"EVERYTHING'S JUST FINE " my
personal biography started january 2004
CHAPTER ONE
musical
beginnings
When I was little, I took piano
lessons at the local college, later, at-home lessons for many years with good
old Mr. Clark. His large veineous hands always kind of scared me when he would
reach over to help me find a chording..Anyway, later, around the age of 13 I
became intrigued by the
boogie woogie blues ( < play a 21 second streaming MP3 (m3u) quip ).
That wild, loose jamming with both hands flying in different directions. I
remember the time was summer or winter...hmm...and the task of making my hands
play independently did not come easy. But after a lot of frustrating trys, I was
able to hold my left hand steady on a simple boogie stide and play along with
the right hand....eureka ! After that practice, practice, practice. Once I had
it down pretty well, I went on to learning songs off the radio and 45s. Soon,
bands followed....
CHAPTER TWO High School and College Bands
Do you remember Red Rubber Ball
by THE CYRKLE ?
It was one
of the first songs I learned off of a 45 rpm single record.
Somewhere about the same time, my older brother
scott taught me three chords on the guitar, E, A,
and B.
That was quite
enough to start with...but as a better keyboard player I got together with some
local boys and formed our first band. Actually , I think they found me, as I was
just kickin' around not really caring much about performing. So we played at
local hops, and did pretty well.
I remember playing mony mony so many
times in a row, I was ready to jump through a window, but the crazy teens seemed
to enjoy that I didnt look at the keyboard while I played. I mean, why would you
after the thirty-second time of "i love you mony mony mony..."
Anyway, during a breif stint at college, I was
involved with the
WHOLE BAND(link to
the infliktors)
in Boston,
MA with some great guys i met at berklee
school of music..(who i hope can appreciate the link even though i was
kicked out...but that's another story)
We played a grueling 1970's east coast rock scene circuit along with the
likes of
the NEW YORK DOLLS
and
even played an entire extra set one time,because
Patti
La Bell was pregnant, and too
ill to perform.
Dont get me
wrong... these were but my only brushes with fame.
CHAPTER THREE: Early
Fallout
Eventually the
whole band (the Whole Band) became divide between those of us who wanted to just
play the music and those who wanted to create an image more like the New York
Dolls had...and that flamboyant style just didnt suit me so I left the band to
run all the way across the country from Boston to San Fransisco. A mad
Kerouac-ish journey that set me down at PROJECT
ARTAUD...an old factory converted into artists lofts. I stayed virtually
free through an artist friend of mine and made some money painting apartments. I
did some music for an art film and played at the wild halloween freek party held
there. An overall great experience, but one that left me quite burned out as I
had developed a pretty good drinking habit on the east coast that I took with me
to the west. And, of course, the guys I worked with in san fran were big
drinkers too. Eventually I dragged my sorry ass home to the midwest and got a
regular job and tried to dry out....except i hooked up with the old gang who
liked to drink even more...and it wasnt until many years later after a short
marriage and divorce that I finally got a grip on it and quit cold turkey. Not
much music happened during that time, but I remember babbling on and on and on
about how we were going to be famous and play some great music. The sessions
were few and the results less than spectacular. If you want download a clip from
that time...
j.j.g.c. UNSKREWD (circa
1971)
CHAPTER FOUR: I Meet Nancy
!
No sooner had I been
divorced when I met Nancy.
Funny how life works.
Just when you think you've had enough of something, something better
comes along to prove you wrong. I wasnt looking and I found her. We hit it off
right from the start and have been best friends ever since. Even the knowledge
that she had a daughter from a previous marriage didnt scare me off. I should
have been scared (okay, I was ), but something just felt right. . Stacie
(Nancy's daughter) certainly wasnt going to let me forget that I wasnt her
father....nor did I want to. After working as an architectual draftsman for my
father for a few years, I eventually took on the job as Mr. Mom. Thinking I
would have more time for my music and art, I soon found out what an enormous job
child care really was. I dont think I accomplished as much as I would have liked
during those years. However, I dont blame the situation, I blame myself. I think
i was really looking for a way to hide out from the world. Well I found
it.....and it may sound funny, but time really does fly when you're chasing
flies....Anyway, Nancy was...IS the best ! She was going to nursing school and
raising a two year old when I met her. When she finished school we moved to
Madison,Wisconsin where she went to work at the Veterans Hospital. And she's
been there ever since. Just last week she recieved her 25 year pin. I couldnt be
more proud. I often joke that if it werent for her, I would be a bum on the
street saying "gimme a dollar man.." but it's really no joke. She is good for
me. I take some pride in the fact that Stacie grew up to be a hard working,
beautiful woman like her mom. And she gave us our happy little grand daughter
Emily (SEE MORE...ABOVE). Another wonder. So you see some things really pay off
if you stick to it....which is why I stick to my music. Someday....some
day....
CHAPTER FIVE : INS AND
OUTS
After an unfullfilling
stay in Indiana for a short time, I learned that giving all of myself musically
to others only lead me to a dead end. I learned that people will use you until
you're used up. I learned that nothing is good enough for some people. I learned
that if I was ever going to have a chance in this world I better learn to love
myself a lot more. I learned that the past doesnt equal the future (thanks tony)
I imagine I put off many people in my drinking days and
whenever I hear a cassette of myself from those days I cringe. Not that I didnt
have a lot of fun and meet some great people, it's just that some roads lead
nowhere. Out of my mind a few too many times, and in trouble I didnt need. I
held onto some bad dialog thrashing around in my head for more years than I
should have. I was building a storehouse of regrets. At the same time I was
always searching for answers. Seeking out some cosmic truths or at least some
rationalized truths. The path has been a winding road, a hilly spillway into
dark places and glorious ones. Ultimately, we all end up as dust, so live each
momment the best you can. Live like it's 1999......futuramaville.
I have friends from the past I
never see or hear from. I have a dead drummer friend who's family or friends I
cant get in touch with. Try as I might he's gone and so far in the past I
stuggle to relive our memories. I have aquaintances who's names and faces I've
long since forgotten, yet the stories still play out in my brain from time to
time.
I'm not sure what I'm
driving at in this chapter except for maybe hang onto your friends.....live your
life for love....and have a great time.
CHAPTER SIX: COASTAL DREAMS
I've made six trips
to the west coast. The first time was 1971. My artist friend Nick and I snagged
a ride with crazy sue. I didnt know she was crazy until we were on the road. Sue
was sort of a slutty girl who tried to lay us both and drove like a maniac.
Along the way we were pulled over by a state trooper for speeding and crazy sue
asked if she could get out of the car and join the officer in his vehicle. Now I
dont know exactley what went on back there, but let's just say we were back on
the road in about ten minutes...no ticket ! Well, we arrived in L.A. where sue
said there would be many opportunities for us. However this guy who's house we
were at latched onto sue and her car and that was that. So there we were on
hiway one with our thumbs out. Our destination was San Francisco where a friend
of Nicks was to put us up. The memorable ride we thumbed was from a guy named
Morely. He had an old beat-up pick-up truck with a camper on it. Outwardly he
appeared to be just a fisherman guy, but we soon realized he was a freak. I
mean, he had a couple or twenty kilos of maryjane hidden between the camper and
the truck bed. At least that's what he told us. And by his driving I tended to
believe it. This guy was the most spacey driver I ever got a ride with. Of
course, he was swigging beer the whole time too, but he would just chug along
around 45 mph in the right lane and inadvertantly take every exit off the
freeway. It was a little scary at times, but when he pulled into Pismo Beach we
stopped and cooked up a fabulous meal of whitefish he had caught. Sitting on the
Pacific coast for the first time at dusk eating fresh fish was a great
introduction to my first coastal dream !
When we arrived in SF it was pouring
rain, and sure enough, Morely's luck ran out right then.
He rear-ended
somebody, probably thinking he was stopped, but we were on the edge of the city
and the time seemed right to make a dash for it. We entered Golden Gate Park on
foot and wound through it wild eyed, amazed, and on the lookout for real
hippies, peace, and love. Reality is a funny thing. The overwhelming realization
of being broke and alone in a big city started to creep in. And then we were on
the other side of the park at Nick's friend's house. It was your typical San
Francisco type house with the 10 steps up to the door. There we were rather
unpleasantly greeted by a stranger telling us that Nick's friend had gone to
Greece for a month so we had to rely on Nick's back-up plan. A house that a
friend of a friend lived in. He had never met her before.....the sweet and
lovely "gopher" moore. Unbelievably, these people were very nice and let us stay
there with a room to ourselves that had a ceiling access to the roof. The SF
skyline was a great friend to us on many a cheap bottle of wine night. The
saving grace for me and maybe us was the upright piano in the living room that I
played for wild circles of hippy friends. I think it may have been what kept
them from just kicking us out. We scrounged food from their pantry sustaining
ourselves mostly on honey and peanut butter. Those were good times that were
destined to come to an end. And soon they realized their cupboaards were
depleting and the two midwest boys weren't about to start paying rent. Besides,
their lives were changing anyway and soon we all went our seperate ways. Of
course, we didnt have any seperate way to go so I contacted a friend of a friend
of my dad's. We were treated to a sausalito bed and breakfast type stay for one
night. Jack gave us a tour of the city and fed us at a posh restaurant, lent me
75 bucks and drove us to the airport where Nick's dad and mine wired us enough
money to fly our tired butts on home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
COAST TRIP NUMBER TWO: PART ONE: THE NATEMOBILE DELIVERS US TO PROJECT
ARTAUD
Our second trip to
the coast was three years later in 1974. Nick (who I'll call Bruce from now on)
had been going to Goddard College in
Vermont. Goddard is an alternative art school set in the country around
Burlington, Vermont. The students have a lot of leeway and freedom in their
artistic pursuits, encouraged by teachers and staff. Bruce was looking for a
grant to pay for the next coast trip and he found it ! I only wish he was still
around to confer with about the details. I'll have to do my best to give you the
facts as I remember them. The grant somehow allowed him to go to San Fransisco
to absorb the culture, art, and nature that exsists there and turn it into his
own expression in art form.....or something like that. The first thing we did
was get a drive-away car, where you drive someone's automobile to a destination
for them. The car we got was a huge black Delta 88. It was GRAND! A real
cruiser. We were riding in style. The name of the person who owned it was Nate,
thus birthing the name "Natemobile" for our cross-country chariot. I cant
remember if we took two days to get to the base of Mount Rushmore but that's the first place I
recall spending the night. We somehow managed to find an unimproved road,
probably a fire road, that lead us right to the bottom of the great mammoth
sculptures. It was our own private viewing spot. After a meal of smokey links
over a campfire we hiked up the rocky crags to an even closer sleeping spot. It
didnt take long to fall asleep in our sleeping bags with the giant presidents
looking down on us.
The next
morning we woke with a start. It was freezing cold, too cold to even get a
morning pee out, or bid farwell to the prezes, and we made the mad dash down to
the Natemobile and shook in it until the carheater slowly warmed our tired
bodies.
Zooming back onto the
road, We soon crossed the Nevada border. Time to go as fast as the Natemobile
would take us. Now, it's not like that any more, but it felt like we were on the
Autobahn. Even at 130 mph we were being passed by even bigger
road
warriors ! What a feeling
that was watching the salt flats whizz
by like white butter melting into the skyline. I think we drove all day and
night, only taking a breif catnap at a rest area, before we cruised on into L.A.
It was about 8 AM and we dropped the Natemobile off at the real Nate's smack dab
in the middle of rush hour. Suddenly there we are with our thumbs out,
bleary-eyed and feeling un-entitled, knapsacks by our feet. No one was stopping
and we ended up walking miles to the bus station where we caught the next one to
San Fran. At least we could kick back and relax for awhile, watching the odd
assortment of hippies and Hispanics getting on and off along the
way.
San Fransisco
!
Winding our way through the city we sought out Project Artaud on the corner of Alabama and
Mariposa. The smell of a bread factory across the street made our mouths water
and stomaches tingle. We walked around the outside of the old factory converted
into artist's lofts until we found a door that wasnt locked tight. This was,
after all, a factory district and probably not the best of neighborhoods. Once
in we wandered about in amazement until Bruce found the loft space we were to
spend the next nine months. It was a big room , maybe 30X30 feet, 20 foot high
ceilings with one entire wall of factory windows.You know, the type that have
green metal frames, some with mottled glass and a large chain operated vent. A
home made loft had a curved balcony with 2 small rooms at either end with a
center lounging area. The rest of the downstairs was open except for a huge work
table expanding the lenght of the wall opposite the loft, and a small kitchen
directly under the loft. We were ecstactic ! Soon Bruce had his art and
supplies, which he had shipped out, up and running. There we were, two wild
artists in an artist loft in the Golden Gate city. We had to help maintain the
building as part of the living agreement , so we got to meet people right away.
There was Brian, the sensitive artist, whos paintings were very large and Edward
Hopper-ish.There was the girl who lived in the safe. The old safe used by the
factory was large enough to use an an entrance/foyer to her loft area. There was
the bearded one who was never happy with anything he painted. There was the guy
who painted extra large child-like paintings similar in style to the charlie
brown comic, but who's carpentry work in his loft was exceptional.. There was
Leslie, who used our stovetop to cook up dozens of containers of homemade
yogart.. So many people I can remember but little quips of them. Group meals
were always fun for an insight into the odd assortment of Artaud
characters.
It wasnt long before Bruce and I were having artistic
differences. Time for me to get a job.After all, I couldnt expect Bruce's grant
money to pay my way too, even if there was enough to go around. I was successful
in finding a job right away painting apartment complexes. It was up in the
hills, so I got the added pleasure of passing through the distinct morning fog
bank line seperating the valley from the hills. Surely a common site for locals,
but I always got a little natural high going through it. I worked with three
other guys: Steve, John, and Bill.. John and Bill covered maintainance while
Steve and I did the painting. Steve was a wild-eyed, mustachioed, but handsome
hispanic-mix guy. He drove a classic silver porsche and he loved women. I mean
LOVED WOMEN ! A normal day would start off by driving round the winding San
Fransisco hills to a coffee shop for gallon size take-outs of coffee. Steve
would be twisting his neck around like cartoon character leering at every girl
he saw going "oooo" and "ahhhhh" and "hey baby !" Of course, he had a steady
girlfriend at home that he loved very much and I have no doubt they ended up
married and having many little Steves. I was alway nervous we were going to
crash the way his head spun around so. If it werent for that sweet porsche that
he loved as much as the women, I might have had reason for concern. So after
cruising for another hour or so we'd arrive back at the job site. Then we'd sit
down to drink the coffee and then he'd pull out a couple of doobies. Shortly
after that we'd be engrossed in a lengthy conversation about girls and life, and
girls, and girls. By then it was almost lunchtime so we'd get the paint ready,
put the canvases down and tape the rooms. Time for lunch !! Of course, after
lunch, we had to have another joint while digesting. And then another
conversation....Ohmigosh! it's nearly 3 o'clock. Suddenly Steve would shift
gears and be mister paranoid-hyper-worker-man. We'd then start painting like
madmen and accomplish in two hours what would normally take all day. That was
pretty much the way every day went there.
Back home Bruce was doing his
own madman painting. When he wasnt doing that and we had time together we'd take
cruises around the city he was getting to know well by his own solo
explorations. We went to the museums, the Golden Gate Bridge, North Beach, Chinatown, Russian
Hill, and Kerouac's
house. We did most of this by bus and foot. we'd panhandle money to spend on
vino and ultimately end up on the roof of Artaud walking the ledges and peeping
on the communal showers. The crazy hippy times of the 70's were alive and well.
It was time for me to get some wheels. We needed to branch out and have the
freedom to explore further. I found the coolest car I ever owned, a 1957
white Triumph TR3 convertible with two tops. ( black and a white ragtop ) I
used the black the most because it looked cooler. There was also a neat little
wooden luggage rack on the trunk. If you can believe it, this little beauty only
cost me $800 ! One of my favorite features was that you could put your cigarette
out on the ground while driving. That's how low it was to the ground with it's
cut-out doors. Now we were stylin" !! One of our best out of town trips was to
Mount Tamalpais. What a
glorious drive throught the winding redwood forest natural tree-tunnels up to
the mystical chinese-like land
.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
COAST TRIP NUMBER TWO: PART TWO: THE
FIGHT
So there we were up top of Mount
Tamalpais happy as larks. The world was our oyster and our laughing and howling
at the moon and stars and everything wild and beautiful was never going to end.
At least not until the week-end was over and then it was
back to Artaud and life as usual. I was busy painting apartments
and Bruce was busy working on large paintings of Van Gogh inspiration. Then one
day, quite unexpectedly, Jennifer walked into our lives. She was a dancer who
knew another girlfriend of Bruces. She needed a place to stay for a few months
while she was in San Francisco doing a dancing gig. Jen was a little thing of a,
as you'd expect, dancer girl. Probably under 5 feet and about 90 pounds soaking
wet. She was really a nice person who was remarkably unassuming and modest. We
struck up a quick friendship the three of us. But, it wasn't long before the
familiar sounds of lovemaking came wafting into my small loft bedroom. I mean,
it would have been almost impossible NOT to hear them. And hear them I
did...over and over..louder and louder. I sometimes wondered if Bruce was trying
to break her tiny frame. Deep down inside I knew it was this place, this
environment that fueled his passion and wildness. Funny thing was I would have
breakfast with Jennifer every morning because I had to get up early to go to
work, and she was just an early riser. So while Bruce snoozed peacefully, Jen
and I would have the greatest conversations. I could have fallen in love with
this girl but wouldn't let that happen as long as Bruce and her were together.
She was so sweet to me and treated me as if she might want me as much as I did
her, but there was always Bruce. He had a type of control or charm, if you will,
over women. They fell hard for him. I'm not sure what it was, but in retropsect,
I have come to realize the dynamic personality he had. Anyway, Jennifer's time
was coming to an end for our funky little threesome and I was feeling the burn.
I know Bruce was too, because the lovemaking was reaching new heights. They even
invited me to join them one night which I really tried to do, but ended up
backing away like a bashful school kid. I just couldnt bring myself to share. My
feelings were all mixed up between love and " what the hell am I doing thinking
of jumping in bed with another guy?" You might think this is what lead up to the
fight, but it's not. I wrote Jennifer a long letter proclaiming my feelings, but
the next morning she was gone before I had a chance to give it to
her.
After that, things started to sour some. I
think bruce had strong feelings for her too, but couldnt express them so
instead, he would resort to picking on me. I was used to this sort of thing and
tried to let it roll off my back, but now think maybe I didnt as much as I'd
like to think I did.
Now that I was making money, it was time to get a piano
for myself. I rented a nice new spinet, but soon after getting it I could tell
it was driving Bruce crazy. In a way, I can understand. I have to practice and
go over parts over and over which can drive anyone a bit looney. So, he helped
me construct a little room just barely big enough for the piano. We covered it
with old carpeting for sound re-enforcement. This seemed to work out great for
Bruce but I soon realized I was suffocating in this little torture chamber. That
didnt stop me from spending much time in there honing my skills. And it paid off
for me in some ways. I played an original piano piece for a movie being made by
one of the Artaud residents called "Screwing Around with Sadie" It was shot in
color but everyone and the set was painted and dressed in black and white. Sadie
was sleeping in bed when two painters on stilts knock on her door and proceed to
paint everything with colored paint.... that was it. I only saw the finished
project once, but I'll always remember playing along as they painted a quite
well endowed naked Sadie with paint. The next time I played was for the Project
Artaud Halloween bash. This was an annual event and I was honored to be asked to
play. I think people enjoyed my ragtime tunes because they kept giving me free
drinks and I was quite bombed before it was all over. One of Bruces other
girlfriends showed up for the party but he wanted to be unencumbered ( he had
already had a thing with her in the past) so he could flirt and pick up on
anything else that might present itself to him. Well, this "friend" and I ended
up making out like crazy right in the middle of the party and people were
cheering us on. At some point I realized we were the show and we got up and went
back to the loft. I was embarrassed that we were together and didnt want to tell
Bruce. I'm not sure why,...because I'm sure he didnt care, and after fidgeting
around making lame excuses as to what we were doing, I suddenly saw my
reflection in a mirror. The girl was with was dressed up as a clown and I had
her clown make-up all over my face..Not too obvious ! So you might think this
caused our fight....nope...not yet.
I think it was
weeks later. Nothing new or exciting had really happened and I know my piano was
starting to push bruce over the edge. He would crank up his music to drown me
out and make loud obnoxious sounds mocking my music. I was getting tired of this
and I'm not sure how we ended up there, but he was tearing my studio room apart
and I was tearing his paintings off the walls. We didnt speak to each other for
awhile. Other things were happening too. The Artaud commitees were expecting us
to contribute a certain amount of work on the building. There were politics and
egos running amuck. My job in the hills was starting to deteriorate. The bosses
had come to realize we were doing sub-par work and somebody had to go...Guess
who ? The only saving grace at this point was Bruce's time was about up and he
had to go back to school in Vermont. I sold my TR3 and hopped on a train back to
Illinois to my parents house. I was pretty burnt out by this time, Too much
drinking and partying and stress. So, it wasnt really the fight that took us
down but it seemed all good things must come to an end.....Once back in Illinois
I hooked up with a group of drinking buddies who would gladly slide down that
slippery slope with me.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
UNFULLFILLED DREAMS AND MARRIAGE
Sounds pretty dramatic eh ? Well, after returning to
Elmhurst, again defeated, and with a lousy drinking habit, I had no prospects
for my future. I am around 22, living at home with mom and dad e-gad !. Sporting
my alcohol feen I sought out the local holes. It wasnt long before I ran into an
old bud from high school, Johnny. He was a good guitar player then, and a great
one today, but not until after his own journey out of the spirits. So right away
we had 2 common grounds for friendship: drinking and music. That being in the
order of importance. Johnny introduced me to his good friend from England,
Chris. He was maybe 10 years older than us, but very cool and nice, and....a big
drinker ( what a shock ) We would close down our local establishment almost
every night with wild animated conversations of fame and fortune. The only
problem was we never played any music. Well, that's not all together true
because I made sure I taped some of our drunken sessions, though they were
another excuse to get plowed. Mostly scatterbrained improvisational music,
interjected with boisterous laughing and foul language. It WAS a lot of fun but
certainly not any kind of level-headed quest for success. What seems weird to me
today is how many kids under 30 (even) are so dedicated, driven, focused, and in
control of their futures.....maybe it's just the media that makes their stories
more visible. All I know is that as a youth, I was just that, a youth. A dumb
kid that didnt know my arse from a hole in a woodpecker tree. I might still fit
into that catagory today....the jury's still out.
So after the bar would turn
on their gestapo lights and boot us out, we would meander over to chris's house
and drink, smoke, and listen to music until chris's wife Patty would be getting
up for work in the morning. She'd have to call chris to the bedroom and ream him
out for having his buddies there making it impossible for her to get ready for
work in comfort. Oh yeah, like we cared about that...right ! Patty really was
just the sweetest person, and put up with sooo much of our buffoonery. I believe
they got divorced years later, but remain close. That's more than I can say for
Chris and I. We lost touch once I moved on with my life into sobriety. That's
kind of a lie too because my sober years didnt come then. They came much later
after I was with Nancy. I'm getting ahead of myself. At this point in time I got
a job driving a truck delivering papers. I tried to get an apartment from a
friend and wound up on the street with all my belongings after moving in before
signing a lease on my friends word. what a fool ! Then I somehow got a line on a
room in a weird little house in a marshy area by a creek. It was there I met my
first wife, Lisa. Everyone warned me not to get involved with her because she
was "flighty". Once again in my drunken steadfastness, I knew better than the
rest. It was love at first sight. It was instant couple off by themselves in a
corner plotting out their futures together. Her deceased father was a surgeon
general and had left behind mom, 5 daughters, and a housefull of prescription
samples. I was drinkin, smokin, and whammin' the white cross pretty heavily when
we got married at a justice of the peace. For some stupified reason, I didnt
want to tell my family. They did find out, however, and watched as our little
soap opera played out. I was getting pretty burned out on myself, and as people
often do, decided a change of location would improve my situation. So it was off
to the country where mom and dad had moved to in '75. We bought an old
fixer-upper in town and I worked for my dad doing architectual drafting. It
wasnt long before I realized how unhappy Lisa was. She would go back to Elmhurst
frequently to feel in touch. I discovered later, she was REALLY staying in touch
with a friend we went to HS with. Well, that ended that. On a possibly karmatic
note: the guy she had the affair with eventually ended up killing his
father....hmmmm. So there I am in a small town, again, near my parents, and
lost. And then, as fate fatalistically does, Nancy came along. I think I saw an
opportunity to really go a different direction and purge myself of my past. As
long as I was already away from the suburbs, I figured why go back. I know I
left behind some good friends who may or may not have missed me. It wasnt until
years later that I got back in touch with Johnny. He remains a good friend to
this day and I'm thankful for that . We tried getting together a few times over
the years making music. At least those times were more productive although never
lead us anywhere together. I still think that there is an album floating around
in our brains that will someday be produced. I won't hold my breath
though.
CHAPTER NINE: LET'S MOVE TO MADISON
Nancy grew up
in that little town. She wanted out as bad as me. It was time to blow that burg
for the great college town of Madison, Wisconsin.The year was 1979
Our first apartment was on State Street . In
those days people actually were allowed to drive their cars down State Street,
the main street connecting the state capitol and the UW campus. A street where
college students would go insane nightly, throwing glass bottles which would
burst like lethal firework shards. We parked our old 65 Mustang fastback in the
only remaining vacant lot which is now called Peace Park. Living in the educated
liberal environment was a great learning experience. We were lucky enough to
start out on State st. without Nancy's daughter for the summer which gave us the
opportunity to explore and blend in to our new surroundings. In those days we
would hike around town at all hours of the night as things were much safer back
then. Once Nancy's job started, she worked the night shift and soon our days
became nights and vice versa. This was a struggle once our daughter came to be
with us. I became the stay-home dad and our days were split in half to spend
more time with her. I'm sure people thought we were some kind of vampires...
always late to family functions. This madcap pace kept up for 15 years until our
daughter grew up.....or at least left the house. Those years were filled with
fun and craziness. My friend Bruce was alive and our madman adventures filled in
the gaps when ordinary life got boring. Meanwhile, my music may have suffered a
bit because we were poor. Nancy worked hard as I saved us big bucks staying
home. I never stopped playing, composing, and trying my best to achieve
overdubbed tracks. I used 2 cassette tape player/recorders to overdub. Of course
sound loses incredible amount of definition once it's mixed with live room
sounds. And each successive track lost more. I did the best I could with what we
could afford. Anybody who says childcare is a breeze is goofy. But that fact is
much more commonly accepted and appreciated these days. I took my share of
insults and condescending opinions. Simply by sticking it out we slowly crawled
up in the world financially. By 1989 we were able to afford our first house,
car, and camcorder which I made many silly little cartoons with. After our
daughter left I was floundering with what to do with myself. Our life was a bit
sheltered and I was looming on the brink of departure from Nancy. After a brief
break up we reunited and soonafter I got my first professional studio. It was
heaven, it was expensive ! 10 times the amount that you would pay for the same
gear today ! It was the early days of computer music and my first was a little
Macintosh Apple. It's rudimentary MIDI program rocked ! I was able to produce
sounds I had only dreamed of in the past. This was the true start of my career.
Madison was growing too. The scene always remains cool as politics shift around
some. But ultimately this is still one of the best cities in the world to live
in. The lakes surrounding the Isthmus (where we live) are all enhanced by
bicycle trails and parks. The new swimming pool is a boost for the community
while the established neighborhoods remain eclectic and charming. We had another
brief departure from Madison 3 years ago when under some kind of spell lead
ourselves to believe there was greener grass on the other side of some fence out
in the country. The longing for Madison, however, became overwhelming, and we
now reside happily comfortable back in the middle of it all.
CHAPTER 10:
ROGUE BICYCLIST