Please buy this book so April, who is too lazy to start her own blog, apparently, will stop begging to hijack mine in her shameless attempt to shill her wares. It's not enough that I've linked her book over in the right-hand column, claiming territory that I could use for "fun" things.
Honestly, it's a good book, but come on...
Now April (the web-hapless author) has somehow managed to create her own Spotify playlist for the book. I admit, listening to the songs brought the story back to me in all its stark intensity. Still...
I got this email from April:
Hey!
Do
you mind including my Spotify playlist on your blog? I worked on this a
long time, and it wasn't easy, because Splotify isn't user friendly.
I
promise I'll start my own blog soon and I'll include any stupid stuff
you write. What do you use? Wordpress or whatever it's called?
I write a lot about the sixties, because like most people, my teenage years were my most momentous.
Life, however, did not stop when the next decade began. If the mid-sixties were tumultuous, the early seventies were just as confusing; perhaps even more so. Unlike kids today who are twelve-going-on-twenty, I was nineteen-going-on-twelve. I was wholly unprepared for life, but impatient to get it started. I missed out on a lot of stuff in my teen years due to the jittery dysfunction of home life ~ things like how to grow up to be a regular person. I appropriated bits from my best friend's family dynamic and combined that with daydreams of how things were supposed to work.
I operated on instinct. I was trying to cram six years of learning into six months. Every little experience I tucked away for future reference.
My life in a nutshell:
I graduated from high school.
I got a job.
I found a boyfriend.
I got married.
Things went wrong from the beginning.
My first "real" job (which means, not working for my parents) turned out to be an echo of the same queasiness I'd fought so hard to get away from.
My boyfriend (soon to be husband) was a mismatch from Day One. I knew it, but did nothing to stop it, because I needed to get away.
I (and by "I", I mean I) picked out our new home ~ a nice 14 by 60 mobile home parked on the sales lot that had black-and-white linoleum and harvest gold appliances and long-looped green shag carpets. I didn't even know one had to pay an electric bill or a gas bill or lot rent. Or pay money for food. My parents didn't have love, but they had money. Thus, while my mom insisted that I purchase my own clothes for school, I never had to lay out one thin dime for anything except my reel-to-reel tape recorder and my JC Penney component stereo.
I took my teenage bed to my new marriage home and someone (in-laws, I believe) gifted us with a tufted Sears sofa. We filled in the other missing pieces with particle-board end tables and a round cardboard "bedside stand" that looked great as long as it was draped with an FW Woolworth table topper.
I quit the crazy State job after nine-or-so months and informed my parents I would now be back working for them. I can't believe they let me, but they had other fish to fry at the time, like my dad going berserk on booze and my mom trying to find a way to offload him onto somebody who'd lift her burden.
It wasn't all daisies and cumulus clouds working for Mom and Dad. I cleaned motel rooms. The weird thing was, I liked it. I liked working alone. It was the first time I'd ever been left with nothing but my own thoughts. It was heaven! I didn't have to answer to anyone. I had my portable radio that I carried with me from room to room, and I lived a life that I couldn't quite describe or put my finger on, but it felt like freedom.
1975 was my bridge year. I wasn't yet pregnant ~ I was still technically a kid. Life held possibilities, although I'd kind of smothered those by choosing to marry the first guy who asked me. My dream life, however, was completely awesome.
And the music on my radio was magical.
It's not so much that the music of 1975 was notable, but some of it was:
I didn't even like this song so much, but I remember it:
These were songs that, when I talked to the people in my life, they could not relate to, but they nodded and pretended they understood. My mom liked Conway Twitty and my dad didn't like anything except "Paloma Blanca". My husband was a go-along, get-along kind of guy who didn't understand this whole music thing, but mollified me.
BJ Thomas had captivated me in 1968 with his "Eyes Of A New York Woman", and now he was singing country. Country fans were as snobbish as rock fans, except country was more like a secret club. Even in '75 one did not advertise that they liked country music. To admit it would subject oneself to a cultural shaming. So, "we" disdained any artist who appropriated country -- John Denver, especially; but also Olivia Newton-John, even though we secretly sort of liked them. To me, BJ Thomas sounded country, and "the sound" was prime.
There was a new guy who appeared on my radio. He reminded me a bit of Jerry Lee, and he played piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, too. Die-hard country fans know authenticity when we hear it. Gary Stewart was authentic. It makes me sad to watch Gary's videos, because life did not turn out well for him, but he was, for a brief moment, a star. And he deserved it.
Another guy who showed up in...well, technically, 1974...but was huge in '75, was Ronnie Milsap. I always think of Gary Stewart and Ronnie Milsap in the same parcel, because they (contrary to what you may have been told) were the the most shimmering stars of 1975.
Female singers didn't spring up like male singers did. The ratio of male country artists to female is approximately 95 to 1. Really -- make a list.
I was at home, kneeling on my green shag carpet, fiddling with the dials on my console stereo, when this voice piped through the radio speakers. I was puzzled. She wasn't Dolly, nor Loretta. I didn't know who the heck she was, and I knew everybody. I didn't know her because she was new. Soon to be "not new". I rushed down to my local Woolworth's store and purchased, for $3.99, her album called "Elite Hotel".
Everybody thought Ray Stevens was a fool, including Ray Stevens. He was a novelty act, albeit a clever one. At my rancid State job in 1974, I was subjected to "The Streak" approximately 20,152 times on the radio. But Ray could do other stuff, when he set his mind to it:
It's difficult to describe the pop culture of the mid-seventies to someone who was not there. We had our radios and our TV's, and that's it. The big three networks would only feature country artists who weren't too "country", "Hee Haw" aside (CBS would soon purge that program). The only place we'd ever see country artists was on variety shows, but they were all abuzz with Jim Stafford and, of course, novelties.
Here are the top two country singles of 1975. You can guess how I felt about them:
I didn't begin to like Glen Campbell until somewhere around the 2000's. As for CW McCall, well, we don't hear a lot of covers of "Convoy", do we? And just for the record, nobody had CB radios. Nobody.
Music was my lifeline in 1975. I was adrift and didn't even acknowledge it. Like all of us, I sauntered through my days focused on inconsequential things. Life hadn't exactly turned out right, try as I did to make it so. All I had that made any sense was music, and I don't dwell on that time. I hurt for the semi-person I was then.
Maybe that's why I don't pen a lot of posts about the seventies.
I "graduated" from junior high in May, 1969 and transitioned to Mandan Senior High that September. I was grown-up! Shoot, I was fourteen going on fifteen! On my way to freshman renown!
Richard Nixon had become president. I'd pissed off my dad by tacking my eighth grade history project (a campaign placard) up on the wall right outside the kitchen door ~ "This Time Vote Like The Whole World Depends On It ~ Nixon/Agnew". Dad was reliably perturbed and baffled. I think he literally scratched his head as he alighted the stoop. My work was done!
That summer odd things happened. Teddy Kennedy killed a girl and the Manson Family killed a bunch of people in gruesome ways. Woodstock happened and most people didn't give a shit. My best friend Alice and I went to the Mandan Theater and saw "Butch Cassidy" and "True Grit". We learned that Glen Campbell was a terrible actor and that Paul Newman still had the bluest eyes under the sun.
Oh yea, there was some kind of "moon landing" that summer. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday night, which was really bad scheduling. Plus the optics weren't good. It was hard to make out what exactly was going on. I did park myself in front of our console TV, and I think my dad was there, too. Maybe Dad was more impressed than I. I didn't grasp the enormity of the event, but I was fourteen. I was more excited anticipating the next "World of Beauty" kit that would land in my mailbox.
(I hope it has white lipstick!)
I'd abandoned rock and roll. But old habits died hard. I still had one foot in AM radio, but mostly, thanks to the influence of my new best friend, I became immersed in country music.
I was still aware of certain '69 hits, like this:
And this song, over and over:
This was catchy:
I liked this one because I watched Hawaii Five-O every Thursday night at nine p.m. on CBS television (Book 'em. Danno):
But frankly, the number one song of the year was one my seven-year-old sister really liked, because it was a cartoon. This is where pop music was in '69, as much as one wants to wax nostalgic over "Get Back" and "Lay Lady Lay":
On the home front, life had settled into a routine. Dad was sober "sometimes"; Mom was a harpy, mostly. I retreated to the room I now shared with my adolescent sister and spun records on my (still) battery-operated turntable.
TV was supreme. After all, that's where I basked in Hawaii Five-O and Medical Center, and that's where I found the Johnny Cash Show on ABC TV.
1969 was Johnny's year. He was insidious. Johnny, with his black waistcoat and his Carters and Statlers and his Carl Perkins and Tennessee Three climbed inside one's brain matter and made himself at home.
But, try as he might, Johnny could never supersede the artist of the sixties, or basically of ever; Merle:
Glen Campbell had his Goodtime Hour on CBS. It was a summer replacement for that subversive Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. I was so oblivious I didn't know the Smothers Brothers were incendiary. We tended to overlook the political screeds, because they appeared nightly on the network news, and focused instead on the comedy.
Glen Campbell, on the other hand, was an artist I despised. Fortuitously, I later came to my senses ~ but it wasn't entirely my fault. Glen played the hayseed role so well, he was one of the prime reasons I disavowed any familiarity with country music anytime I was pinned down about my musical tastes.
"Hi! I'm Glen Campbell!" he piped up through the cornfield. If it hadn't been for John Hartford, I would have clicked my TV dial to whatever medical drama was playing out on NBC.
It didn't help that Glen insisted on recording Jimmy Webb songs, although this one, in retrospect, is not bad:
My musical tastes ran more towards:
As a (bogus) CMA member, I voted for this next song as Single of the Year. Freddy Weller had once been a member of Paul Revere and the Raiders, whose posters from Tiger Beat I had tacked to my bedroom wall. I didn't actually like Paul Revere and the Raiders, but I thought Mark Lindsay was cute, with his ponytail.
This Joe South song didn't win, despite my best efforts.
Nobody (but me) remembers Jack Greene, but he had the number one song and Single of the Year in 1967, with "There Goes My Everything".
In 1969 he had an even better song (as Ricky Van Shelton can attest).
Porter Wagoner actually had a career without Dolly Parton, believe it or not. Alice and I sat cross-legged in her living room and played this LP (and made up our own lyrics to the song (that are NSFW):
Transitions, yes. Confusion, yes.
Music was my lifeline. And I was just trying to get by.
Dave Porter can create the soundtrack of my life anytime.
It takes a rare talent to do it right. When it's right, you know it. When someone is phoning it in, you know that, too.
I confess, I am obsessed with Breaking Bad. My life partner and I have watched the entire series twice now, and damn, I forgot a lot of stuff from the first time! If there is a more perfect TV show, well....no, there just isn't.
Aside from the cast and the writing and the cinematography, there is the music. If I was a music supervisor, I would luxuriate in my serendipity. But it's a hard job, matching the quintessential track to that breath-stirring scene.
I could create a complete album of tracks from Breaking Bad, and relive each moment in infinitesimal detail. And I think I might.
Gale Boetticher dripping coffee into a carafe:
David Costabile must have had to study that song for weeks to be able to sing along.
It was a touch of genius to use a dusty cassette tape of Marty Robbins in the last episode:
The most obvious reference that nobody thought of:
Walter White, singing:
The most ingenuous use of a song I never liked:
I could watch Breaking Bad over and over and over. It gets inside your bones. I'm smitten with Jesse and Mike and Hector. And Badger and Skinny Pete. And mostly Hank and peculiar Marie.
It's mostly thanks to Vince Gilligan and Bryan Cranston, but also to Dave Porter, for creating the soundtrack to a bizarre world.
SPOILER ALERT: Don't watch this if you haven't watched the series in its entirety (and you really, really need to):
Altruistic as I am known to be, I wanted to share April Tompkins' latest book video. I think it's awesome.
I am honored she chose to use Red River's music as the backdrop for her video. In case you don't know about Red River, you can find us here.
I urge you to buy April's novel, Radio Crazy. It's a "crazy" ride. Unintentionally funny at times; dark and scary at others, April's characters act like real people; often annoyed and put-upon, until circumstances converge to create terror and mayhem.
April is somebody I thought I knew well, until I read her prose. Then -- what the hell? I might be a bit wary to stroll down to the cafeteria with her, come Monday.
It occurred to me that 1964 is akin to the nineteenth century to many people. To me it's my childhood, albeit somewhat hazy by now. My mind flashes on scenes, but they sort of run together. My "fun adventure" possibly lasted no more than six months, but my brain squeezes it into approximately one week.
My regular life wasn't what one would call exciting. I rode the orange bus two times a day and in between I endeavored to grasp knowledge inside my third grade classroom. Granted, third grade was my favorite grade. My teacher, Mrs. Thomlinson, abetted my natural show-off tendencies. I was a third grade star. Then came summer vacation and I tried to find adventures, but living in the country demanded that I engage my imagination in order to find things to do that didn't involve traipsing along a dirt road, riffling my outstretched hands across the tall wheat-heads. No wonder I made up little melodies and told myself stories. It was just me alone with the sapphire sky.
Then my Uncle Howard stepped in. He'd invested in a triple-threat business in a tiny town called Lisbon; a splotch of a village criss-crossed by Highways 27 and 32 in the southeastern sector of North Dakota.
This is it:
As you can see, it's now an Eagles Club. And smoke free? Ha! Not in 1964!
The establishment was called Triple Service - because it contained a bar, a restaurant, and a service station. One-stop drinking! The problem was, my uncle was a bachelor and he didn't exactly know how to cook. So he presented a proposal to my mom and my aunt. He'd pay them handsomely to alternate weeks functioning as fry cooks. My mom, scouring her checkbook, acceded. Farming was a credit business. One charged everything; gas, seed, groceries, clothes -- everything except ice cream cones -- and waited for a late fall certified check to grace the mailbox so the charge accounts could be settled up.
Mom had two little kids and me. Luckily my big sister was eighteen and negligibly responsible, so Carole was tasked with minding the little ones while my dad harvested the wheat and potatoes, and Mom and I packed our pink Samsonite suitcases and crunched inside the Ford Galaxie and aimed it down Highway 81 toward Lisbon.
My Aunt Barbara had two kids roughly my age. The deal was that the three of us kids would reside in Lisbon, North Dakota, trading off "moms" every week. It wasn't at all strange, because we'd had sleepovers our whole lives, so Aunt Barbara was really my second mom.
Living in an apartment attached to actual real life was an awesome experience. We could step outside our kitchen door and inside a tiny room stocked top to bottom with all manner of crystal liquor decanters. Next to that was a cavernous dance floor, hollow in the daytime hours, but slippery and shimmery when the klieg lights were flipped on.
The cafe itself was a parcel of cushiony booths and twirly stools straddling a long Formica counter.
The Triple Service bar was dark and smoky, lit by lavender sconces, jam-packed on weekend nights, the glow of the Wurlitzer heating up the corner; smelly with whiskey/cigarette butts and hops in the bare-bulb light of day.
My cousins, Paul and Karen, and I, forged a new life inside Triple Service.
We'd formed a little trio, thanks to our accordion teacher back home. Paul manned the accordion, Karen strummed a guitar, and I burnished the snare drum, brushes in hand. We had costumes and everything -- white-fringed felt skirts and western shirts and boots. I don't remember if there were hats -- possibly only neckerchiefs. Rules prohibited us from actually entering the bar area (when it was open), so we set up in the "triple" area of Triple Service, abutting the service station counter, and put on a show. Our big number was "Bye Bye Love". It's a funny thing about men who'd imbibed -- they turn into philanthropists. We raked in dollars and quarters and nickels from patrons who exited the bar through the service station door.
We became jaded, as neuveau-riche people do; and stuffed our glass piggy banks with coin and greenbacks, until we made that Saturday expedition to F.W Woolworth's to stuff our pockets and plastic purses with candy necklaces and molded Beatle figurines.
The only hitch in our (at least my) resplendent lives was the fact that our mothers had enrolled us in Catholic school. For my cousins, who were used to it, this was de riguer. For me, a dedicated public school girl, it was cataclysmic. My new fourth grade teacher was a nun! Nuns were evil, my catechism experience had taught me. Evil and sadistic. However, this teacher was semi-youthful and frightfully timid, so I settled in. The curriculum, however, was predicated on 1963 topics, and this was 1964! So, I was bored because I'd already learned all this stuff, and I hated my new school, because I didn't like new people. I wasn't what you'd call "easy to get to know". I'd always had a best friend back home, and it hadn't been easy choosing that honor. Best friends had to meet exacting standards. Karen, on the other hand, always had a group of friends, so the pressure on her was less. She adapted to our new school the very first day. I was miserable for at least a month.
And the nuns at the school, especially the "Head Nun" (sorry; I am not up on Catholic school lingo), heartily disapproved of our living arrangement. "Oh, you live at the place," she would comment. Yes, Sister Denunciatory, we lived at a bar. B-A-R. That sin-soaked den of people enjoying life. Scandalous!
Uncle Howard had a plaque affixed to Triple Service's wall that read:
There's no place anywhere near this place
Quite like this place
So this must be the place
I guess Mother Condemnation was right after all.
Kids being kids, we found all manner of off-duty pursuits, most of them stupid. Karen and I climbed up on the roof and perched between the big red letters that spelled out T-RI-P-L-E S-E-R-V-I-C-E and serenaded the guys who'd pulled up to the gas pumps below. "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" was our favored choice. Paul, Karen and I hid in the liquor room, which was right off the cavernous dance floor and did stupid things, like slide ice cubes across the linoleum. Paul, one night, captured a frog outside, and released it to hop across the floor. Essentially, we were scientists -- we just wanted to find out what would happen.
The juke box was Karen's and my tether. We inspected the white and red title strips and gleaned our musical education from Uncle Howard's ten-cent singles and fifty-cent album showcases. She and I created a comic book, the premise of which was, what happens to musical artists when they get old. That juke box really assisted our creativity. I do remember that Bobby Bare was a bear. Bent Fabric was shaped like -- well, I guess you can figure that one out. Uncle Howard passed our creation among his patrons and they loved it. We got orders for more, which we had priced at twenty-five cents each; but you know how it is with designing something -- once you've done it, it becomes monotony the second or third time. We made a half-hearted effort to produce more copies, but finally drifted away and into more interesting endeavors.
So, what did we glean from Uncle Howard's juke box? Bear in mind that Uncle Howard's clientele didn't go for that rock 'n roll "noise", so his musical choices were relatively sedate.
This was the hottest, I meant hottest, new act of 1964:
Here's that "Bent Fabric" guy:
Little Millie Small:
One can never, ever forget Bobby Bare (who is not, in reality, a bear):
My dad liked this song; therefore, I, too, like it:
Dean Martin:
A gal named Gale Garnett:
Believe it or not, this was huge in '64. Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz (I guess):
Karen's and my seminal number:
Roger Miller again:
There was no one, however, who dominated country music in 1964 like Buck Owens dominated. Buck Owens was everything. I wasn't even a country-western fan (I was a Roy Orbison fan), but all I knew about country music revolved around Buck Owens.
The couples who stepped onto Uncle Howard's dance floor on Saturday nights contented themselves with Ernest Tubb covers played by a bolo-tie-clad trio of local musicians.We, in the liquor supply room, listlessly tapped our feet to the thump-thumping bass guitar. Had Buck Owens suddenly made an appearance, especially with Don Rich and the guys, it would have been like Uncle Howard's juke box come to life.
I'm not as religious as I once was. Or maybe I'm more religious than I once was. See, when I was a pre-teen, I was lost and searching hard for some thread of deliverance. Raised a Catholic, I loved the rituals of the church -- the stations of the cross at Lenten time, when the priest, followed by his two altar boys, would stop at each statuette along his path and say a solemn prayer. I didn't exactly grasp the meaning, but it was such an august procession that it had to have deep significance. I prayed hard during that ceremony, and that couldn't have hurt, right? The Catholic mass also featured the priest swinging sensers of incense, which smelled "holy". Dipping one's fingers in a font of holy water and making the sign of the cross, and genuflecting before entering the church pew, seemed somber and sanctified.
The rituals of the church were sublime, but the incessant scolding didn't strike me as God-like. Silly transgressions, like eating meat on Friday, would damn me to hell. Taking communion without first slipping inside the dark airless chamber to confess my "sins" to some guy would also send me to the fiery depths. Poor babies who died before being baptized would be sentenced to a place called purgatory. And they didn't even get the chance to do anything wrong.
I hope the church doesn't preach that kind of nonsense anymore. I don't know, because I stopped attending mass sometime around age eighteen. I think confession was my line in the sand. I never ever thought it was right, even as an eight-year-old. I can understand talking to someone and getting some life counsel, but that whole recitation of made-up sins was pointless. And who were these "priests" anyway? They were cloistered and had no inkling of real life.
I needed someone to help me, and all the embroidered robes in the world weren't going to quiet my troubles.
Those who "raised" me weren't actually my parents. I had a few pseudo-parents; whomever was available and offered something I needed to learn -- my sister-in-law was one. People who worked for my parents. My friend's mom. Perhaps a teacher or two.
One sundown July evening my sister-in-law was manning the motel office when a Scottish couple with three redheaded kids checked in. I was eleven or twelve at the time, and lazing about, observing everyday life. The man asked about available babysitters. He and his wife wanted to have a nice dinner out. I wasn't a natural babysitter -- I despised it, actually. I don't know why everybody thinks pre-teen girls are natural baby-slingers. Is that supposed to be an innate talent? That twilight, however, I popped up off the sofa and proclaimed that I would be happy to babysit. Frankly, I was entranced by the couple's accent, and perhaps wanted to experience something "foreign".
I have no idea where my mom and dad were; why neither of them were working and why they had indentured my new sister-in-law to cover for them. My educated guess is that Dad was drunk in a bar and my mom had consumed a couple of tranquilizers and was blissfully snoring away in her bed. This was de riguer, so I didn't waste any brain cells contemplating it.
Regardless, I tromped over to room 33 at six p.m. and commenced to wrangle and entertain three bouncing tow-heads.
After an hour or so, they all drifted off to slumber and I clicked on the TV and perused the three available channels. My best option was a Billy Graham crusade.
That night, what Reverend Graham was saying made me sit up straight. He said things like, "God loves you". That was a new concept! Here I'd thought God had a checklist and made tick marks next to every task I'd failed at. The reverend said something about loving everybody or something, and that sinners were lambs of God. And that God satisfies every longing of our hearts.
Billy Graham was clearly an honest man. I had long ago cultivated an excellent BS detector, and this guy was honest and pure. And he made me feel like I was a worthwhile person. This was new!
When the Scot parents returned later, I practically skipped out of the room and took three or four laps around the complex, greeting every stranger I encountered with a hearty "Hi!". I was not one to speak to strangers, but I suddenly felt light-footed, aloft on an imaginary breeze.
That feeling didn't linger, but the concept of God's love did.
I haven't forgotten.
There aren't too many really good people in this world.
