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.
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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