The Return of the 70's

At the beginning of the year, I caught the Flu.  It put me down for several days, and I took the opportunity to catch up on some reading.  In just a couple days I put away "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: a Cultural Study".  A fascinating read really, less about the film itself, but more about the constructs of the decade, and how it both informed the movie and was partially shaped by it. I couldn't argue with most of it's very valid points.  The tome comes off as an armchair observation of the 1970's and the prolific intensities it spawned.

The decade in which I was born was unique the way it unleashed some unabashed barbarism, with it's cults and serial killers.  Jim Jones and David Berkowitz showed up on the nightly news almost daily.  The former's wake, spotted by myself with commentary by Dan Rather, kept me up for several nights.  It wasn't just the horrific nature of Jones' hideous accomplishments that bothered me, as it was the fact that people could find themselves enthralled by someone to the point that they'd be willing to do the unthinkable at their bidding.  Berkowitz, as well as Bundy, Richard Ramirez, and the Zodiac had people living in fear in major metropolitan centers across the United States.  These dark villains activities unspooled across the screen on the news, leaving me disturbed motionless, staring at the grainy and disturbing images that represented their despicable handiwork.  Astonishingly awful knowledge.

The book also highlights the other things that made the 70's infamous.  Pornography managed to push itself into the mainstream, an oil crisis caused fuel rationing and long lines at the filling stations (this was the underlying factor in the downfall of the unfortunate youths at the center of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's storyline) and of course Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace at the culmination of the Watergate scandal.

Now we face the most heinous viral threat since the Spanish Flu in Covid 19...  We have a president who is without a doubt far more of a criminal than Richard Nixon ever was, but remains in place due to the backing of a Republican senate that is devoid of all of the values and love of the constitution that their predecessors displayed 40 years ago.  This man continues to spit out scandals at a dizzying rate, and say things that would have ended previous presidencies.

This fatigues the country, weakening it's load bearing beams.

His presence has furthered the ideological divide this country was closing thanks to 60 years of equal and civil rights blood, sweat and tears.  Violence reminiscent of the Civil Rights era has begun to appear in the mainstream media at a stomach churning rate from Charlottesville to Ahmaud Arbery. Behavior emboldened by an apathetic and possible racist government.

I think we are in this generation's 70's. Surprisingly, it wasn't the Coronavirus that made me think of this element, it was more the shouting.  If you look at the strife in the 60's that bent into the 70's, particularly in relation to Vietnam or Roe v. Wade, protesting was thick and vivid at the forefront of all of it.  Protesting has been permeating into the public mainstream in a way I haven't seen in my lifetime.  But instead of young liberals who have had it up to here with the inaction of their elected representation (and trust me there is plenty of protest in that regard, mind you, The Women's March comes immediately to mind there) but the far right has gathered in disturbingly reminiscent fashion.

Not since the days the Klan burned wood down southern streets have we seen the ideological right cluster together at top volume. Charlottesville is a sickening specimen of this, complete with a murder.  Now gathering together to protest the stay-at-home regulations spawned by Covid-19, they do this in defiance of their hero Donald Trump's own guidelines, (oxymoronically egged on by the man, the thinking here can twist your brain into a pretzel) and quite possibly spreading the disease further in the process. The internet has fueled the ideological vocal athletics from both sides to a level unseen since American temperaments bubbled over in the 70's.


Carter was hardly a detrimental president, and is now a humanitarian icon.  He may have been overmatched, but at least he gave a shit.  But at the turn of the decade, as we wound into 1980,  America saw Reagan as a steadying hand, and love him or hate him (and there's reasons for both) he did seem to inject a balancing agent into the country as a whole.  Now?  It feels like the country is in race car that has lost the ability to manipulate the controls with a madman at the wheel and an indifferent or partially asleep cheering section in the back seat.


It's not hard to see the storm clouds on the horizon.  I don't know what's coming, but it scares the shit out of me. 

Those Quiet Moments II :35th Ave sound absorption

It wasn't long before Christmas.  Anticipation of the holidays was firm in the air literally and figuratively.

I had a job at a local convenience store, known then as SuperAmerica before Speedway changed all that.  I generally worked there until about 10:30 at night several days a week as a full time college student.   This was back in the days of impulse VHS rentals, credit card imprinters, and checking tank levels with an abominally long wooden yard stick device in blistering horizontal rain.

There was no rain this night.  As a matter of fact a pretty strong snowstorm had just moved through during my shift, and the plows had only just finished their work before I clocked out, locked up and started my brief walk home to my sister and brother-in-law's home where my student ass rented out the basement.  I had an improvised apartment down there complete with waterbed, splitter-fed cable tv connected to my miniature (albeit color) television. Since it wasn't a digital channel model, I was limited to the 12 channels on the dial. (I watched a LOT of CNN back then.)  I was also blessed with an extra heater, for those abnormally cold nights, which some would call a pair of panty hose affixed to a disconnected dryer vent.

As I turned down 35th avenue to my sister's place, I noticed the sounds that had been gathering behind me, wind, police and fire sirens, truck-bolstered traffic, began to lessen.  Almost deflate.
The further I made it down the street, the quieter it became.  Snow was built up on the numerous trees thickening them to three times their normal size. The snow was this close to falling off, but just quite wasn't coming down.  The plows had pushed the snow on the curbs to a good four feet high.  The only audible sound was the dense crunch of my boots crushing the already flattened snow (courtesy of snowblowers) into the concrete of the sidewalk.

For those unfamiliar, snow absorbs sound.  But the powder on the street, gathered on the rooftops and hanging from the trees was litterally creating a vacuum of noise.  I kept stopping several times, closing my eyes to listen to what effectively was.....

a complete void of sound.

The streetlights lit the white of the snow that hadn't had a chance to get dirty yet, and against the pitch black of the night sky, it formed an accompaniment to the silence that was almost breathtaking.

I actually took a knee at the end of my sister's driveway to take it all in a little longer before going in to throw some clothes in the dryer.

Those Quiet Moments I : Schofield Summer Sky

After an 18 month stay in Waco, Texas and 6 more in Kenosha, Wisconsin, my parents decided a more slight nudge to the north was needed.   We scooted another 300 miles north to central Wisconsin to the town of Schofield, a quasi-suburb of Wausau, the metroplex of the center of the state.  This would be home for only my next couple of years, as trade school would soon call me back to Kenosha.

But this is about an evening.  Some moments in an evening, actually.  We had only been in an apartment complex on Mount View in Schofield for a few weeks, and for some reason sleep had been difficult.  My bedroom was smaller than I was used to, and I was sleeping on the lower bunk of a heavy wooden set of bunk beds.  It was a very balmy June evening, one not quite warm enough to prompt mom to turn the air conditioner on, but kept me under a single sheet as I struggled to find slumber somewhere. 

As I often did back then, long before sharing a bed with another, I wandered to fight off insomnia.  I sat up, in my sweat pants and tee-shirt, yawned, and trekked over to my small bedroom window.  

The sky looked odd.  Strange enough to stir a weird and uncomfortable feeling in my gut.

What the hell is going on up there?

I pulled my shoes out from under my bed and made my way down the hall and out of our apartment entrance.  It was the middle of the night, the witching hour, so I was as quiet as I could be as I walked out the pair of huge heavy doors that constituted the entrance to the apartment building.  There was a large empty field adjacent to the complex that I made use of.  When friends and family came, we threw the ball around out there for hours, played pick up football games, occasionally pitched tents for an evening of sleep outdoors.  I walked out to the middle of this grassy anomaly, surrounded by other apartment buildings, a large quantity of deciduous trees, and a quiet, seldom used road.  It was then, with a Coke in my hand, that I looked straight up into the sky.

And spilled the Coke that I had just opened.

The stars.  I had never seen so many in one place, and thought skies like this were impossible. Unless it was an image on TV that I always thought was somehow doctored, even long before the era of PhotoShop.   I no longer felt that way.  It wasn't just the sheer volume of stars, it was the way they were positioned across the sky in waves and in clusters, both crystal clear and soft-lens blurred.  this  created a twinkling glow that wasn't like a full moon but provided enough light to make out my surroundings....

I rubbed my eyes.   Closed them.  Rubbed them once more and looked back up.

Nope, still there.

Good God, it was beautiful.  It looked like someone has spread the astral bodies across the sky with a butter knife. I'd never seen it like that before, and don't know that I ever have since.  I'd read somewhere that northern midwest skies are sometimes given to unnatural clarity and even appearances of the Northern Lights, which years later I would actually see myself resulting in more spills.  (that's another story) But here above my head, was the proof.  Those skies that I had always chalked up to special effects and visual man-made magic were not only possible....

but right in front of my face.

I don't know how long I stood there. It may have been an hour.  I was afraid it would never happen again so I wanted to cement in my memory as much as humanly possible.  My only regret was given the late hour, I had no one to share it with.  No one would believe this when I relayed it in the morning.

But as the years have gone by, I'm kind of glad that I have it to myself.

I

Year of the Autograph

August

A handful of years back, I found myself entrenched in a sort of bargain-book-hunting mode.   Looking at second hand stores, Library re-sale gatherings and internet sales bins was a bit of fun for a short stretch.

It all really began at a Dollar Tree.  I was there picking up a couple of odds and ends, on a replenish errand, when I walked past the almost always weak-ass book section.  Generally at a Dollar Tree, this is where you find overstock, and more often than not it will be of the less than quality variety.  This is usually the case, but when it isn't, its the exception to the rule.

Charlie Newton has burned a path as a cult crime writer of some aplomb.  He's been doing it for years and the reviews show he knows what he is doing.  There, stuffed between some Fox News host's inept attempt at musing and 35 copies of Victor Cruz' autobiography, there was a hardcover copy of Start Shooting.  Genuinely surprised to see it there, I plucked it from the chaff and headed to the check out.  

It wasn't until a couple weeks later when I cracked it open that I saw his broad looping signature on the title page.  That's a tad stunning, I thought to myself...  I didn't think much of it and after not being able to confirm whether or not it was his scrawl there, (there's no real reason to doubt it is) I put it away.  I just thought I got lucky.

September

Over the years, I had somehow lost Bart Starr's nifty autobiography, My Life in Football.   It had managed to become a possessional apparition of mine that's absence was nagging at me a bit. No true history-loving Green Bay Packers devotee should be without this tome.  On Amazon.com, I found a hardcover original of it, for .01 plus shipping.  Shocked to see the item that cheap, I acted without delay to order it.   Since it was ordered via the Marketplace and not the site's warehouse, it took weeks to arrive.  When it finally did, I was truly surprised by the excellent condition of the book, and opened it quickly to examine it, beginning the usual search for yellowing, ripped pages, stains, etc.  

There it was on the title page.  In this particular case however, my heart skipped a beat; 

"To Dennis, Bart Starr".   

There was no mistaking the great one's signature.  I don't know who the hell Dennis is, (if that is his real name) but, Oh, it was Bart's autograph to be sure.  I ran to the web to confirm anyway, and was proven right.   Now THAT is a piece to be happy about.  Talk about the luck that was starting to flow here....I now had a signed copy of the living legend,  who while coached by the great Vince Lombardi, had won 5 titles in 7 years.  Bart had held this book in his hands and wrote in it.

Now it's mine.

August

The local Public Library's Friends sale is a heck of a cause and occasion, and the wife and editor usually visit annually.  It was the final day of the event, which means you get to fill a standard grocery bag with books for a mere $10.00.   Frani and I had a couple of bags filled up to the brim level, and I had noticed a copy of Richard Stark's Backflash on one of the many tables.   Now Stark's name is not one that graced many covers at this event, so I picked it up and pointed it out to Frani. 

"Pity.  I've read this one." I mumbled.

Frani looked at me in the way she usually does when I'm being a moron and said, "Just toss it in, it's $10.00 a bag."  I shrugged and tossed in the book by the great Donald E. Westlake's alter-ego and continued to browse.  It wasn't until I opened the book just before shelving it that I saw, above the title on that page, Donald E. Westlake's signature.

Off to the net I returned and confirmed it.  The great mystery/crime/suspense legend's scribbled name was there above his nom de plume, and real.  Holy Shit, folks.  This was getting weirder by the minute.

November

I like to frequent Half Price Books.  More often than not, I don't get anything.  But I do like to sift through the vinyl that smells like a 70's basement.  The DVD selection is frequently compelling, they have a selection of vintage books, (though more often than not those are less than interesting), you'll find VHS tapes that need to be browsed through as I search for that evasive copy of 1982's Tom Skerrit/Patti LuPone epic, Fighting Back, and also existing there is the DVD clearance rack.  There's a reason it's a clearance rack, but I've found many a gem in these sections, usually priced at $1.00 to $2.00.  One day, the Criterion Collection's disc of Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy joined that category.

Spotting this autograph was accidental.  The movie popped open, and the film's accompanying leaflet got stuck in the case when I attempted to snap it closed.  Remedying the issue, I spotted it. 

Jason "Jay & Silent Bob" Mewes' signature was emblazoned on the leaflet.  Back to the internet to confirm again, and confirmed it was.  Someone at a convention took the film to get signed by Jay, then pawned it off at a Half Price Books.

I don't get it either, but there it is.   Definitely a weird one, there. 

December

I mentioned VHS tapes earlier.  Goodwills and Salvation Armys are good places to look for these.  There's a couple flicks out there, like the affore-mentioned Fighting Back, that have sacreligiously never been released on DVD.  Like Corey Haim searching for the other copies of Batman #14 in The Lost Boys, I remain vigilant.  

Breezing through the books as a lark at a Salvation Army, I came across a hardcover copy of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone.  It is simply a collection of short-story-ized episodes of the seminal show put together by Walter Gibson.   Neat enough, I thought, and grabbed it for the staggering cost of .75. 

When I got home an opened it, there it was.  The piece de resistance of cover page dedications...

Rod Serling?

No. 

William Shatner?

No.

Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, ....  Ray Bradbury?

No.

Dated Christmas Day, 1983 was the inscription:

"To my good friend, Phil.  A True Homo.  

                          -Mamph"

Can't win 'em all, I guess is the lesson in this instance.  This stunning display of bro-tolerance from 26 years ago has contributed, at the very least, in me looking at the inside of every book I come across. 

Author's signature?  It's a possibility.  An actor or director involved in some form or fashion of the work purchased?  Perhaps.

Or just a half-assed attempt at homophobic and unfunny character slaughter from one bud to another.  Who knows?

But, for yet another reason,  I remain vigilant.

Vinyl Destination: The Buddy Holly Story

It's true that Gary Busey has become one of Hollywood's true oddballs.  But before his weird Amazon Fire Stick commercials, his moronic Trump support, and his in general "Weird...-OH!" status (a term coined by my beautiful wife and editor who doesn't get enough Mom props) he was a legit character actor of actual worthiness of respect and gained renown.

Let's not forget the 80's and early 90's.  His turn as Mr. Joshua in the Shane Black-scripted "Lethal Weapon" is actually kind of scary. 

"Mind if I test drive your Audi?"

His Uncle Red literally steals the movie from Corey Haim and Megan Follows in the Stephen King-written "Silver Bullet".  I will also say the film formed from King's calendar-based novella "Cycle of the Werewolf" is one of the most underrated horror films of the 80's as well as a criminally disrespected werewolf flick.   A terrific performance.

Who can forget Angelo Pappas?  Keanu Reeves' rookie FBI agent really rankled his quasi-mentor, Busey's character, and Busey conveys all of that and more with panache.  Plus, he's funny as well.

"Utah!  Get me two"

In 1978, Busey was actually nominated for best actor for his turn as Buddy Holly in "The Buddy Holly Story". A pretty nifty film in general, it really takes off during the musical sequences. A nice thing about the tunes is that all the music you're seeing in the film is actually performed by Busey, and his on-screen Crickets, Charles Martin Smith and Don Stroud. These 3 really light it up, and those segments of the film really WORK. They Rock. The soundtrack is a great grab, as I stumbled on it at a local second hand store. It's like listening to a really good tribute band.

   

 And for Hollywood, especially in 1978, that's saying a lot.

Baseball as Religion Part III: Ephemera

I've notated it more than once on this blog, the effect of baseball on my youthful life.  Especially in 1982.

I became a completionist that year as well.

It started in the fall of that year.  A trip to a convenience store with my sisters Linda and Pee Wee had me spending the 50 cents I had in my pocket (Linda covered the sales tax) on a pair of Topps baseball wax packs.

Yes, they were that cheap, and you got 15 of those rosary beads in one shot, along with that pink, brittle, and powdered stick of what apparently was gum.  It was awesome.

Still have two of the yield from that day, worse for wear,  and you can see them below:

1982's Topps series was probably among the least attractive of their baseball sets, but I wasn't aware of the aesthetics in the moment.  Sadly, it was late in the year, the shelf-space wouldn't be occupied by baseball cards much longer, as Halloween and Christmas items would begin to replace them, but the appetite was whetted for my new hobby.  That same fall, a trip to Ben Franklin (the noted five and dime store my Mom liked to frequent) brought to my attention the Topps baseball sticker album.  The whole book was only 25 cents. Where they got you was the packs of stickers required to fill it.  They charged .25 a pack, and you got about 7 per pack, if memory serves.  Mind you, this was 1982.  A quarter was not breaking the bank, even that far back.  So trying to fill these things was a blast and something fun my dad and I did together.  I wasn't able to put very many in the album, for as was the case with the cards, the time for the stickers to be on the shelf was short.   So I would bide my time for next season.

This was just on the fringes of the era where adults would come in and ruin a kids' activity (as they did with comic books and record collecting) with appraisal, marketing, price guides, inserts, and chase cards.  All that miserable shit was just around the corner.  The piece de resistance of card collecting at that time was simply finding or trading for a player's "rookie" card.  Nowadays that term doesn't really matter all that much.  People just want that 1 in 300 pack insert opportunity that has turned the hobby from hero worship into slot machine-lottery ticket buying.  I'm getting off topic here, as a bitter old man is wont to do.

Back to Dad and I.   He really was a backer of my interest.  So much so, that he'd often stop on the way home from work and pick up several packs of cards or stickers.  He'd then hide them in various spots around the house for me to find.  It was a ton of fun looking for the packs between couch cushions, between books on shelves, tucked amongst the breakfast cereal.  As good as he was with hiding small items, Dad was practical with the overflow too.  Like with the Reggie Jackson-emblazoned 1983 sticker album. When doubles started to build up, we picked up a second album and put them in that book.  Eventually, we did fill the first one, but ended up having to buy so many packs to get the last couple to fill it, we filled 3/4 of a second one. Along the way, Dad was just as interested and having as much fun with it as I was.  Realistically, this would be difficult to do today, as 25 cents just doesn't go as far as it once did.

One year for Christmas, my parents shocked me with complete sets of 1982 and 1983 Topps baseball cards.  When Donald Trump collapsed the USFL with his raging litigiousness, Pop rushed across town and bought me the only sets the Waco, Texas sports card shop carried.  He contributed the 1963 Pete Rose to my collection, as well as the coveted 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly, among many others. In hindsight, that may seem frivolous to many, but over the years those cards eventually became financial backing for a young man yet to be blessed with health insurance, and saved his ass from either of the unwanted fates of not getting needed health care, or going into massive debt getting it.

I seem to remember him making the prediction that this was a possibility over 35 years ago, and 8 years before it became true. Thanks, Dad.  Imagine doing something that was so much fun at the time, and down the road it ended up with a result somewhat like playing the stock market with cleverness.  

I do miss those cards now that most of them are gone, but damn if it wasn't a hoot of an investment.

Baseball as Religion Part II: The Home Run Book

Let's start by talking about the home run.

Chicks dig the long ball.

That's an old phrase that pretty much means "go big".

Baseball was a big part of the coping mechanism of my youth.  It distracted, it soothed, it shaved edges.  It made blood flow.

And as any good cleric in any religion, I studied.  I studied it hard.  I absorbed the biblical sports page, joined the choir in the highlight videos, watched ESPN Sportscenter (in its infancy, of course), and memorized library books and the backs of baseball cards.  I became an ardent attendee of summertime sermons on Superstation TBS and WGN, becoming an ancillary fan of the Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs in the process.

I became such a savant that for Christmas, dear old Dad had note pads printed that were emblazoned with a cartoon figure of some cat swinging a bat.  The headline of these pads?

Who will tell me about baseball?   ROB WILL.

All that being said, The Milwaukee Brewers were, and still are, the principal drivers of a baseball passion that does still exist in a much less feverish form now.

But it was different back then.  Watch The Sandlot, listen to Daniel Stern's monologue in City Slickers, and you'll get my meaning.  I was up with the sun, catching and hitting balls (with friends or without) until it went down again.  Evenings were spent with my besties, monks from the temple of the national pastime, playing Milton Bradley's Championship Baseball or watching games on the tube.  Rainouts were seldom cause for sadness as the local channels ran highlight films of World Series past until the game returned, expanding my already impressive knowledge of the game.

Rob Will, acolyte of the Diamond.  How's that for baseball religion allegory work?

Anyways, back to the long ball.  Any sports fans loves the quick score.  The 80 yard bomb in Football.  The Clutch 3 in basketball.  But neither are quite as majestic as the home run ball.  Someone, preferably from my team, tacking a hard rawhide encircled ball of twine and literally driving it further than a football field with a stick.

After the sphere has been thrown at them, often at over 90 miles per hour, no less.

The glorious home run ball is comprised of a long arcing tracer missile ascending into the night air, accompanied by the rising vocal excitement of the paid faithful, a piece of excitement only matched by its descent into the crowd, signaling the satisfying confirmation of runs scored.

It's even better when it's late in the game, more importantly in the post-season.  Bobby Thompson, Kirk Gibson, and Bucky Dent....I'm talking to you.


So, there it was one spring day.  6th grade.  Right there in the iconic publication called the Weekly Reader.  The Home Run Book.  The Topps' Home Run Book, no less.  Who better to put together an encyclopedia of the best baseball had to offer in the round-tripper department than the premier manufacturer of the rosary beads of the sport, the baseball card.  Each cardboard saint came in a wax pack accompanied by wonderful facts and stats, introduced by the whiff of the powder pink residue scent of the stick bubble gum.  A gift from the baseball deity,  this book was my catechism, a pocket prayer book for the baseball seminary.

In it's tiny form, it listed out all the vital stats on the men who hit the most home runs.  A pocket history of the dinger's legends.  Categorized by career 400, 500,  and 600 home run hitters, and of course finishing with the two who filled the 700 homer category, Ruth and Aaron. The book obviously predated Bonds by many years, but it doesn't matter.  I don't care how many that steroid-infused twatwaffle hit, Aaron is still number one.

Don't argue with me.  I'll excommunicate you from my beautiful baseball religion.

After the book's home run hall of fame, was a segment consisting of simple home-run related tidbits, that while not as informative or colorful, were still fun. Topps' The Home Run Book was a compendium of knowledge on the most exciting moments in the grand old game, and those that elicited the most of them.

Every day of the summer of 1983, this young monk, still growing in the baseball priesthood, read one chapter.  He took in the stories of the great popes of his religion.

And remembered them.