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Tale of Two Debbies

8/20/2022

There were two Debbies in my high school drama department.

It was several months after the car accident when I went to a typical high school party: parents away, house to ourselves, no rules except it has to be clean when the adults return. There were people everywhere. There were people fence-to-fence in the backyard, the family, dining, and living rooms and kitchen were packed in. I found a circle in what I believe was the guest room, where there were several joints and hash pipes circulating. I actually knew more people in this group than in many of the others, so I joined in and sat down next to a colleague from drama class – Debra (Debby) Harmon. I plopped down in the circle, next to her, and we chatted. If I remember, correctly, she introduced me to her friend, the girl sitting on my other side. We chatted for awhile and enjoyed the music, the atmosphere, and the camaraderie.

One of the times the hash pipe made its way around the circle (from Debby to me), I very nonchalantly reached in, pulled out my teeth. All the goop and crud had already dissolved, and they were simply floating in my mouth, at that point, so they weren’t gross or anything – and the room was not well lit. As I took the joint from Debby’s right hand, I handed her my teeth, and said, “Here, hold these.” I quickly took a hit, passed the pipe and grabbed my teeth and stuck them back in my head, quickly. Debby literally looked at her friend, around me, and asked, “Did he just take his teeth out?”

The other Debby, we’ll call her Debby L was one of the most attractive females on campus (they were both attractive), and I remember Roger Burtner stopping a party at his house, turning off the music, and proclaiming to the entire collective that during “Don’t Drink the Water” I got to kiss Debby Lansford “two times! – TWO TIMES!” every performance. That announcement was met with loud, but jealous cheers and admiration from every male in the room. I never had the balls to tell them that, every time, we were hiding behind our hair laughing hard, and hoping that no one could tell that we were just laughing at the silliness of the play. We weren’t even attempting a stage kiss. We both had long hair, and no one could see our faces, so we took advantage and just enjoyed the moment.

But, the highlight of my stories of the two Debbies was their birthday party our senior year. They had the same birthday – born on exactly the same day. The had known each other most of their lives, and had, I believe, celebrated their birthday, together, in the past. Although they were friends, they didn’t always run in the same circles. Debby H was more of a stoner, so she hung more with my circles, while Debby L hung out, mostly, with the student council and other straights, on campus.

But, this year, someone threw a party for both Debby’s. I’m not sure I know who threw the party. I never was at that house before or after and don’t even know whose house it was. But, this was a party to end all parties. There was nowhere without bodies. It was loud, it was moving, it was the shits.

At one point, I found myself at the apex of two circles that were in the process of passing a gallon of gold tequila and two large hash pipes. The other guy at the apex was the guy who brought the hash. Not a piddling little ball of hash, this thing was larger than a golf ball, wrapped in a disintegrating piece of aluminum foil – the biggest fuckin’ ball of hash I’ve ever seen. Because I somehow found myself at the intersection of the two circles, I was able to double up – twice the tequila, twice the hash.

I must have blacked out, because the next thing I remember was opening my eyes and seeing wood – my first thought was that I had died and was in my coffin, but I could still hear the music and the noise of the crowd. Apparently, as I headed for the floor, someone caught me, and slid the upper part of my body under the coffee table – I shit you not – so no one would step on my head. I had literally drunk myself “under the table.” As I maneuvered my body from under the coffee table, I looked on the couch, and lo and behold, there was Debby H.

“Happy Birthday, Debby”

“Thanks, Michael. Having a good time?”

I don’t think I ever saw Debby L, that night, but we celebrated her birthday, just the same.

It was raining. It was raining hard. I was in a suede jacket and suede knee-high moccasins (soft leather souls). Of course, I locked my keys in my car, so when I left (very high), I tried, unsuccessfully to get into my car. By the time some other revelers came outside and offered me a ride home, I was drenched to the skin.

After two in the morning, I stood there, drenched, so stoned I could barely remember my name, trying to convince my stepfather that we really needed to go get my car, then, not wait until morning. I ultimately persevered and we went, in the pouring rain, and got my car, but I have never imagined, for a moment, that both Marie or Leland were too stupid to recognize my condition, that night.

They never mentioned it.

It's a miracle I survived my teen years.

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Tribute Bands

8/17/2022

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Since 2017, I have hosted a weekly politics and social justice show, called the Struggle, on a local non-profit radio station (associated with the Pacifica Network, but neither an affiliate nor owned by Pacifica). In 2020, a local situation arose when a right-wing, fundamentalist church began renting the historic Tower Theater, the anchor for the Tower District Entertainment and Arts District, in my adopted hometown of Fresno, California. This 1920s art deco masterpiece been the anchor of Fresno’s queer community and has, as long as I remember, been the one interesting and welcoming space in this otherwise pretty provincial and conservative city. In 1991, the City of Fresno designated the neighborhood as a special district, focused on entertainment and the arts, so it’s all eateries, bars, clubs, thrift stores, smoke shops, used books and game shops, and all the other cool stuff in a local, bohemian neighborhood. The Tower is a cross between Venice and Westwood for those of you who know SoCal. One part of the plan specified that the Theater could not be used for regular religious or community gatherings. During COVID, the owner of the theater, in order to bring in revenue, rented it to this church from outside the neighborhood. He agreed to sell the theatre to the church, but forgot he had legal obligations to tenant properties, who sued and were able to cancel the sale to the church, however, that was in the midst of almost regular weekly protests where a diverse group of protestors stood on one corner across from the theater, in a parking lot, and another group of counter-protestors, made up, almost entirely of members of the Proud Boys, who were there supporting the church.

In 1998, when we moved back to Fresno from Cleveland, Corkey said to me, “You don’t want to live in Fresno.”

To which I replied, “Well, if I can pick where we live, we can make it work, for a while.” While she and a two-year-old Nik stayed in Cleveland, I was out here working at a temporary consulting assignment, and shopping for a new home (that’s a story). I called a small, one-man real estate office and told the guy the boundaries of where I was willing to look, and we spent every afternoon for several weeks driving from listing to listing, trying to find our new home. I knew I had to live in this neighborhood. I didn’t realize I’d still be here when I wrote the first draft of this, in 2022.

So, this is my neighborhood. I have memories going back to the late 1970s. Many of those memories center on the theater. I saw several of the Hitchcock films when they were having a revival, in the 1980s. along with numerous art films. I’ve seen acts as diverse as America and the Talking Heads. When I got my honor cords when I graduated at 49 with my second associate’s degree, the ceremony was held in that theatre. I have been on dates with almost every woman I have dated, since 1978, in the Tower. This neighborhood contains my past, my present, and my future. It has become my home – much more so than the city, itself. I’m still an Angeleno, when it comes to attachments to cities, but I digress. This story is about the last of many shows we did on the Struggle concerning the Tower Theater, after the City purchased the theater and will be running it as a city-owned, non-profit, community theater. The show in question was really a victory lap for many of the organizers. I had been to some protests, the general manager at the station, Rychard Withers, had been to even more of them. We did probably a dozen shows covering the various and sundries related to every aspect of the situation, and we were giving ourselves a well-deserved pat on our backs – a circle-jerk of back pats.

Part of that discussion moved into the area of future use of the theater. One of my many complaints about the former management was they always went for the cheap and easy buck. Probably eighty percent of the acts brought into the theater over the last several years have been so-called tribute bands. In other words, a bunch of guys (usually) without the talent to make it on their own, touring in costumes pretending to be someone else who had talent, and slavishly covering their songs exactly like they were on the records, so old people, like me, with our failing eyesight and hearing, can pretend (or maybe some of them believe it) that these are really Metallica or the Beach Boys, or whomever. As a musician and a performer, I despise these groups. I love me a good cover band, but a cover band who makes the music their own, not someone who doesn’t have the balls to put themselves out there, while parading around in period costumes and pretending to have understood the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, or the nineties – you don’t know! You weren’t there. So, as part of the program, I expressed the view that I really hoped we’d seen the last of these disgusting abominations, and I explained why I despise this practice, so much.

In 1966, my mother and I moved to Valley City, North Dakota, so she could finish her BA and convert her teaching credential. She had, in the mid-50s been able to get a credential with just a so-called Normal education, which was a two-year program that was common (Fresno City started as a Normal school, which is why we live on a street named Normal, among dozens of streets named after famous universities). While we were there, we attended an afternoon concert featuring the vocal group, the Ink Spots. These guys were the main competition to the Mills Brothers, and both groups were the precursors of the street corner style of singing that would become very popular in the late 50s and 60s. My mother had had a “Best of the Ink Spots” LP and I knew every word to every song on that record. We were sitting in the front row of this small auditorium, and I gleefully joined in as they warbled their sweet harmonies. Me, this scrawny buzz-cut white kid with crooked teeth, in North Dakota, singing along with these black musicians and thoroughly loving every note, every chord, every harmony.

After the concert, the guitarist, who had written many of their best songs, came out to the house and found me, and we talked for a while. He was as excited to meet this silly white kid as I was to meet him. He the first star or celebrity I had met, and as always, your first is the most special.

Jump several years, to 1973. We came to California, shortly after that concert, and by this time my mother had remarried, and we had moved from Hanford (where we originally landed) to Porterville, where I finished High School and started College. At the time, I was playing trumpet in Buck Shaffer’s Studio Band, and we were going to perform, as we usually did, at the large jazz festival that used to be held in Visalia, every year. At that time, Don Ellis or Stan Kenton either opened or closed the week-long festival, and the other closed it. Loving both (with a stronger nod to Ellis), I always enjoyed the festival. This particular year, we were opening for two well-known flashes from the past – the Mills Brothers AND the Ink Spots. You can imagine my excitement, and the anticipation, as the bus pulled up behind the theatre at the College of the Sequoias, from which these two legendary quartets were to emerge.

The doors of the charter bus opened and eight young black men, maybe a year or two older than me, came off the bus with their crew and walked backstage. I figured there must be a mistake and the real guys had to still be on the bus.

They weren’t.

I approached one of the guys who identified himself as being “an ink spot” and asked him where the real Ink Spots were. He explained that these eight guys, along with several other similar groups were touring under license of the families of the original artists and, all of them, were, LEGALLY, the Ink Spots.

Not!

Likewise, I was very disappointed the last time Nik and I saw King Crimson on tour. Opening for them, in addition to the California Guitar Trio (who are amazing) was “The Zappa Band.” Former members of Zappa’s band, playing Zappa’s music. While not quite as big a rip off as the legal Ink Spots or the wannabe tribute bands, it was still disappointing. If I want to see the Motels, Martha had better be there. If I want to see the Stones, Mick and Keith, at least, have to be onstage. If I see the Beatles, George and John really need to be there, although, they can get someone else to fill in for Paul.

Don’t claim to be an Ink Spot unless you really are an Ink Spot.

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Crummy Rummy

8/15/2022

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A few nights ago, Nik and I decided to play a game of Crummy Rummy. Crummy Rummy is a version of standard Gin or Rummy, but no 3-of-a-kind – only straights. I abandoned traditional rummy when I was in high school and we had a travelling game of rummy that included, at times, up to eighteen people sitting around the table, playing rummy. To accommodate that many people, we used as many as three decks, and played with five, seven, or nine, depending on the number of players playing. The fewer players, the larger the individual hand. The simplification of the rules were simply to make it easy for us to sit around and talk, rather than focus on the game. While some of the group took it more seriously than others, all of us played for fun.

At the core of the group were Pat Nagy, my friend from drama, his young wife (they had to get married when she was 15), and myself. We often spent two or three nights a week, in various groups, to play the stupid game that could go on, for hours.

Cork, Nik, and I would often play Crummy Rummy, for many of the same reasons – less competitive, less stressful, and more casual. We almost always kept score, and would agree on the point value to win, before starting.

Occasionally, Nik and I agree to play, for the hand, not for the score. The one with the most winning hands, out of a predetermined number of hands, wins. Fair, and no one has to do math.

Of the hundreds of times, I have played this silly simplified version of this classic game, two games stand out. One of those is, at this writing, the most recent game we played. I’ll tell you about that, in a minute, but first the original memorable game.

As I said, Patrick and I were at the center of the circle around which this crummy rummy game, that lasted more than a year. As I mentioned, he and his first wife were married early in my senior year. Pat and I were in the same class, his wife was a sophomore, at the time.

Initially, they lived with his parents, but that didn’t last long. After a few months, they managed to save enough for the ultimate first apartment – small, old, and not that clean. My mother and I helped out with the scrubbing of the stove and some of the other stuff to get it clean enough to house the baby, and I often joined them for dinner or an evening – and every time, even if it was just the three of us, we played Crummy Rummy.

One afternoon – it was probably during lunch, because I don’t think this was an episode of he and I ditching class – we had to make a stop at their apartment. I know we had to pick something up, and we had to get back to school – I just don’t remember the details.
Just as we were getting ready to head out the door, Patrick spotted a deck of cards at the tiny little, classic, fifties Formica table, in their itsy-bitsy kitchen. He pointed to the deck, and said, “One hand?”
I replied, “One hand.”

Patrick shuffled and dealt us each nine cards.

I tend to pick up my cards and arrange them as they’re being dealt, unless the dealer asks me to leave them on the table, so as the cards came to my side, I picked them up. I had to keep my poker face, because as I loaded the cards into a fan in my hand, I realized that many of my cards played. When Patrick put down the first card in the discard pile, it played in my hand and I was able to lay down 10 cards, with no discard.

I began laughing uncontrollably, thinking there was no way in the world I could lose this hand, as it was likely that what I would draw on my next term would not play, and I would discard, and the game would be over.

While I’m laughing uncontrollably, Patrick, who had looked at what was lying in front of me, in horror, began working on his hand.
Within mere seconds, he drew a card, laid down nine cards which either played directly or on what I had played, and he had a discard – ending the game.

I had ten cards.

Patrick had nine cards.

Most of mine were number cards (5pts).

Most of Patrick’s were face cards (10pts).

I lost, but I didn’t care. What was the possibility of a hand of (even crummy) rummy resulting in just one turn per player.
That was the most insane experience I ever had, playing cards – until this past Saturday.

Nik and I were watching tele and I just couldn’t stomach sitting there a minute longer, and he suggested we play a game of cards. That was the best suggestion for a long time, and I jumped at the chance to do something different for a while.

I shuffled, and shuffled, and shuffled the cards. Nik cut the deck, and I offered to let him deal the first hand (he doesn’t like to shuffle, as he really hasn’t mastered it, and I get that). Since it was just the two of us, we agreed to nine cards, each.

We had had several turns, when I picked up about a dozen cards (three in the stack played). With what I picked up and what was already in my hand, I ended up with one of those hands where just about anything I drew would play, so I knew I was doing pretty well.
Luckily, Nik didn’t go out early. Although I had a lot on the table, I had even more in my hand, and I worried that he would stiff me with the cards I held.

Ultimately, we both did quite well. There was enough down that, as I though, just about anything drawn would play, or would play shortly. As we continued, the deck got smaller and smaller, and it looked like it was going to be one of those rare games (probably happened to me thrice) where you play through the entire deck of cards.

Soon, I went out with no discard (game continues).

Nik drew and was able to play, some more, but still held cards.

I drew – it played.

I think we went through three more turns before it ended. By that time, he was out with no discard, so we just kept picking cards and (almost always) laying them down, somewhere because they played.
When I finally had a discard, we began counting our cards. Now, remember, we usually pick a final score, but this time, we were simply going for best out of five. So, instead of shooting for five hundred (our usual starting end point), we were just going to count wins.

However, we did count our points to verify the winner.

Nik had one hundred and fifteen points.

I had two hundred and fifteen points.

We decided to just end it there, and call it, because how to do you follow that up.

That’s two. I wonder how many years it will be before I play another game of Crummy Rummy unlike any other.

I’m sure that will be worth remembering.

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Wearing full makeup to the Pig Pen

8/14/2022

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I’m a performer, and although for most of my performing career, I’ve been in broadcasting, I have always loved live performances (even on the radio). Other than petting my cat, little is more fulfilling than working to a live audience, whether it be in a bar, a theatre, or the classroom.

I’ve already mentioned, elsewhere, that I preferred to play character roles, usually someone of a different age. The transformation through makeup and costume were always part of my prep to get into character. Someone too close to my own age or character was much more challenging, but not as much fun, so I only played leads, especially romantic leads, once, and that was playing the Woody Allen role in his play, “Don’t Drink the Water.” That’s the gig where I got to kiss Debby, TWO TIMES!.

“Water” is not Allen’s finest. It is his first stage play, and he had yet to fully develop his style. The movie version had a generic “lead” play his character to disastrous results. Jacky Gleason destroyed one of the characters, and the entire movie stunk. But, the play is cute and plays into Cold War memes.

All the performances went well, until the final show. I doubt if I can remember ALL of the things that happened, but by the end of the evening, members of the cast were deliberately adding to the mayhem.

I will try to remember all of the things that happened, off script, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten some of them.

The first big thing I remember was when a bomb was supposed to come in through the window, the Jacky Gleason character picks it up, asks what it is, I say “A Bomb” to which he says, “A Bomb” and we play hot potato for a few tosses, chuck it out the window, there’s a big bang and a puff smoke, and we go on. Closing night, the person throwing the prop through the window missed. It was constructed from a small, hard plastic basketball (painted black) with a fuse. When it hit the stage, it bounced. Even though it was hard plastic, it managed to bounce, and bounce, and bounce. Each bounce took it closer to the orchestra pit, which was some ten or twelve feet below us. Patrick, my friend who was playing the Gleason character, was wearing leather soled wingtips, and I was wearing soft leather, suede moccasins, so neither of us had any grip. We both started for the bouncing target, knowing that if it went into the orchestra, we’d either have to retrieve it, or fake it, and neither of us wanted to try how to keep the scene going without the prop. I tried to stop, but slid foot first off the lip of the proscenium, and Patrick, who actually caught the blasted thing, had dived for it, and was now teetering on the edge, holding the bomb.

The audience was on their feet – fifteen hundred souls, all wondering if they were going to see us splattered on the floor of the pit.

Patrick looked up at me, and asked, “what do we do now?”

To which I replied, “Get back on stage and keep going”

We did.

Someone asked me, later, how we choreographed that trick, every night. They thought it was planned.

There were several other smaller prop7-related accidents, but I don’t remember the details.

The next bit of fun was when another actor was supposed to storm into the American embassy (which is the setting for the play) and demand the spies (the caterer and his wife and daughter who inadvertently took pictures of classified material and are being sought as spies) be turned over. He was supposed to point the gun right in my face, and I was to use on finger to point it down, and we were to do this a couple of times during the scene. But, this time, the actor with the machine gun didn’t let me push it down, gently, so I pushed a little harder, eventually grabbing the barrel and pushing it down – of course, it was a wooden prop (looked really good, until the next moment). As the dialogue continued, I heard “crack” and looked down and I had the forward hand grip and the barrel, while the other actor had the stock and the back half of the gun. He started laughing so hard he couldn’t get his lines out, all he could say was, “Hang on, wait a minute,” repeatedly, while he tried to compose himself. He finally exited, leaving me with half of a broken prop – which I promptly threw over my head, over the top of the flats into the wings, as if that’s the normal thing to do when a gun falls apart in your hands.

The script called for us to find a “double” for the caterer. We were to locate a local who could be used as a decoy, and the director, who was a very good friend of mine, for the remainder of his life, thought it would be fun to play the role of the body double. There were no lines for the double, as he was just supposed to move in and out of the background of various scenes. One of those was just before an embassy party, he’s supposed to be seen coming in and stealing a bottle from behind the bar. We decided to have some fun with it, so we had him enter and go up behind the bar and disappear. At some point, I was to enter this seemingly empty room.

When he pops up, drunk, I say, “Hey, take it easy on that stuff.”

To which he replied, “No speak a da English,” at which point he disappeared behind the bar, like a drowning man. Once he’s submerged behind the bar, the next group of actors were to make their entrance, and the party ensued. Except, they didn’t. There I was alone, on a sixty-five foot proscenium stage, Strauss waltzes blaring, no lines, no business, no help. They left me on stage, alone for what appeared to be (in my head) hours – although I’m sure it was only a few minutes. By the time they made their entrances, I was dancing with the furniture and singing along to the music, at the top of my lungs.

In another scene, Patrick, and I along with the actresses playing his wife and daughter (Christy and Debby, respectively) are supposed to be going through the escape plan, and something happened, that threw Patrick off and he gave me a bad queue. I responded to what he had actually said, and the two of us held a long, detailed conversation outlining the details of the escape plan – except it wasn’t the plan that Woody Allen had written nor was it what the other two actors were expecting. I don’t remember where all we went with it, but I remember saying, “Got it.”

“Got it!” Patrick replied, and we went back to the script.

After curtain, I returned to the wings, headed for the dressing rooms. I was stopped by an amazingly beautiful woman, probably about 25, who stopped me, grabbed my shoulders, and stuck her tongue down my throat. When she finally disconnected, her first words were, “I haven’t tasted stage makeup in quite awhile.”

I don’t recall her name. If I remember, we went out a few more times, but then she disappeared – if I remember right, she had been home from college for the play.

I do remember, that she wouldn’t let me get out of makeup, and she made me take her out, after the play. I was not 21, so bars weren’t an option, so we went to one of the few places open (back in the day), in Porterville late at night, the Pig Pen. The Pig Pen had been a staple of downtown Porterville since the 1930s. A real greasy spoon catering to blue collar workers and drunks, that time of night – and a drama geek in full makeup.

Ironically, the prior day, I had had my senior picture taken, and I was still in makeup from the night before. I awoke late and had to dash. I had forgotten I was still wearing some eyeliner, until the photographer asked me if I was wearing makeup. I explained I was in a play, yada yada, to which he replied, “it’s probably for the better, I wish more people wore makeup for their pictures. I washed that makeup off before applying my new face for the final performance, where everything went wrong, but it was one of the greatest nights I ever spent in the theatre.

I wish someone had video of us rescuing that bomb from the pit.

One other note about this event. All the disasters happened when I was on stage. I caused none of them, but because I’m a ham, I was the one who had to adlib around, sometimes with Patrick’s help, or otherwise fill or correct until we could get back on track.

Both Christy and Debbie had been critical of my adlibbing and occasional upstaging (like when my pants fell off, in “Arsenic” – NOT MY FAULT). Several times, they had, as friends, made some mention of it. The following Monday, after this performance, both of them took me aside. I expected to get a tongue lashing, but instead, they both heaped praise and gratitude on me for salvaging the disaster. They both admitted that once they left the actual page, they had nothing, and they were so grateful that I, and I pointed out Patrick was there, too, were able to handle just about ANY problem short of an onstage fire.

Sometimes, being the class clown comes in handy.

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Rigga Tigga Tum Tum”

8/13/2022

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In late 1973 or early 1974, I played Riff in West Side Story. Riff is the best character – not all wimpy and soppy like Tony. Biggest problem with the character is that, as the guy whose killing sparks the battles portrayed in the production, he is only in the first half of the play. The issue with all the other male characters, other than Tony, is that the parts may be sprinkled throughout, but if you took the dialogue and business of all the other Jets and combined them into a single character, there would still be less to do than Riff.

One result of that was that for certain numbers more bodies were needed, so in the song “Officer Krupke” I came back with my beard dyed black, and a black clown wig (big and curly). Do you think anyone noticed?

Most of Riff’s best scenes are played with or against that soppy little Tony.

In 1979, I had to move back to Porterville. I say had to, because that’s how it felt. In fact, the first six months I refused to commit, staying in motels and hotels, before finally deciding to rent an apartment.

When I finally did commit, I rented a small, two-room house, behind a farmhouse, in Plano, just south of town. That place has some interesting stories. Maybe, I’ll tell some, here, but the main story has to do with my return to Porterville.

When I left town, headed for college, in the summer of 1974, I didn’t care if I ever returned. I maintained contact with none of my friends – in fact, I had already burnt most of my old bridges, and had intended on walking away and never turning back. By 1975-76, my folks had moved to Visalia, so when I returned from LA, I stayed with them, and didn’t return to Porterville for essentially five years.
I was not happy returning to Porterville. Although I had lots of memories, many were NOT good – maybe the best memories were all the drugs, sex, and rock’n’roll in which we partook – enough to almost last a lifetime.

As I told someone, I still get excited going past an orange grove, as I had rendezvous so many times in the back of my Toyota Corona or my Chevy Vega. There’s something about killing the lights, quietly cruising three or four rows of trees away from the road, and killing the engine.

But, I digress.

When I went back to Porterville to work at KTIP/KIOO, I thought I could somehow sneak into town, unnoticed. Returning to Porterville was never going to be a triumph. Going back to that hellhole would always be a resignation or admitting defeat. I knew it was temporary, until I could get another gig, and I had several things working for me.

My family had moved, so there were no connections, there.

I had gotten a perm, shortly before the gig started, so my hair was pretty curly (eventually frizzy).

I went by the name of Allan Michaels, which was my on-air name.

I had maintained NO contact with anyone, so no one knew I was coming. I had hoped I’d be out of everyone’s memory, and I could slip in for a few months, and sneak right back out.

It wasn’t destined to be, however.

The first person to recognize me was a lady who had been in the class ahead of me. She was one of the cheerleaders (maybe, the head cheerleader), and one of the “popular” in-crowd. She was Porterville’s version of Stranger Things’ Nancy, She literally called out to me, by name, in the parking lot of Smith’s Supermarket, and came over and we chatted for about 10 minutes. I hadn’t known she even knew me, but I had been an actor and a musician – hell, I was even recognized by a gas station attendant, one day, several years after I left – not someone I was in school with, just a local who must have seen me perform at something.

The crazy thing about that meeting, was that shortly before she graduated, ugly (probably very untrue) rumors were spread about two of the cheerleaders (she being one of them). She was a bank president’s wife, in a small town, where those rumors had flown far and wide. While I never thought they true, nor cared one way or the other. it was interesting that while talking to her, that was the unfortunate memory that arose in my feeble little brain.

I realized then, just how different life is for those who remain in small towns and those who leave. I, as someone who left, never have to face all the stupid things I did or was accused of doing, because I've moved on. I maintain contact with about three people from high school, and so I'm free of that baggage.

I’ve always wondered if those who stay in their hometowns – even if they went away for college and returned – were conservative because they stayed or if they stayed because they were conservative – and how much both are true and feed one another. I wondered when and how the stories faded. I don’t know, or care, if they’re true, I’m just sad to say that because I hadn’t been there the prior five years, my most recent memories of her were all ugly and I didn’t want those recollections to taint my interactions with the, apparently, old (somewhat) friend.

I was in town for just over a year. I never saw her again.

The second person to recognize me was a lady who had played in the third clarinet section, in Buck’s band. I barely remembered her. She was a sophomore when I was a senior, she was, at the time, kind of invisible (as are many people, at that age). We actually went out a few times. I was stupid and being single, at the time, I wasn’t taking any relationships seriously – I had just broken up with Kathy and we had given Jena up for adoption, and I was not interested in anything beyond good company.

The third, and final (from my recollection) example of being recognized came when I was doing my usual late-night show, playing Nectar, Peri Ubu, Light My Cocaine Stairway to Freebird, etc...

The phone rang.

I answered, “K100, this is Allan.”

A male voice on the other end of the line said, “Rigga Tigga Tum Tum”

“What”

“Rigga Tigga Tum Tum”

“I’m sorry,” I asked, “Who is this?”

It turned out it was the actor who had played Tony, and he was giving me the queue to, I believe my line was supposed to be “Womb to Tomb” to which he should respond “Spoim to Woim” (Sperm to Worm). It had been five years, and a lot of miles, and I just didn’t click to the lines. Acting had been abandoned and I was now a DJ. I had reinvented myself, just as I had done when I lost my front teeth and transitioned from musician to actor, the me had become a different me, so that old me didn’t matter.

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My Non-Autobiography

8/13/2022

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I said at the outset that this would not be an autobiography. That said, I think I need to lay out my personal history (in broad strokes) as well as some of the more interesting facts about my family. Many individuals in my family are long-lived. My great-grandmother (my mother’s father’s mother) died at 108, in the 1980s, my maternal grandmother (mother’s mom) died at 98 (or 96, we’re not sure because she has two birth certificates, which have different years, and she, in later years, couldn’t remember. I’m sure I could probably round it up, if necessary, but for here, it just matters that she lived well into her nineties.

I will only address those people to whom I have personal connections, and I’ll fill in, where needed and possible.

My mother’s mother’s father (my maternal grandfather), Alonzo Springer, and his brothers homesteaded several thousand acres in southeastern North Dakota, just south of Wahpeton. Later, after the town was flooded, my Alonzo sold the city some of his land, and the Wyndmere was relocated adjacent to the family farm (which is no longer a farm). Married three times, my grandmother Margaret Springer was the product of that third and final marriage. My great-grandmother was a fundamentalist from Canada, who, based on all the stories my mother used to tell was crazy. She would bring religious proselytizers in and chat for hours, but would meet a traveling salesman at the back door with a blood butcher knife if she didn’t feel like talking. In 1903, the family moved into a large two-story house built by Alonzo and his brothers. The house was big enough that prior WW II, the upstairs, which contained 4 bedrooms and a large hall that could be used as a room, was converted into a separate apartment, and the younger family lived upstairs, while the grandparents lived on the ground floor. The apartment would later be rented out by my grandmother, usually to teachers moving into the town of roughly 650 people. But, I get ahead of the story. Margaret would live, except for just a few years, the rest of her life in that house. The only reason she didn’t die in the house was that she had been in hospital for months with a broken hip, when she fell (while leaving the hospital), broke the other hip, and eventually died of infections acquired while in care.

Margaret grew up in Wyndmere, and as the daughter of the largest landowner, she knew her privilege. When she left her tiny pond, she was nothing special, but after having been the largest landowner, the principle and librarian (and English teacher) at the High School for almost six decades, she reveled in her status as “Mrs. Matthews” At one point, after retiring, she moved out to California to be closer to her son, Winston (in San Diego) and daughter (my mother, Marie, here in the San Joaquin Valley), and our family. After a few years, she moved back to her house, in her town, and she was happy. One of the two times, prior to that, that she left her corner to North Dakota was to go to college. I believe she went to college in New Mexico, in the 1920s, where she met her soon-to-be husband, Alfred. Somehow, after Marie was born, they moved back to North Dakota, where my grandfather hated life. His father ??? was a museum curator, and his mother, Bessie, was a research librarian. He had, by the time he’d met my grandmother worked in early radio, had made a trip on an ocean liner to Tahiti and Australia to get over a bad love affair (more about that in a different story), and generally lived a fairly cosmopolitan life, which didn’t sit well with him or the local farmers in Wyndmere. He would literally wear spats and gloves to the local diner if they were going out to dinner – something that would have been acceptable in New York, Seattle (where he grew up) or in another metro area, but not in tiny little North Dakota, in the even tinier little town of Wyndmere, populated by tiny little people, most of whom, never traveled any farther than Minnesota, just across the river, where there was greater access to booze, when most places in North Dakota were dry.

Eventually, he left for the War and never returned. He survived. He just never returned to the United States. He remained in Europe, following the completion of World War II, where eventually retired from teaching at the American University, outside of Frankfurt, Germany. He is buried in Barcelona.

My mother, Marie, was born in the 1930s, during the height of the depression. She was born in Tacoma Washington, while her parents were living with his parents. I think, in some ways, this was my mother’s happiest place, as she would often recount stories of her grandfather’s kindness and influence on her life.

I think she was about five when they moved to the house in Wyndmere.

My uncle, Winston Edward Alfred Matthews (no Anglophiles, in this family) who, for his adult life has gone by “Matt” was born seven years later. My grandmother was, of course, a single mother. That matters, as for most of my life my mother was single (more about that), so I think that explains why I’m always more comfortable around women. I prefer female doctors. I would MUCH rather have a female boss. Generally, I relate more, as people, to women, than I do other men. At the Super Bowl party, I’ll be in the kitchen with the wives and girlfriends who don’t give a shit about the game.

My parents (Marie Elizabeth Matthews and Marvin Eissinger) met, like my grandparents, at college. This time, however, it was Valley City State Teacher’s College (now Valley City University). My mother worked part-time at a dress shop, while my dad worked as a soda jerk (yes, they existed) and did construction and other odd jobs. Initially neither of them finished their BA, but they earned their teaching credentials and what was known as a Normal education, which was all that was required, at the time. Both would return to school and eventually get their BA. Marvin was the youngest of 8 children (seven who survived to adulthood). I believe both my paternal grandparents were first generation. My father, like his seven older siblings only spoke German until he started school. While I don’t have a lot of stories about this side of the family, I do have some good ones. Look for Edna. Hopefully, I’ll get that story written, one of these days.

Anyway, Marvin was from the even smaller town of Wishek which is very close to Lawrence Welk’s home base –Google it.

Shortly after I was born, we moved to either Goodrich or Havana, both tiny towns in North Dakota. The reason I say either is that I don’t remember the sequence, and while I have physical memories of both places, I can’t really sort out which is which. When I get to it, I’ll write up those earliest memories, but that’s another story.

By the time I was 4, we had moved to Minnesota. My dad had tired of teaching and Marie wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so he found a job selling insurance, and she became a 50s housewife – something she was never able to get beyond, even half a century later. We lived, first, in a rental in Minneapolis, and then moved to a slightly larger house in Robbinsdale, a suburb. I’ll talk more about the latter house, as that’s where most of my earliest memories – good and bad – arise.

Upon reaching five, Marie and I were renting a room from one of the Schloemer families in Glenham South Dakota, where she got a job, sufficient to support the two of us, when she left my father. At the time, Glenham was booming, with a total of 167 residents (it’s about 170, today). I started school, in Glenham, and we remained there long enough to have my own mother for my 3rd grade teacher. My mother never drove a car, so living in the middle of nowhere, relying on public transportation in the United States, was an interesting adventure. I have lots of stories from here.

About 1963, Marie married Richard Berg; Fellow teacher and transplant. That marriage lasted about six months. Marie wasn’t ready, and she married for all the wrong reasons – I needed a dad, single woman in the 60s, etc.

I attended 4th grade in Hankinson, ND, where we lived for just the one year. Hankinson is close to Wyndmere, and I think both Margaret and Marie thought it’d be good to be closer. They were both wrong. Having never had a close relationship, proximity didn’t help. I was able to take music lessons from the same nun that had given my mother both voice and piano lessons, when she was a girl.
As the year wound down, Winston called my mother and asked her if she’d like to return to school and finish his degree. He had some extra cash lying around and offered to lend her the cash to return to school. She grabbed it, and we moved back to Valley City, for a year, during which time she finished her degree, and she interviewed for and received two job offers. The first was in Roulette North Dakota, eight miles below the Canadian border, and at the time eleven miles from the town in which my dad was currently working as a principle (he would later be superintendent in Escondido – I think it was). The second was in Hanford, California. We made a trip to Roulette and even looked at houses. She took the California job, sight unseen. That journey is another story – in fact, a whole bunch of stories.

I finished sixth grade at Monroe Elementary, the school where my mother was the Miller-Unruh Reading Specialist, before going to Woodrow Wilson Junior High and attending Hanford High for two years.

Marie met and married Leland Desmond Carlson, from Kingsburg, and we moved to Porterville, where he was the controller for Walls Vet supply. I finished High School, there, and started college, however, most of my units were theater and music, and really weren’t academic classes as much as they were supplemental and fun.

It was in Porterville where I lost my front teeth, in an auto accident. Unable, for several years to play trumpet, I left band and poured all my efforts into theater, even writing and producing my own, one-act play, my senior year. Six weeks after graduation, I was in my apartment on Sanborn Street, in Hollywood, getting ready for my first semester at Los Angeles City College (I only completed one full semester, before having to run back to the Valley after a disastrous love affair).

By that time, 1976-77, Marie and Lee were living in Visalia. I attended the College of the Sequoias (COS) for a couple of semesters and a summer. That was where I took my first cultural and physical anthropology classes, as well as my first Pre-Columbian Art History class, subjects to which I fell madly in love, but wasn’t ready to commit to the years of education needed to become a practitioner in any of those things. My folks were not having a good time, with their marriage, at that time, so it was an uncomfortable year. Another bad love affair, and I was ready to move on.

I moved to the coast – well, I say I moved, but it was the case where I decided to move. Lee and Marie were going to separate, so she was going to come with me, and then they decided to reconcile, and we all moved there.

I attended Cuesta college where I met Jena’s mother, Kathy Barrett (lots of stories, there).

By 1979, Lee and Marie had moved back to Hanford and I had a small apartment in Atascadero, where I worked at the brand new radio station KIQQ, starting with them three days before they even went on the air.

Three months, later, I was fired. That’s when I learned the only way to leave a radio job is to be fired.
Almost five years, to the day, I was hired at KTIP/KIOO, in Porterville, and had to return to the God-forsaken town, where I worked for over a year.

It was while at KIOO that Jena was born. Kathy was living in Fresno, where the baby was born and she was working as a waitress at Sambo’s while finishing her Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) certificate. After that, our relationship fell apart and we went our separate ways.

I resigned on my birthday, and made my first trip to Ohio to the Recording Industry Workshop, where I studied recording technology in both analog and digital multi-track studios (pre-personal computers).
I moved back to Hanford, to stay with Lee and Marie. I spent a year or more working through a depressive episode, triggered by the adoption of my daughter and the breakup of my relationship with Kathy.

For over a year, I wrote lyrics and poetry, to try to recapture my self. Eventually, I recorded many of those songs, went to work at KBOS, where I worked for more than a year – and where Corkey first encountered me (on air).
In 80, I went to KKDJ and attended Central California Commercial College (4 C’s). It was there I met Corkey and everything would change.

By 1981, I was working as a computer programmer, here in Fresno. A few years later, I moved for a year to Upland, near Ontario. During that time, the distance was too much on our relationship, and Corkey and I drifted apart. During the 18 months of our breakup, I moved back to the Valley, worked at KCLQ, had a 10-month affair with an absolute lunatic (Edith “Dee” Carey), left radio, and moved to SoCal to work at UCLA.

Shortly after I moved, Cork and I reunited, and dated, long distance for a couple of years before deciding the best thing to do was to stop messing about and we got married. We moved from my studio apartment to a slightly larger one-bedroom, in the same building, before moving to a much larger apartment, just three doors north of the original building, where Nik was born.

The Northridge Earthquake took a major toll on Corkey. Her depression had been worsening, but we kept trying to deal with it. When the tremblers hit, it scared her so badly that for months if an RTD bus came by, on the street, she would dive under a table. I had to get her away from the San Andres Fault, so we moved to Cleveland.

Two years later, we returned to the San Joaquin Valley, temporarily, and bought the house on Normal.
As I write this, we’ve been in this house for just over twenty-four years. I’m convinced, I’ll die here, and Nik will probably live here, most of his life.

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INTRODUCTION

8/13/2022

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Several years ago, I was talking to one of my cousins. That in itself is a story, and one which might end up being included here. What you need to know, at this point, is that I have essentially no contact with anyone on my father’s side of the family – except my half-sister – so this was a brief six-month period when I chatted, regularly, with one of my many first cousins, at the time, living in Central America. The main point of mentioning that particular conversation, however, was to point out several times as we were catching up she remarked that I should write a book. Now, I have had a very interesting life and, as you can tell from the title of this collection of short narratives, from time to time, I’ve had multiple highlights, in multiple venues, where, for just a brief instant, I experienced what Warhol thought we would all experience over the course of our lifetimes – fifteen minutes of fame.

While I’m not famous, as such, I have, at times, bubbled up to the surface in small and medium sized ponds, and what I’ve come away with are stories. My life, as such, isn’t interesting. I have never had the passion to be a great man – primarily because my interests are too varied. About the time I really get good at something, I decide to move on and check out, something else. Even my professional life has been a series of careers, each one taking me to a certain level, and then I’m off to tackle the next adventure.

Over the years, I’ve worked as a mini-market cashier, an artist and photographer, broadcaster, actor, playwright, musician, singer, songwriter, an engineer, author, public speaker, academic, a roadie and a stagehand. In each of those, at some point, and to some level, I managed to achieve a certain level of recognition or success. A lot of what follows is autobiographical, but this is not an autobiography, but rather these are all the best stories – the ones that my son is tired of hearing.

If you’re reading this, welcome to bits and bobs of my life. I hope you take something of value.

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Tale of Two Debbies

Tribute Bands

Crummy Rummy

Wearing full makeup to the Pig Pen

Rigga Tigga Tum Tum”

My Non-Autobiography

INTRODUCTION

Michael Eissinger

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