six consecutive 8 hour shifts. It was hot work and I'm not sure how I made it through, except that the facility was close to the ocean and I could occasionally revive myself by breathing in some refreshing sea air through a screen. (There were no windows there, just some big screens, oddly enough.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metlox_Pottery
The vitamin C didn't do much but the sleep I finally got did the trick.
I BET YOU KILNED IT AT THAT JOB!
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It's 1986, I'm a few years out of college, living in Berkeley CA, and a friend is going back to Shanghai China to visit friends and relatives. And I'm invited. We'd be living in a now vacant apartment left behind on the move here for school. There would be plenty of money - useless anywhere else - from payments received years ago from the government, pennies on the dollar, for wealth seized from an elderly stepfather long since passed. Of course I'd like to go. There was even a sister in New York who wanted to move here and would be delighted to come stay in my apartment and keep up on the payments while I'm gone. Sounds good, let's get a six-month open-ended round-trip ticket to Hong Kong so we can come back whenever we want or stay for months.
We stay in Hong Kong for a week or so, some rich relative's flat up the hill near Victoria Peak. Never met him or any family members, not sure who they were, where they were, or what my friend's connection to them was, just the maid and the cook - perfect. Bustling city, plenty to do and see, it's like Chinatown only the whole thing. Sort of. Not too bad so far.
China was still an empty spot on the map. Oh sure Nixon went there 15 years ago, and we got some panda bears out of the deal, but there's not much in the way of news. In Hong Kong there was a hill a ways out of town tourists would go to where they could look out into the PRC, supposedly the only place in the world where one could, and that was about it.
We're on Cathay Pacific, a short flight to Shanghai, one of the largest cities in the world. I'm informed it's nothing like Hong Kong.
We land late afternoon, get off the plane, walk across the tarmac. Hmmm, this airport is about the size of the airport in my hometown Podunk, Washington. Pretty small for a city of 12 million.
Inside is a hub of activity. Travelers from out flight, people to greet them, lots of uniforms. Lots of uniforms. Military? Police? Both? Everyone is doing as directed, that's for sure. No smiles anywhere. No other Westerners, and there aren't going to be any.
You know, I'm not all that used to the big city of Berkeley/Oakland/San Francisco yet.
We get through customs and are met outside by two taxi vans full of friends and family. And two seats for us of course. By now it's dusk. There's nothing around, fields of grass or something, just a long dirt road heading off into the distance, one lane each way, with all the other vehicles coming and going on it. Hopefully to Shanghai. Right down the middle of the road, the whole way, miles and miles, is a ditch, maybe 10 feet deep and 4 or 5 feet wide. No light poles, or any poles, on the side of the road, no wires anywhere, no signs. There are strings of lights strung over the ditch the whole way providing some light for the workers - hundreds of men, stripped to the waist with picks and shovels, down in the ditch, digging. Not one piece of earth moving equipment anywhere. I was only on the plane two hours, how far back in time did we go?
Dinner was turtle soup. I knew because there was a cooked turtle in it.
We're still going to see the pandas tomorrow, right?
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In the fall of 2022, I visited the USA. I took the Starlight Express route on Amtrak from Seattle to Los Angeles. It's an overnight trip of 35 hours and you sleep on the train. Seated across the aisle from me are two magpies that are both talking non-stop at the same time and at full volume. The most frightful dialogue you can imagine; just random streams of consciousness pouring out of their pieholes simultaneously. I leave for the sightseeing car to escape it, but when I return over an hour later they are still going at it. I can't see any empty seats elsewhere, so I flag down a conductor and ask her if I can move. She doesn't even ask why. After awhile she returns with a card for Seat 6 and tells me I can move.
Seat 6 is, apparently, the only unoccupied seat left in coach. I plop down into it, and dig through my bag looking for my charger which I just had in my hand not five goddamn minutes ago. Along the way, I unearth my book "Shape" which is about geometry and the ways that it shapes (get it? *snicker snicker*) our lives in ways that we aren't aware of. My seatmate (there are two spacious seats on each side of the aisle) is a Latin guy, moreno, scraggly beard and mustache, maybe 30 years, just ghetto enough that I start thinking about hiding places for my wallet, with a blue bandanna around his neck and a jacket with a pattern that screams "Albuquerque." I detect this guy craning his neck to read the blurb on the back cover, and I'm searching a bit faster because I am much more interested in reading my book than talking to anyone, when he speaks up and asks me about it.
Felipe (for that is his name) is difficult for me to understand. He stutters and backtracks and speaks like he has severe ADD. But his questions are thoughtful enough, and almost innocent in his desire to understand. Just something about his manner that motivated me to talk. He picks up the basics fairly well; asks in particular when chess is mentioned; starts to hit the wall when I'm trying to explain about networks as an element of geometry. We grope forward, me trying to understand what he's saying; him trying to understand what I mean.
He shows me the book that he is reading: "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engels. And now our roles are reversed: he is teaching me. His vocabulary is simple, but I am getting it. We take a deeper dive into philosophy. Talk about not knowing a book by its cover. I never expected this and I am absolutely loving every minute of it. Until...
I don't remember how it started, perhaps because it was so surprising, but he starts telling me about the devices that have been implanted in his brain and under his skin by shadowy "men of finance." He points to various areas on his head, arms and legs where devices are located. He talks about how "they" are trying to reprogram him with wireless signals. "They" are feeding instructions directly into his brain. He goes on to talk about drone footage and using this technology to control the poor. Along the way, he's mentioning that he grew up in gang life, shot people and got away with it, hard drug use, homelessness, being in prison, sexual depravity. None of the foregoing was the main point of the story. I mean, he doesn't tell a story about being in prison. He tells a story about his wife, then says something like, "And then after I went to prison..."
I'm listening to this and not believing any of it, but starting to think that I understand why the seat next to him was the only empty seat in coach. I also realize that I will be sleeping tonight with this guy right next to me. I'm holding my own by trying to prompt him to keep expressing himself and dropping a supportive comment every now and then, hoping that this buys me enough good will to not be murdered in my sleep. But here's the thing: for all the coarseness and lack of polish in his expression, he seems like a good guy. Very polite and well mannered. When we reboarded after a fresh air stop at Klamath, he wondered aloud why nobody was talking. I said that it was because quiet time started at 10pm. Not another word from him until the morning.
I woke up at daylight, having had a wonderful sleep, and went to the sightseeing car so I could charge my phones and text my bitches. The train stopped for a break, and as I got off I walked past an exasperated conductor who was cussing out the magpies for smoking amongst the passengers and not in the designated smoking area. I bumped into Felipe, and we took a selfie. Once back inside, I offered to buy him a coffee (he turned down an offer of breakfast). We went to the sightseeing car and sipped our coffees and talked. Had a freewheeling conversation. He claims to know how to crochet and described a table covering he made, which somehow seemed even more improbable than the mind control stuff. We discussed sociology and politics, public policy, culture.
He gets up and heads downstairs to pee. A white woman, 60's, sitting at table across the aisle from us talks to me, apologizes for eavesdropping and tells me how much she enjoyed listening to our conversation. Felipe returns, and I introduce him to the lady and they begin talking about sociology, his background, etc. His vocal tics reappeared when he started speaking to her, though not as bad as before. All of a sudden, without warning, she starts speaking in fluent Spanish. Felipe responds in kind. I can't understand what they are talking about, but when he begins pointing at places on his head, arms and legs I know what is being laid down. I'm just vibrating with excitement, because I can't wait to see how this smashes into the image she had formed of him being a great thinker (much like I experienced the night before). But if it affected her, she disguised it very well. They switched to other topics and continued their conversation in Spanish and English. He's quoting Machiavelli and Descartes extemporaneously for us. Explicating The Count of Monte Cristo.
I have met some people with a sensational ability to lie, but this was so complex and went on so long that I was suspecting mental illness. Surely none of those awful life experiences could have happened to a man of his qualities. He might look the part and sound the part, but then you listen to what he is saying, and you start looking around for the hidden cameras. I decided to chalk it up to an educated guy facing a long boring train ride and deciding to have a little fun.
As Felipe and the lady continued with their conversation, she worked on something that she was crocheting. Felipe pops up and leans down to inspect it, and points to a pattern and asks how she made that. I don't mean like I just expressed it; they were talking in crochet PhD terms that I couldn't even understand. Filipe DOES know how to crochet! Of course he does! After all, that's what you do to pass the time while in prison.
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A lot of very interesting slices to be found. Nice.
1989, middle of nowhere Alberta in the middle of the night on a lonely stretch of very dark road heading west via my thumb. We, the band had decided to take a break for a month so I opted to hitchhike the 700 miles home rather than take the bus as the rest of the guys headed south to Victoria in our band bus. First ride during the day got me to were I was, but he turned north at some point and I thanked him for the lift as we wished each other luck. He drove off into the night and there I stood in the dark with my suitcase and guitar. It then occurred to me that I was wearing black boots, black jeans, black shirt with a black jacket. LOL. AHH and let's not forget the long black hair.
Mr. Death on the side of the blackened highway hoping to be seen, hoping for a ride home. ::)
I was very calm and seemed to have a sense of serenity as I stood there in the dark. Freedom. Eventually a car came and kept going.. and an hour or so later another car did the same thing. I figured that I would just sit down on my BLACK suitcase and take out my Les Paul and quietly play guitar in the dark until the sun came up and I could be seen. After about 30 minutes of sitting and playing my guitar I saw that another car was coming down the road.. I didn't even bother to stick my thumb out as I was quite sure I would not be seen. Car passed. Car slowed down. Car began to back up. While keeping his distance a guy got out and asked if I was ok. He was quite perplexed about this long haired guy sitting at the crossroads in the black of night. I chuckled and told him my situation, and this earned me a one way ride all the way to home base.
The ONLY reason he stopped for me was because he saw the chrome reflecting off my guitar when his lights hit.
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I really enjoyed the 3 - 4 roadside hours of uncertainty there in the night.
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It was midi October 2005. I was sitting on my balcony two blocks from the ocean in Jacksonville Beach. There was a weather situation I've never seen before or since. Clouds descended to about the top floor of the 15-story condos on the beach. Behind them over the Ocean a more or less full moon was rising. It illuminated the clouds like an old rear screen projector. Flying very slowly through the clouds was a triangular-shaped UFO. It had no lights and the only way I saw it was because of the weird lighting. It was flying in a higher lane than the Navy helicopters would fly and much lower than the commer coal airlines.
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You fellows are knocking your slices right out of the ballpark!
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It was midi October 2005. I was sitting on my balcony two blocks from the ocean in Jacksonville Beach. There was a weather situation I've never seen before or since. Clouds descended to about the top floor of the 15-story condos on the beach. Behind them over the Ocean a more or less full moon was rising. It illuminated the clouds like an old rear screen projector. Flying very slowly through the clouds was a triangular-shaped UFO. It had no lights and the only way I saw it was because of the weird lighting. It was flying in a higher lane than the Navy helicopters would fly and much lower than the commer coal airlines.
Holy cow. That is great! I mentioned last night on my broadcast that I might tell of my (and wife's) sighting, but am reluctant to do so. Think I'll do it.
Painted a great picture there, Juan.
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Right down the middle of the road, the whole way, miles and miles, is a ditch, maybe 10 feet deep and 4 or 5 feet wide. No light poles, or any poles, on the side of the road, no wires anywhere, no signs.
Are you sure this wasn't Cape Coral, Florida?
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@KSM the cars that passed you were afraid you were a Robert Johnson follower.
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@KSM the cars that passed you were afraid you were a Robert Johnson follower.
The driver asked me about 10 minutes into the ride if the devil showed up or not. He was a cool guy. Led foot, too.
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I said that it was because quiet time started at 10pm. Not another word from him until the morning.
Prison training.
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This was my first movie theatre experience, so I had to be pretty young, oh, say about 5 years old or thereabouts. Dad took me into the theatre and gave me an aisle seat and he took the next one in. The movie started up and I marveled at how big the people looked up there on the screen. Obviously I have no recollection of what movie was playing. It was black and white film and there were people gathered around a living room setting, that much I remember.
I can't remember what prompted me to get up from my seat and walk down the aisle towards the screen. Possibly I didn't understand the principles of projected films, or who knows, perhaps I actually thought that there were real people up there. Anyway, Dad hadn't noticed that I left, and I was able to make it all the way down to the screen area.
Dark as it was in there, I found some side steps leading up to the screen. I walked up them, and there I was, face to face with those really big people. I had an urge to look behind the screen because surely, those people were all sitting around back there, right?
I glanced behind the screen and I swear, I could see all the actors in there. One in particular, a lady wearing a 1950s black evening dress. She was casually sitting in a living room chair, puffing away on a cigarette. She turned her head and looked right at me.
Just then, a hand was placed on one of my shoulders. It was Dad. He wasn't mad or anything. He patiently guided me back to our seats where we watched the rest of the movie.
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A number of my slices of life took part in an old pool hall in the little town of Monroe, Oregon. We Gins boys got to spend some summers there, while staying with the grand folk. My Granddad Hibby owned the pool hall. Before I relate any of the occurrences, I should take you back in time to the 1950s and give you a personal tour of the place.
It was a fairly large wooden building with some big windows up front, though they were treated with something so that you couldn't see through them all that well. (Privacy for all the customers in there, I guess.)
There was a sign on the door that read "No Minors Allowed" but for some reason Granddad would let us kids in. When I first visited the place, I was young enough to where I could read but my spelling was way off. I thought the sign meant miners. Now why wouldn't they be allowed in?
Step through the big wooden door and the first thing to assail you would be the smell. Best described as a mixture of beer, vanilla, air conditioning Freon, tobacco, chocolate, oil (the wooden floor was treated with it) and pool cube chalk.
A few steps in and the counter, or bar if you will, was situated on the left, running east to west. It wasn't very big but it was ample enough to serve beer to four or five customers seated on bar stools. On top was a box of Dutch Masters Cigars, bags of Planters Peanuts, some packets of beef jerky and the cash register of course. Located on the wall behind the counter was a refrigerated storage area for bottles of beer and soda pop, such as Coke, Root Beer and Seven Up. Built into the back of the counter itself was a freezer unit that held big tubs of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice-cream.
If you walked to the opposite wall you would come across a big glassed in candy display case. All the familiar brands were there, such as Three Musketeers, York Peppermint Patties, Milky Way bars, Snickers and the like. Magazines were displayed along the wall. I can't remember any titles, but there were a few girlie magazines there. (Fairly tame stuff but still fun to look at, when you're a kid.) There was also a revolving rack that displayed paperback books. There was an automated, stand up bowling machine by the wall. You slid a puck type of object down the 'lane' and sensor wires would elevate the plastic pins upwards, according to how well you angled it in.
In the middle of the establishment were two big pool tables and beyond them some felt covered card tables with wooden chairs. Above them, on the far wall sat an old, black and white television. A highly popular feature, especially if there was a boxing match going on during business hours.
There was a door in the back of the pool hall and once you walked through it, you were outside. A small pathway took you past a storage room and then the bathroom, a pretty simple affair with toilet, toilet paper, a small sink to wash hands with and a paper towel dispenser. That back area was a small, open court, only aside from the storeroom and bathroom, there was nothing there, no roof or anything. The ground was paved with hundreds of pop bottle caps. They were all pounded into the ground, to keep weeds from growing, I guess.
And that's it. I think I've about covered it all. Oh, yeah, what brand of beer did Granddad serve? Well, there was a nifty, electric powered advertisement sign hanging on the wall behind the counter. It showed a shimmering, animated waterfall for Olympia Beer. "It's the Water"
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(Fairly tame stuff but still fun to look at, when you're a kid.)
I don't see why it wouldn't be fun for adults, too.
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A number of my slices of life took part in an old pool hall in the little town of Monroe, Oregon. We Gins boys got to spend some summers there, while staying with the grand folk. My Granddad Hibby owned the pool hall. Before I relate any of the occurrences, I should take you back in time to the 1950s and give you a personal tour of the place.
It was a fairly large wooden building with some big windows up front, though they were treated with something so that you couldn't see through them all that well. (Privacy for all the customers in there, I guess.)
There was a sign on the door that read "No Minors Allowed" but for some reason Granddad would let us kids in. When I first visited the place, I was young enough to where I could read but my spelling was way off. I thought the sign meant miners. Now why wouldn't they be allowed in?
Step through the big wooden door and the first thing to assail you would be the smell. Best described as a mixture of beer, vanilla, air conditioning Freon, tobacco, chocolate, oil (the wooden floor was treated with it) and pool cube chalk.
A few steps in and the counter, or bar if you will, was situated on the left, running east to west. It wasn't very big but it was ample enough to serve beer to four or five customers seated on bar stools. On top was a box of Dutch Masters Cigars, bags of Planters Peanuts, some packets of beef jerky and the cash register of course. Located on the wall behind the counter was a refrigerated storage area for bottles of beer and soda pop, such as Coke, Root Beer and Seven Up. Built into the back of the counter itself was a freezer unit that held big tubs of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice-cream.
If you walked to the opposite wall you would come across a big glassed in candy display case. All the familiar brands were there, such as Three Musketeers, York Peppermint Patties, Milky Way bars, Snickers and the like. Magazines were displayed along the wall. I can't remember any titles, but there were a few girlie magazines there. (Fairly tame stuff but still fun to look at, when you're a kid.) There was also a revolving rack that displayed paperback books. There was an automated, stand up bowling machine by the wall. You slid a puck type of object down the 'lane' and sensor wires would elevate the plastic pins upwards, according to how well you angled it in.
In the middle of the establishment were two big pool tables and beyond them some felt covered card tables with wooden chairs. Above them, on the far wall sat an old, black and white television. A highly popular feature, especially if there was a boxing match going on during business hours.
There was a door in the back of the pool hall and once you walked through it, you were outside. A small pathway took you past a storage room and then the bathroom, a pretty simple affair with toilet, toilet paper, a small sink to wash hands with and a paper towel dispenser. That back area was a small, open court, only aside from the storeroom and bathroom, there was nothing there, no roof or anything. The ground was paved with hundreds of pop bottle caps. They were all pounded into the ground, to keep weeds from growing, I guess.
And that's it. I think I've about covered it all. Oh, yeah, what brand of beer did Granddad serve? Well, there was a nifty, electric powered advertisement sign hanging on the wall behind the counter. It showed a shimmering, animated waterfall for Olympia Beer. "It's the Water"
That was great, Rikki, Olympia beer was selling still in the 1990s in Victoria. The cans of course still boasted "it's the water"
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I don't see why it wouldn't be fun for adults, too.
I'm sure it was, possibly more so as the adults had the patience to read the accompanying articles. Men's adventure magazines mostly, that had bikini clad beauties in them, though I do recall seeing a Playboy on the stand, every so often. In that case I doubt even the adults bothered with the articles.
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That was great, Rikki, Olympia beer was selling still in the 1990s in Victoria. The cans of course still boasted "it's the water"
Thanks for the info, KSM. I wasn't aware of that.
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Thanks for the info, KSM. I wasn't aware of that.
Haven't thought about Olympia in forever. Used to watch Miss Olympia lock horns with Miss Budweiser in the hydroplane races on the Detroit River. Good stuff
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Haven't thought about Olympia in forever. Used to watch Miss Olympia lock horns with Miss Budweiser in the hydroplane races on the Detroit River. Good stuff
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Ha, that's wild. Love the picture, WAN!
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Ha, that's wild. Love the picture, WAN!
and her mortal enemy - Miss Bud
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and her mortal enemy - Miss Bud
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Nice! Do hydroplanes still race there?
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Nice! Do hydroplanes still race there?
Yep in August this year:
https://detroitboatraces.com/
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Yep in August this year:
https://detroitboatraces.com/
Fun! We've got a boat-nik festival once a year, in an adjoining town. They race the smaller sized hydroplanes.
https://www.boatnik.com/hydroplane-boats.html
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Haven't thought about Olympia in forever. Used to watch Miss Olympia lock horns with Miss Budweiser in the hydroplane races on the Detroit River. Good stuff
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The annual hydroplane races were a lot of fun. Growing up in Washington State, they'd have them on Lake Washington in Seattle, and the Columbia River in the Tri-Cities area (Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco).
After his playing days were over, Sonics legend (heh heh) Tommy Burleson became a racer. How his 7'2'' body fit in the boat remains a mystery.
The SF Bay must not be placid enough to have them here. It was during the hydroplane races some kids were trying to sneak in when they found Kennewick Man.
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For this slice of life tale, I must bring you to my upstairs bedroom back when I was a gangly, not to mention pimply, youth of 14. It was March 27, 1964. I had inherited the old black and white tv from Granddad's pool hall and had the set perched atop a dresser. I was laying atop my bed watching a Friday night movie called I Bury The Living, starring Richard Boone.
One creepy movie, I must say. It was about a successful business man named Robert Kraft (Boone) who had to run the town cemetery for a year. (All the successful businessmen took turns running the cemetery, kind of a charity thing going on there to show that they cared about the community or whatnot.) Kraft didn't want to do it, but his co-workers and an uncle talked him into it, so there he was, inside of a cold, tomb like room with a table, a couple of chairs and a broken space heater. And one big cemetery map on the wall, covered with black and white pins. The cemetery caretaker explained the pins to Kraft. The black pins designated people who were at rest in the cemetery and the white ones were for folks who had purchased plots, but were still alive. All of the plots on the chart had everyone's names on it, alive or dead.
Kraft thought he had it all down pat. Someone buys a plot and voila, a white pin goes on the board. Oh oh, someone died, so here comes a black pin. Anyway, to make the plot short, Kraft slowly realizes that whenever he mistakenly put a black pin on a living person's plot, that unfortunate soul would wind up dead. He thought it was a coincidence at first, but after experimenting with some black pins, it surely did seem that white pin people were dropping dead, and this despite the fact that Kraft had tried to convince his fiancé, a police inspector, a local reporter and his (Kraft's) uncle as to what was going on. The movie progresses and Kraft is at his wits end because he is convinced that he had actually killed all of those people by using the black pins.
Mr. Kraft proceeded to loose his mind and thoughts of suicide began to occur. Then late one night, there in the cold cemetery office, it came to him. Yes, if black pins were killing live people, then white pins would restore life to dead people. So Kraft pulled the black pins he had used, and replaced them with white ones.
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Sure enough, outside in the cemetery, tombstones began to fall over and dirt would begin to roil up on some of the graves.
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I was getting pretty scared at this point when the television screen suddenly went blank. What the devil? I wondered. About ten seconds later the set came back on and it began to show video of the following...
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From bursting graves to destroyed cities? I was confused. The longer I watched though, it became clear that the movie I had been watching had been pre-empted by news of a massive earthquake that had occurred up there in Alaska. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake News traveled rather slow back in those days, (no satellite news yet) and it took awhile to receive word about the quake. As far as the movie went, well, it can be viewed on YouTube if you'd like to see how it ends.
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Just started working on my first of what will hopefully be a string of slices of the Life of WAN entries in this thread. Time to practice a bit more writing. Writing is something that I've always been really self conscious about due to my poor education in English. Three of the four English teachers I had in High School were useless and while I had to take some English classes in college they weren't exactly emphasized as it was a small, engineering school. Thank God for Mr. Howard who taught Senior College Prep English in High School - he pulled me aside with a "WAN, in no way do you belong in this class" but instead of kicking me out, he worked with me to the point that I was able to manage a slightly above average score in English on the ACT and I was able to accepted to a couple of schools that I had an interest in attending. So writing has always bothered me and I think it's time to practice again.
This inaugural slice will meander a bit - it will include a commercials silly jingle, a furniture store, Evel Knievel, the Detroit Mafia and a brutal murder on a wedding day. If you are a WAN fan, stay tuned. If not - just ignore!
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The old cat was asleep on the couch. A big, burly, sullen brute with only a stump for a tail. There was a rumor of actual bobcat lineage. That's right, we called him Bob. Imagine a 20 foot long rectangular living room with a mid century stereo console beside an old black and white TV the size of a small fridge. It was a summer's day, the doors were wide open and a crazed starling flew into the house, circling the ceiling and shrieking madly. There was quite the commotion as to what should be done. The cat opened one eye, instantly appraised the situation, leapt onto the console, then the TV and into the air. Just as it made its last revolution, the bird was put out of its misery with one swat. We were all a little stunned. The cat slowly walked back to the couch, laid down and calmly resumed his nap, in peace.
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Just started working on my first of what will hopefully be a string of slices of the Life of WAN entries in this thread. Time to practice a bit more writing. Writing is something that I've always been really self conscious about due to my poor education in English. Three of the four English teachers I had in High School were useless and while I had to take some English classes in college they weren't exactly emphasized as it was a small, engineering school. Thank God for Mr. Howard who taught Senior College Prep English in High School - he pulled me aside with a "WAN, in no way do you belong in this class" but instead of kicking me out, he worked with me to the point that I was able to manage a slightly above average score in English on the ACT and I was able to accepted to a couple of schools that I had an interest in attending. So writing has always bothered me and I think it's time to practice again.
This inaugural slice will meander a bit - it will include a commercials silly jingle, a furniture store, Evel Knievel, the Detroit Mafia and a brutal murder on a wedding day. If you are a WAN fan, stay tuned. If not - just ignore!
Most of us know your work, WAN, so you'll do just fine. Relax and let it flow, but uppermost, have fun.
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The old cat was asleep on the couch. A big, burly, sullen brute with only a stump for a tail. There was a rumor of actual bobcat lineage. That's right, we called him Bob. Imagine a 20 foot long rectangular living room with a mid century stereo console beside an old black and white TV the size of a small fridge. It was a summer's day, the doors were wide open and a crazed starling flew into the house, circling the ceiling and shrieking madly. There was quite the commotion as to what should be done. The cat opened one eye, instantly appraised the situation, leapt onto the console, then the TV and into the air. Just as it made its last revolution, the bird was put out of its misery with one swat. We were all a little stunned. The cat slowly walked back to the couch, laid down and calmly resumed his nap, in peace.
Great idea bringing up a pet, Bob. We can all tell some tales regarding them.
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March 21, 1960.
Ten years old. Morning. House on the hill. Fourth grade. Looking down the winding driveway, waiting to spot an approaching school bus. Had a dime in my hand (milk money) and I started to tap tap tap on one of the window panes. (There were plenty to choose from, the front of the house had three or four rows of window panes.) I had it down pat, if the bus appeared way down the road, I had time to carry my books and lunch bag down the driveway and I would get to the bus stop just as the bus itself rolled to a stop.
No bus seen yet, though. Tap tap tap. Phone rang back in the dinning room. Tap tap tap. Mom answered it. Tap tap tap. She gasped. Tap tap tap. "Is Hibby Dead?" she cried out. Tap....
Grandpa Hibbs had been in a Roseburg, Oregon hospital for gall bladder surgery. All of us kids had sent him letters wishing him a full recovery. A deadly blood clot had got loose in his circulatory system and became lodged in his heart. Death came quick that sunny spring morning of March 21, 1960.
I stopped waiting for the bus.
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Dinning - wtf? Meant to say dining.
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March 21, 1960.
Ten years old. Morning. House on the hill. Fourth grade. Looking down the winding driveway, waiting to spot an approaching school bus. Had a dime in my hand (milk money) and I started to tap tap tap on one of the window panes. (There were plenty to choose from, the front of the house had three or four rows of window panes.) I had it down pat, if the bus appeared way down the road, I had time to carry my books and lunch bag down the driveway and I would get to the bus stop just as the bus itself rolled to a stop.
No bus seen yet, though. Tap tap tap. Phone rang back in the dinning room. Tap tap tap. Mom answered it. Tap tap tap. She gasped. Tap tap tap. "Is Hibby Dead?" she cried out. Tap....
Grandpa Hibbs had been in a Roseburg, Oregon hospital for gall bladder surgery. All of us kids had sent him letters wishing him a full recovery. A deadly blood clot had got loose in his circulatory system and became lodged in his heart. Death came quick that sunny spring morning of March 21, 1960.
I stopped waiting for the bus.
At first I thought you were waiting outside.
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At first I thought you were waiting outside.
Me too.
Good one Rikki. I love that you know the exact date of that particular slice.
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At first I thought you were waiting outside.
Yeah, I should have clarified. I was standing behind those window panes, waiting for the school bus to arrive, tapping on one of the windows with the dime. When we first moved in, that area behind the windows was separate from the living room. Sort of a walled in entranceway. Dad knocked the wall down and the living room was instantly bigger.
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Me too.
Good one Rikki. I love that you know the exact date of that particular slice.
Thanks, KSM. It was easy to remember because it was one of my first experiences with death. Oh, I understood death alright, but not when it applied to a relative. (Mom took us kids up north to view his body, and that was an experience in itself.) Also, I managed to save the little booklet that the funeral home handed out to friends and family of the deceased. As the years passed, I could never remember if it was 1960 or 61, so I'd dig up the notice and check the date.
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My usual crawling across the web in the early morning hours was interrupted by a noise downstairs. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I thought it was a clicking sound. Then the power went out. Then it came back on again. Out on, out on, like a pulse. The rest of the family witnessed this as well. The porch light of the property across the street was pulsing in unison. I was about to check outside to see how far this went, but it stopped. I phoned the power company the next day. Nothing untoward had happened. No one had complained of anything.
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It was 1992. There was a rally called for The Old "Slave" Market on La Plaza de la Constitution in St. Augustine. Now the old market had nothing to do with slavery. It was the traditional open air market typical of Spanish settlements in the New World. But back in the 1880s Henry Flagler in promoting his railroad posed an old Black man in front of the market and deemed it a slave market. Anything to lure in a damnyankee tourist.
Anyway, back to 1992. The rally was called by the Ku Klux Klan and the Pan-African Inter-National movement or PAIN, a Black separatist group. They marched in from opposite sides of the market - the Klan in white sheets and hoods, the PAINs in red, black, and green. Both leaders spoke and denounced race mixing. Osiris Akkebala, also known as Jack Mitchell, chief elder of PAIN said you don't see red birds and blue birds together, so humans shouldn't be either.
John Baumgardner, Grand Dragon of the Imperial Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Orlando said he supports reparations from the US government and its allies. The money would be used to establish a new nation in Africa and to move Blacks to that new country.
"We need the descendants of African slaves to rise above the perception of the Ku Klux Klan forced on them by the mass media," said Akkebala. "They are in support of our objectives, and we do not discriminate when groups support us."
"It's time to replace racial hatred with cooperation," said Baumgardner. "We were wrong in the past, and we're big enough to say that we were wrong. We believe that separation cannot be achieved through intimidation but through education."
After the speeches the two groups marched out separately.
Baumgartner said his group had about 30 active members. Akkeballa refused to say how many members his group has.
I'll just add that this was the last time I've seen Ku Klux activity anywhere and I have not heard of PAIN before or since.
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Yeah, I should have clarified. I was standing behind those window panes, waiting for the school bus to arrive, tapping on one of the windows with the dime. When we first moved in, that area behind the windows was separate from the living room. Sort of a walled in entranceway. Dad knocked the wall down and the living room was instantly bigger.
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I pictured the house being brown.
I can see that place being fun for a young Rikki.
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My usual crawling across the web in the early morning hours was interrupted by a noise downstairs. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I thought it was a clicking sound. Then the power went out. Then it came back on again. Out on, out on, like a pulse. The rest of the family witnessed this as well. The porch light of the property across the street was pulsing in unison. I was about to check outside to see how far this went, but it stopped. I phoned the power company the next day. Nothing untoward had happened. No one had complained of anything.
Those were power flickers, Bob, as opposed to power outages. We will get an occasional flicker out here in the pacific northwest. A quick 'power off' and just when you think outage, the power comes back on. It only happens once or twice a year, the same with full outages, possibly a couple times a year at best, usually during wind storms that cause tree branches to hit the power lines. Your multiple 'flickers' were most unusual and I'm surprised that the power company didn't have a record of them.
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It was 1992. There was a rally called for The Old "Slave" Market on La Plaza de la Constitution in St. Augustine. Now the old market had nothing to do with slavery. It was the traditional open air market typical of Spanish settlements in the New World. But back in the 1880s Henry Flagler in promoting his railroad posed an old Black man in front of the market and deemed it a slave market. Anything to lure in a damnyankee tourist.
Anyway, back to 1992. The rally was called by the Ku Klux Klan and the Pan-African Inter-National movement or PAIN, a Black separatist group. They marched in from opposite sides of the market - the Klan in white sheets and hoods, the PAINs in red, black, and green. Both leaders spoke and denounced race mixing. Osiris Akkebala, also known as Jack Mitchell, chief elder of PAIN said you don't see red birds and blue birds together, so humans shouldn't be either.
John Baumgardner, Grand Dragon of the Imperial Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Orlando said he supports reparations from the US government and its allies. The money would be used to establish a new nation in Africa and to move Blacks to that new country.
"We need the descendants of African slaves to rise above the perception of the Ku Klux Klan forced on them by the mass media," said Akkebala. "They are in support of our objectives, and we do not discriminate when groups support us."
"It's time to replace racial hatred with cooperation," said Baumgardner. "We were wrong in the past, and we're big enough to say that we were wrong. We believe that separation cannot be achieved through intimidation but through education."
After the speeches the two groups marched out separately.
Baumgartner said his group had about 30 active members. Akkeballa refused to say how many members his group has.
I'll just add that this was the last time I've seen Ku Klux activity anywhere and I have not heard of PAIN before or since.
Well I certainly didn't expect that outcome. I thought there would have been fisticuffs. Fascinating.
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I pictured the house being brown.
I can see that place being fun for a young Rikki.
You are most correct, Bart. That was a wonderful house to live in & it was lots of fun. That upstairs window belonged to my two older brothers' bedroom. Mine was upstairs too, and was at the far end of the second floor. I could open a window and climb out onto the roof and make my way down to the carport and onto the ground. From there, I could hike up a nearby hill and look out over the entire valley. I could then make my way back to the bedroom and nobody would even know that I had left. (Also you are psychic, Bart. The house was indeed brown at one time.)
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First year of college. Working at Sears & Roebuck, bunch of kids working the 6 to 9 evening shift after the lifers went home for the day. Sears was part of the big mall on the outskirts of town, where the highway turned into the long drag running North-South through town before turning back into the highway on the other end of town. The employee parking lot was in the back, behind the back lot was the river, with a tree canopy, so completely isolated and out of sight from any streets. Or police. The back lot ran the entire length of the mall, plenty of room, broken up by the light poles.
It snowed a lot in winter, the plows would usually clear it, not always, and plenty would melt during the day and freeze again later creating a really slick, slippery surface. If not compact snow and ice, then just black ice.
What fun.
After punching out at 9 pm, after any managers or older employees left, we'd get in our cars and race around the lot. Getting a good running start, then throwing our cars into sideways slides. Doing it all over again, but this time instead of mere slides throw them into tight spins. Races from one end to the other and back, slaloming around the light poles and any hapless cars still parked out there. A person could go through a whole tankful of gas in an hour, easy.
I'll say this though, driving around on the roads and streets in normal traffic with snow and ice on the road was a breeze after that. Hitting black ice unexpectedly was no problem.
Yeah, kids. You're better off not knowing.
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Yeah, I should have clarified. I was standing behind those window panes, waiting for the school bus to arrive, tapping on one of the windows with the dime. When we first moved in, that area behind the windows was separate from the living room. Sort of a walled in entranceway. Dad knocked the wall down and the living room was instantly bigger.
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Love that picture!
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Love that picture!
So glad you like it. Wish we could travel back into the past. I'd show you around the place.
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Click here for a picture of Pat:
https://www.last.fm/music/Pat+Benatar/+images/657f4165a3fb463b818faa8c25853360
That's the way she looked when she and her band performed at a local county fair, many years ago, I should add. We've had a lot of big names at the fair and it used to be you could wander about the grounds and watch the performers, or you could be part of a big crowd that gathered in front of the stage. Your choice. But then a rich, car dealership owner built an amphitheater and walled it in, and made you pay extra (after having already paid to gain entrance to the fair) to be able to see the performances. I remember Cheap Trick was the first band to play in the closed off setting.
Anyway, Pat Benatar and her band played at the fair when you didn't have to pay extra to watch. I wasn't all that big of a fan or anything, but I did like some of her songs and it was fun to see her belting them out as I walked about the fairgrounds. She started to sing Heartbreaker, just as I was walking next to the concert area, so I stopped to listen to the song. I still wasn't a part of the concert crowd, just a little bit off to the side, on a sidewalk. There was nobody around me.
She started to sing...
"You're a heartbreaker
Dream maker, love taker
Don't you mess around with me."
When she sang the words heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker, she would point to various dudes in the audience. Then she started to repeat the verse and swung her arm away from the crowd and pointed right at me and sang, "You're a heartbreaker." Yes, Pat Benatar pointed at your Rikki Gins and called him a heartbreaker!
I've had a lot of fun memories of that fair, and that one with Pat was definitely one of them.
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Click here for a picture of Pat:
https://www.last.fm/music/Pat+Benatar/+images/657f4165a3fb463b818faa8c25853360
That's the way she looked when she and her band performed at a local county fair, many years ago, I should add. We've had a lot of big names at the fair and it used to be you could wander about the grounds and watch the performers, or you could be part of a big crowd that gathered in front of the stage. Your choice. But then a rich, car dealership owner built an amphitheater and walled it in, and made you pay extra (after having already paid to gain entrance to the fair) to be able to see the performances. I remember Cheap Trick was the first band to play in the closed off setting.
Anyway, Pat Benatar and her band played at the fair when you didn't have to pay extra to watch. I wasn't all that big of a fan or anything, but I did like some of her songs and it was fun to see her belting them out as I walked about the fairgrounds. She started to sing Heartbreaker, just as I was walking next to the concert area, so I stopped to listen to the song. I still wasn't a part of the concert crowd, just a little bit off to the side, on a sidewalk. There was nobody around me.
She started to sing...
"You're a heartbreaker
Dream maker, love taker
Don't you mess around with me."
When she sang the words heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker, she would point to various dudes in the audience. Then she started to repeat the verse and swung her arm away from the crowd and pointed right at me and sang, "You're a heartbreaker." Yes, Pat Benatar pointed at your Rikki Gins and called him a heartbreaker!
I've had a lot of fun memories of that fair, and that one with Pat was definitely one of them.
I dated this French pop singer girl before I moved to L.A.
About six months after I left I got an email from her asking if I was interested in coming back for a week and do a TV show with her.
Her plan was to become more of a rock singer and would be playing Heartbreaker the show to debut her new image.
She had a heavy French accent so I tried to help her pronunciation but it was still pretty brutal.
It was a live show but they recorded a safety show in the afternoon just in case there was a technical issue during the live.
This camera guy was trying to get a fancy shot that made it look like the camera was attached to the guitar.
He kept hitting my hand with his camera and then he stepped on my pedals.
I tried to back him up with a gentle hip check and ended up making him drop and break his camera.
30 seconds later security was escorting innocent Bart out of the building and I was replaced with the house band nerd.
She sent me an email the next morning say she was heartbroken.
I guess we are Heartbreaker brothers, @Rikki Gins
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I dated this French pop singer girl before I moved to L.A.
About six months after I left I got an email from her asking if I was interested in coming back for a week and do a TV show with her.
Her plan was to become more of a rock singer and would be playing Heartbreaker the show to debut her new image.
She had a heavy French accent so I tried to help her pronunciation but it was still pretty brutal.
It was a live show but they recorded a safety show in the afternoon just in case there was a technical issue during the live.
This camera guy was trying to get a fancy shot that made it look like the camera was attached to the guitar.
He kept hitting my hand with his camera and then he stepped on my pedals.
I tried to back him up with a gentle hip check and ended up making him drop and break his camera.
30 seconds later security was escorting innocent Bart out of the building and I was replaced with the house band nerd.
She sent me an email the next morning say she was heartbroken.
I guess we are Heartbreaker brothers, @Rikki Gins
Yes, fellow Heartbreaker! We have certainly left a trail of tears in our wake.
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When I was living in Hollywood years ago, I used to walk down a sidewalk that led to a corner mini-grocery store. It sat right next to a busy street, the name of which I can't remember, (the street I lived on was Van Ness Ave, but that's the only street name I remember except for Hollywood Ave. & Sunset Boulevard) but anyway, there was a gated parking lot across the street that belonged to Paramount Pictures Co. I figure it must have been used for employees of the Paramount television production studios that were nearby. Anyway, I was standing on the corner when I saw a security guy stride out of the parking lot and out onto the street, holding his arms up to stop both lanes of traffic. When there was an opening, he waved to an automobile in the lot to drive out onto the street. Sure enough, a big boxy car pulled out and I could see the driver clear as day. It was Theodore J. Mooney of The Lucy (Lucille Ball) Show. Actually it was actor Gale Gordon. I watched as he gave the security man a grateful nod of his head before speeding on down the street. After that, I most likely walked into the market, but don't ask what I purchased, my memory isn't that good. Most likely it was a box of corn flakes, milk, bread, or possibly some bologna. That was about all I could afford back then.
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Gale Gordon bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gale_Gordon
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When I was living in Hollywood years ago, I used to walk down a sidewalk that led to a corner mini-grocery store. It sat right next to a busy street, the name of which I can't remember, (the street I lived on was Van Ness Ave, but that's the only street name I remember except for Hollywood Ave. & Sunset Boulevard) but anyway, there was a gated parking lot across the street that belonged to Paramount Pictures Co. I figure it must have been used for employees of the Paramount television production studios that were nearby. Anyway, I was standing on the corner when I saw a security guy stride out of the parking lot and out onto the street, holding his arms up to stop both lanes of traffic. When there was an opening, he waved to an automobile in the lot to drive out onto the street. Sure enough, a big boxy car pulled out and I could see the driver clear as day. It was Theodore J. Mooney of The Lucy (Lucille Ball) Show. Actually it was actor Gale Gordon. I watched as he gave the security man a grateful nod of his head before speeding on down the street. After that, I most likely walked into the market, but don't ask what I purchased, my memory isn't that good. Most likely it was a box of corn flakes, milk, bread, or possibly some bologna. That was about all I could afford back then.
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Gale Gordon bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gale_Gordon
Could it be the one on Sunset and Bronson?
I had a friend who worked for KTLA and I used to go pick her up at the gate on Bronson.
I looked it up and it is called Sunset Bronson Studios now.
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Could it be the one on Sunset and Bronson?
I had a friend who worked for KTLA and I used to go pick her up at the gate on Bronson.
I looked it up and it is called Sunset Bronson Studios now.
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@Bart Ell: Oh Bart, I'm so glad that you brought this up because ever since I made that post, I was wondering how accurate my memory was on that particular day. So, thanks to the magic of Google Earth/Road search, I was able to retrace my steps.
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As I mentioned in the post, I lived in an apartment building (long gone, by the way) on Van Ness Avenue. That's Van Ness there, and you can see the sidewalk I walked down to get to the corner store. That might be the same building, however the store is no longer there, but, by looking at the person in the picture, you can see kind of where I was standing when Mr. Mooney pulled out in his car. That cross street at the bottom of the photo is Melrose Avenue and there is a Bronson Avenue entranceway to Paramount pictures down there to the left, but oddly enough, it is different than the Bronson entrance that is way over on Sunset Blvd, as is shown in your photo. The entrance at the Bronson/Melrose intersection is called The Bronson Gate.
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Here is a better look at Melrose Ave. That hedge across the street surrounds what I believe was the parking lot for people who worked at the Paramount Television Studios. The hedge runs for quite a ways before coming to the Bronson - Melrose intersection. I swear that there was a separate driveway though, and not too far from the corner there. Let's take a closer look...
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Yes, I vividly remember that there was a gated entrance - exit right about where those bus benches are. That's where I saw Mr. Mooney pull out and nod his head to the security guy. Come to think of it, that section of hedge wasn't there back then. Well, all I can say is that things change. I guess a lot can happen in 54 years.
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Here is a shot of the Bronson/Melrose entrance to Paramount Pictures. I got to walk under that archway once, and it wasn't during a tour. But that's a different slice of life story that I will relate a little later.
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Well, all I can say is that things change. I guess a lot can happen in 54 years.
A lot has changed in the 25 years since I haunted the area, too.
The big building in the background wasn't there for one.
I did find the gate I would wait at.
I never made it through the gate, ole Bart would have to wait on Bronson.
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A lot has changed in the 25 years since I haunted the area, too.
The big building in the background wasn't there for one.
I did find the gate I would wait at.
I never made it through the gate, ole Bart would have to wait on Bronson.
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Nice screen shot, Bart. Yes, things change, but I guess the important thing is that we are still around to witness them.
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I almost forgot that there was yet another entrance to Paramount, just up the street from my apartment on Van Ness. Back then, this was open to tradesmen, carpenters and the like. The entrance is wider than I remember, plus the guard's shack was lots closer to the sidewalk. I used to climb up to the roof of my apartment building and look down at the lot. Some large props were stored there, including an entire body of a passenger plane that was used for a late 60's, Saturday kiddies show about some people who got lost in time, or a jungle...not sure which.
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Funny the things you can learn while driving around on the internet. Here is another look at my corner market, there on the left. I have absolutely no memory of what was directly across the street from there. Currently, it's a place called Raleigh Studios. Never heard of them, so I did a little research. The company has been around since 1979 when they purchased some previous studios that date back to 1915.
Raleigh Studios: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raleigh_Studios
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Funny the things you can learn while driving around on the internet. Here is another look at my corner market, there on the left. I have absolutely no memory of what was directly across the street from there. Currently, it's a place called Raleigh Studios. Never heard of them, so I did a little research. The company has been around since 1979 when they purchased some previous studios that date back to 1915.
Hate to tell you this Rix but there are no palm trees here in Raleigh. All though we do have Cicada and lots of them.
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plus the guard's shack was lots closer to the sidewalk.
I had the same memory of mine.
The guard who gave me the stink eye from his booth was much closer to the street.