October 21, 2009

Friends Who Changed Me, (#1 in an Ongoing Series): "Ken"


 

I was born in Massachusetts in 1959, and before I turned one my father was offered a CBS fellowship in Communications at Columbia University, so he and my Mom moved to New York City with their infant child just as the 60’s were beginning. Within a year my Dad was tapped to head up the new PBS/NPR radio station WRVR, which was located at Riverside Church on Riverside Drive. Soon my sister Jenna was born, and we lived our early childhood in Manhattan.

 

During this first decade of my youth, my father held many staff parties at our NY apartment and country house in Connecticut, and I regularly visited the radio station as a boy just one block from where we lived.

 

The people I met on my Dad’s staff were always unique personalities and frequently had creative talents, interesting viewpoints, and engaging stories to tell.

 

When we moved to San Diego in 1970, my Dad used to tell this joke which he credited to Neil Simon:

 

When it’s 102 degrees in New York, it’s 78 in LA.

 

When it’s 2 degrees below zero in New York, it’s 78 in LA.

 

There are 6 million interesting people in New York, and 78 in LA.

 

This joke seemed to speak to both the relief we felt when we escaped the stress and pressures of inner-city life in the 60’s, and the culture shock we felt as we settled into a totally new world.

 

As I look back on my process of finishing growing up in California, I see how my attraction to interesting and creative people was ingrained from my earliest youth.

 

And I met many…

 

During my Freshman year in High School I qualified for Honors English, which I realize now was my weakest subject at the time. Thank goodness I got in that class though, because I immediately realized that the students would be the best part. There seemed to be one of every type in there, a Christian, a stoner, one bespectacled nerdy type, the studious Architect, kids so gifted and funny that they wrote long story scripts just to satisfy their creative urges. Everyone in that class (over a 3-4 year period) was so distinct and non-average in their way, even the social types had something going.

 

We had a fairly large High School, so I might not see these students in my other classes, but one exception was Ken who was also in my PE class. Our PE was in the morning, and we would “dress out” and then wait for 20 minutes until the distracted PE teacher would show up and put us through whatever sport we were supposed to learn.

 

During this time I would find Ken sitting in the bleachers talking casually about music or a movie, and there was always something intriguing about his comments. I almost immediately became Ken’s friend, and it was a big relief having someone smart to talk to during any class.

 

I was already a musician then, and I remember disrespecting Alice Cooper and David Bowie when they first came out (people my age might remember they were almost coordinated together in the media that first year). I was a Beatle and Neil Young fan in 1973, and I considered these new guys an empty novelty, capitalizing on androgyny as a gimmick. Even Cheech and Chong did a parody of them during a late-night TV skit, and I didn’t pay any attention to the music.

 

Then Ken showed up at my house with an armload of Bowie records; this was late 1973 or 1974, when Bowie was already finishing his Ziggy period as the rest of the world caught up, including radio. Ken generously left those records at my house for months, and I went wild as I listened to them. The kicker came when my guitar teacher Jack came over to give me my lesson and flipped out with me as we played each album. Pretty soon Jack had the cassettes playing in his car, and I felt I was on the inside of something amazing.

 

I might have thought that Ken would continue to lead me to the next big thing in Pop, but instead he moved on to large Wagner opera box sets and Van Der Graaf Generator albums, which led to more and different discoveries. Then came the Fellini and Bunuel movies and other foreign art films, which he would take me to at the smaller art cinemas. I discovered the composer Nino Rota from this, and that music became one of my escape hatches from the dead-end I was feeling from corporate rock in my later teens. Then in 1977 Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Ramones, and The Sex Pistols saved us with a new and exciting direction, and we were off and running. Most of my musician friends were not quick to pick up on the new music; they were still wondering how to compete with Boston and Kansas records, and this only hardened my rebellion.

 

Knowing Ken led to a social nucleus that included Wiley and my sister Jenna, and several other friends who changed me forever. (Matt and David).

 

Ken had an instant recognition of genuinely creative things, (and he was deeply funny when suffering the aesthetically mundane). New music would normally take me weeks to digest and sort through, but Ken would immediately understand when the rules had changed. For years having him for a friend was a constant flashlight as I discovered my next source of interest…

 

In our late teens Ken started to slowly turn his attention from films to 20th century art, and this opened up a new source of both exciting creative influences and some controversy. Challenging the audience was a common ground with the new music I was participating in, and the art world often had the same goal. Clearing the room sometimes became a source of pride…

 

 

There were times when Ken would transmit his personality on simple occasions like giving Xmas gifts or DJ’ing an informal party that gave a special feeling I can’t quite describe, but that I never saw anyone else ever do again. It was like receiving a private message…

 

Another example of his indescribable impact was one time when he held a piece of paper up to the color TV as we watched a show in the middle of the afternoon after school. He would cover only a certain part of the screen, then change it. We saw things we never expected; I remember Jenna and I were floored, the effect was devastating. He often did a similar thing with the radio, choosing the stations seemingly at random and playing with the volume in unexpected ways.

 

One time as I was getting off work late at night from my job as a dinner house waiter, I exited through the back door with another artist friend, and we heard a sound coming from my car. Ken had set up a windup record player and rigged some kind of broken recording with several visual props chosen for the moment and set them in and around my car, with the door wide open. He and Wiley laid in wait and flashed his car headlights on us at the precise moment, like a film noir movie.

 

Art didn’t just imitate life, it became it, and there were powerful moments I will never forget, such as the time one of our closest friends over-ingested several drugs and caused a scandal as he acted out loudly with a frightening expressiveness. He roamed through the backyards and the foothills where we lived ranting wildly and uncontrollably until we finally had to call his family to come get him. The quality and content of his rant was so compelling that it caused different reactions among us, including the mixed feelings of acute admiration and total fear.

 

This same close friend would do things like not wear clothing as he went to gas his car at the big box store (Fed-Mart), playing it straight as he paid the attendant, and not for candid camera type laughs either. The years of popular streaking were long over and forgotten by then, and our friend’s well-deserved credentials as an art guerrilla were apparent only to the fewest insiders.

 

 

After College almost every one of my friends moved from San Diego to another city. Ken moved to New York, a city we had discussed many times, and continues to live there today. I have no doubt that the people who know Ken now appreciate he’s there, and my guess is they are discovering their own insights from his unique ability to see art and the world itself in the flow of its time and context.

 

 
If I hadn’t begun my life in New York I’m sure I would have still gravitated to Ken, but I feel having an opening introduction to one of the greatest creative centers of the world instilled in me an attraction to one of the world's best and brightest minds. 

October 7, 2009

Looking at Trees

Ever since my Dad died in ’07 I’ve had a completely different outlook on life. It comes when I glance up at the trees in my backyard, which has always been fairly often, but feels different now.

I just had the 50-year physical checkup done, and most but not all results are in. It’s feeling good so far, but one never looks a healthy horse straight in the mouth, because one never knows. My Colonoscopist takes pride that he finds at least one polyp in 42% of his patients, and last week he was able to add me to his “find” list. There was a single one, (that’s the point of checking, right?), and we will see what the results show before the final Harvest Ale is opened in celebration. (BTW, this year’s Sierra Nevada batch is as good as ever, I’ve already cracked one following my Glaucoma check, which was “negative”. Another reason to be thankful).

So what happens if that little polyp is the evil gremlin, destined to give me grief in the form of active cancer, and forcing me to fight an open battle for my privilege to live this complete lifetime? My childhood friend Scott discovered he had melanoma when he was 36 years old, and lived 10 more years, an amazing record given his prognosis. He had just had his 2nd baby boy when he first learned of his illness, and this son was able to know his Dad until he was 10, giving him the gift of memories he will have and keep for his own lifetime.

Scott fought like hell, putting up with all sorts of humiliations to prolong his life. Painful biopsies and surgeries, scheduled flu-like symptoms at a time of career changes, pre-existing condition denials from his new employer’s HMO, bankruptcy, the whole list. He kicked ass to keep it together, weathering every knock that was required to keep his family moving in a healthy direction together.

Despite the universal fears of dying, on some level I already feel resigned to leave this life at a time that feels right. Emphasis on “feels right”. I know the perception of unfinished business would be a real issue, as I expect it would be for most people. If you have kids and they are not grown, for example, there will always be a feeling of loss if you anticipate being separated prematurely. It’s biological.

I made this excellent corned beef dinner a few weeks ago, and from the first bite it was a great tasting piece of meat. I saw that there were many fatty parts, so I gave my wife and daughters the best pieces and settled for the chewy ones. At other meals I might have split it up equally, but this time it felt right in a way that I think a parent understands. If a mother or father was cold themselves and their kid needed a jacket, they would take it off and give it to their kid, it’s just built-in. You might have some bickering about bringing your jacket next time, but in the moment you would do what was necessary.

So I see what Scott did as coming from a very deep place.

In addition to these universal motivations, I have an agenda of leaving some music behind, something listenable more than once. That’s my minimum standard: you’ve heard it once and wouldn’t mind hearing it a second time. In a world of nearly infinite access to the greatest music of the world, it’s asking a lot.

I don’t know Steve Earle’s music that well, but I heard him say after he finished his first album, “I can die now”. I know just what he means. My first album isn’t done, so I don’t feel ready to die yet, but speaking of that if you would like to hear the first song, click on:

http://www.imeem.com/people/tfx-Ytc/music/-wmar6LN/ed-ford-summerfield-the-bhonging-angel-final-mix-8/

That’s me playing my best on all instruments as well as I can (save for the drums, which were very nicely played by John Hall). It was fun to practice that hard, I went further into myself than I have in the past.

There’s a funny story about the bass player for Fleetwood Mac, John McVie working on his bass part for a song on the first attempt of the Rumors album (they did it twice). After months of work the band knew it was time to call it a day when they found John in the studio staring at an East Indian deity’s picture while he played his bass line over and over, trying to nail his part. For John it didn’t work, but if that gets you the musical take you want I'm with you all the way.

Lately I’ve been singing and practicing myself into a near-rapturous state every night, almost exalted. Other musicians are born with most of their talent from the start. I was not short-changed with my basic gifts, but I now find it necessary and feel quite willing to fight for every note to get even a little better. Fight as hard as Scott did.

So after the kids are grown and some music has been expressed I think I will look up at the trees and feel differently than I do now. I’m not there yet, but my eye is on the ball every day.

And meanwhile, thank you for today.

August 25, 2009

Some things change, and some things never change.


I’m still reeling from the fun I had at my sister Jenna’s Class of ‘79 30-year High School Reunion in San Diego last week. I myself was class of ‘77, and I’ve never been to my own reunions; don’t expect to. My friends know who they are, although Facebook has rediscovered some fun people for me. But Jenna’s class was full of amazing personalities, and it was intensely enjoyable joining in the fun.

Since this was my first ever reunion, I have to say I was blown away by some of the changes. Of course, there were people who aged a lot, put on a lot of weight and hair changes. And then there was the couple who went for serious weight-training and looked like the cover of a Fitness magazine, bursting out of their clothes, veins rippling everywhere. I couldn’t help but think of a circus atmosphere from the contrasts.

The band kicked ass; they were so inhumanly good I didn’t go over and do my musician bonding thing, I just watched them knocking out home run after home run and wondered how you get that talented. Someone said they were the backup band for American Idol. I haven’t confirmed that, but these people made the David Letterman band seem low-key and tepid, so I can believe it. They did Earth, Wind and Fire, a long inspired Purple Haze, and Violent Femmes perfectly. Singing well is an amazing thing, I dream of being in that category someday.

My sister and her girlfriends have all aged amazingly well. Frankly they seem more beautiful with each decade. But the fun factor was the best part. Most of them left their husbands at home and did some seriously fun dancing and partying.

One quite unexpected part of the night came when I was approached by a nice guy I knew casually through my other friends. He was the younger brother of a girl my own age that I fell in love with during the first month of 9th grade, and held a burning torch for the whole 4 years. I asked her out many times, but something always got in the way. I eventually accepted that the chemistry wasn’t right for her. But here comes her brother at this party to tell me his sister had a thing for me all along and was sorry we couldn’t be together. I kept wondering if he had had too much to drink, ‘cause this didn’t add up. But it was awfully nice to hear that a family member of this girl thought that was possible. In my eyes, this girl made Lady Di seem vaguely unremarkable. After I woke up the next day I thought, well, if this is true then cool, but hey, I didn’t keep my feelings secret; with great planning I asked her out 9 times in 11th grade alone. I wasn’t loud or forward, but shyness was never an issue…

During the after-party my good friend Wiley stripped down to his thong-speedo and swam in the San Diego bay water outside our room. He came in dripping wet to the adulation of our co-Revelers, and we continued in that spirit until 5am.

The real party mistress behind the curtain was Lynn, who made phone calls no one else would ever succeed at and made this thing happen. Lynn is a vibrant personality with a distinctly irreverent sense of humor that comes like a surprise left hook, into contrast to her genuinely classy vibe. We dated in High School and College and sometimes felt like conspirators together, in the best way. She had that effect on her friends. Back in the day she spontaneously started all the best skinny-dipping parties, and we owe her big-time for past memories. A guy could never do half of what Lynn was capable of…

Another nice moment of the night came when Wiley gave me his porkpie hat after I tried it on and liked it. I asked Lynn, who is a great photographer, to take a picture (at about 2:30am). The cool thing about this pic is how it includes the three of us.

If you go to a party this good every 10 years, you’re on a roll if you ask me. Thanks to invitations from my sister Jenna, I’ve been averaging very well.

June 28, 2009

The Perception of Destiny

    A few weeks ago my family sat down and watched a movie together: Slumdog Millionaire. There are some intense scenes not suitable for my 10-year-old, but we were great about pausing and having Madison willingly snuggle her eyes into Daddy’s shoulder or run for snacks during the rough parts. But outside of that, the movie was a very good choice for us as a family as it touches on themes of family members, loyalty,  betrayal, as well as luck, intelligence and destiny. 

   The next day as I drifted into my Monday morning at work in Berkeley, I thought about the feeling of destiny and the times I felt that perceived guiding hand was at work in my life. An example occurred in the early 70’s when I was 14, (as my older daughter Haley is now), attending 9th grade in San Diego.

   I signed up for last chair alto sax in the High School Marching Band, and with that came fund-raising and occasional trips. Our first campaign was selling concert tickets door-to-door in suburban neighborhoods, and one Saturday the whole band was bused around through different districts, unloaded with maps and directions and given 2 hours to sell as many tickets as possible. Final tallies would be noted for each student, and those that qualified would go on a trip to the San Francisco Bay Area.

   My lucky break came from an older band musician who had ridden by on his bike and was in the mood to show what he knew about this particular fund-raising game. He stood behind me as I made my pitch, and through his coaching and the magic of the moment I started selling ticket after ticket. By the time I got back to the bus, I realized I had exceeded some of the experienced older students, and won the admiring attention of a few cute girl clarinetists, (far better than money).

   When the trip to SF came, we piled into several charter buses and made the 10 hour bus drive from SD to the Bay Area. (As an ex-New Yorker I thought: “Aren’t there other Bays in the world? How did they get that generic term to mean one thing to Californians?”).

    The next unexpected epiphany came when I was seated next to what was clearly the biggest nerd in most of  the band (he had competition). His name was Billy Ivey and he played Ortophone, the eunich marching version of the French Horn, and although perhaps effective in the right hands, an instrument sonically useless on the field and basically something shiny to hold. Billy had gleefully brought maps to plot the road trip, showing me with pleasure as he spittled colored zots candy between his braces. I sank into my chair and gazed out the window at the dreary CA freeway steeling myself for boredom when my totally unexplained deliverance came. A Junior girl named Vicki Shillacci, also a Clarinetist (was there something up with Sax players and Clarinetists?) was sitting in the Back Of The Bus Gang, the exclusive group of older musicians that had claimed the back seats that could turn backward, pop out a table and then create a moving nightclub of coolness. They had music and cards going with the banter of older guys and girls, and somehow there was one seat open.

   Without making any flirtation with me, but with remarkably generous empathy, Vicki came to the front of the bus and said “you look miserable, why don’t you come back and sit with us?”. What ensued was one of the most memorable weekends of my life, driving through the hippy holy land of San Francisco, North Beach, The Haight-Ashbury, and Golden Gate Park.

    That weekend, as the climactic purpose of the trip, we marched our carefully rehearsed routine during Football half-time in the Oakland Coliseum. I remember smelling something forbidden in the air, and as I looked around I wondered if I would ever be back. There was a moment when an older African-American teenager who was selling drinks in the stands passed me in the upper halls after we played. He gave me an “all right, that’s cool” kind of smile, and I couldn’t believe he gave that to me, a younger white punk in a goofy marching uniform. I didn’t know until years later that (speaking for myself) compared to 1960’s New York City or the mostly white areas of San Diego I was from, Oakland could be a very cool town inter-racially, and that was a big plus for me.

   On the last leg of the night-time bus ride home I sat with a girl my age, and under low romantic lights I made a pass at a kiss with her, (I hardly knew this girl, what was I doing?), and instead of getting upset with me, she gently rebuffed me and then lay her head on my shoulder and we fell asleep. There must have been some kind of angel giving me free passes that weekend, even my mistakes were forgiven. 

    Ten years later I had an old High School friend ask me to drive her family car from SD to her Berkeley Apt, and that trip became the weekend I decided to accept my best friend and roommate Carmen Borgia's suggestion to move to the Bay Area. I soon scored a job at Alta Bates Medical Center the very next week and never looked back; that is, until one day when I drove my medical courier car past the doughnut-shaped hotel near the Oakland Airport where the entire Marching Band had stayed that fateful weekend. I couldn’t believe it was still there, and at that moment, and yet all along, I felt some quiet reassurance there had been some destiny at work. 

    The perception of destiny is only one of the possible influences of a person's lifetime, but if the direction feels right (the way it did for me and the Slumdog Millionaire) I hope my own girls feel some guiding hand over whatever paths their lives take them...

June 6, 2009

Nowhere else in this Universe could this happen quite this way.

I took this picture during my family reunion trip to New Mexico in April 2008. It is looking down an alley in the Old Town section of Albuquerque near the Bed and Breakfast where my cousin Linda Hall generously hosted my daughters and I. 

I treasure this shot for one simple reason: I don't believe this convergence of objects could come together unselfconsciously anywhere else in the world. 

There is a green plastic watering can upended on the left, an example of 70's cabinetry that could only exist in NM, two plain Tiffany-style lamp shades and a wheel barrow, all framed by an old adobe-brick border wall with a built-in cross. And don't leave out the dusty ground. This dust accounts for the whole state basically eschewing carpet and going for tile floors anywhere there is a doorway to the outside. 

I'll be honest and admit that I thought I hated Albuquerque until this trip. It just takes a tour around any town with people that know to turn you on to a place. This picture is my photo ID that proves I was there, like an FBI fingerprint. 

May 29, 2009

My friend Tom Rettig is helping me record a song

My old friend Tom Rettig has offered to help me record one of my songs, and after we complete this recording he and I expect to have a slow-moving but ongoing relationship for the long term.

 

Tom and I played together in the avant-funk ensemble Some Philharmonic in the early 80’s, and we had a lot of fun playing bandleader Brian Woodbury's crafty and original music in a large ensemble. During that time Tom suggested I write a Surf-flavored instrumental for a short film by Barnaby Levy, (“This Town Will Tear You Apart”), and as I had been a long-time fan of Surf music I was very excited to give it a try.

 

I wrote the melody for what became “The Bhonging Angel” on my roommate Katie Hicks’ baby grand piano in the living room of our North Oakland/Berkeley Apt, and it became maybe my best instrumental at the time.

 

We did the original recording on 12-track at Mills College in 1984, in what was a charming but rickety studio barely holding together at the seams. My fellow band mates Carmen Borgia, Mike Brown and Linel “Dede” Williams (from my own band The Secret Sons of The Pope) joined me for inspired performances, and the demo we made became my favorite accomplishment for years.

 

Barnaby Levy used that recording for his film, and Tom did a good job squeezing sonic quality out of very limited resources. He was great with a splicing knife and did some nice edits I wasn’t used to, and he really finessed the mix details on a primitive board.

 

But despite this, Tom and I always wished we had done the recording under better circumstances, and when we found each other on the Internet last year the subject came up again.

 

I learned that Tom had done some time in the 90’s as a Producer at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Economic considerations since forced him to pursue his talents in the computer software industry, and because of this he looks for opportunities to do creative projects when he has the time.

 

Tom enjoys paying close attention to vintage microphones, a passion I understand very well but do not have the resources to pursue. Another recording issue is access to nice recording rooms. I have a wonderful music studio built into the detached garage of my house, but this pales compared to the special rooms they have at Fantasy Studios, where many famous recordings were created. Tom keeps an office in the Fantasy building and maintains his relationships with the staff, so he is ready to record in this professional setting when the occasion arises. 

 

Last year I hired Drummer John Hall to play the drum parts on the new recording, referred through my musician friend Steve Gibson who has great taste and knows tons of players. John wrote charts for the song before I even met him to play, and on recording day he delivered three perfect takes allowing us to choose our favorite.

 

The title “Bhonging Angel” comes from the affectionate nickname of my perpetually stoned next door neighbor in High School, given to him by his love-struck but exasperated girlfriend. I would describe him at the time as a bright version of the Spicoli character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (My own High School was Grossmont High, not far from the actual Clairemont High that the movie was based on. Cameron Crowe’s other great HS flick “Say Anything” was not just similar but could be called my actual experience at Grossmont).


Because Tom and I are thankfully employed and dedicated to our family lives, we have had less than one day a month to get together since we began this project last summer, but because I am playing all the instruments myself (except the drums) I have been enjoying the pace as I prepare each part. The instruments include Baritone and Tenor Saxes, electric guitars, keyboards, and electric bass.  I was initially embarrassed to show up with so many instruments, but then I felt better when the Fantasy Engineers told me that Counting Crows had just finished their recent recording aided by a large semi-truck filled with 67 guitars. Any band with 67 creatively relevant guitars has my full support! For this song I used five total and needed every one.


One reason I am comfortable with my slow pace with Tom is that I am always able to go out to my own studio and make very nice demos any night I am free, so it's not like anyone is holding me back if I need to express myself. I took up singing last summer, and I have had so much fun applying myself I feel every month is my next opportunity to get a little better. Singing puts everything else into perspective, and since The Bhonging Angel is an instrumental I will be looking forward to getting into a vocal on the next recording I do with Tom. 


Another resource I will always have is my best friend Carmen Borgia, who is always available as long distance sounding board and engineer/psychiatrist. He set me up with a great recording rig in my studio and gives me these amazingly well-prepared lessons over the phone, among many other things.  


I played a rough mix of the new recording for my family a couple of months ago, and a week later from the next room I overheard one of my daughters casually humming the song out loud to herself. What a sweet thing that was, she was humming it for pleasure. (For a musician, does it get any better than that?)


I expect we will finish this song some time this summer, and then I will be excited to share it with everyone. I have another dozen or so finished songs I can't wait to get to, and if it takes a year to record each one I will not even slightly complain, (as long as I live to hear them). The main thing is I am thankful I have my family and friends there for me as I play each day of my musical life. 

May 24, 2009

One Time In Georgia

Recently a friend sent me a Facebook challenge to count the number of states I have visited, and it was fun to come up with a number. (I wish it was higher, I think it was 18). From this process I decided I don't solely count airports or road trip gas stations as having been somewhere, but then the following exception came to mind:

   A few years ago I was driving cross-country with my sister Jenna and we had to stop routinely for gas in a rural area of Georgia, (a state I have never visited). The road signs were wrong this time; there was no gas station as it claimed on the freeway because hard times had fallen on this area, and the only gas station was closed. We were forced to drive around the local roads in both directions for about 30 minutes causing me to see things I feel I may never see again.

   There was a small ghost town of storefronts all closed but not boarded up, and an old country one-story house on the corner that Boo Radley MUST have lived in. The vines in the yard were growing wildly and aggressively around the house and into the partly opened windows, like the house itself would be devoured by nature within another year. We passed an African-American couple working the corn rows in the front yard of their home, white t-shirt rags on their heads and extremely dark glistening skin against white tank top shirts. (We have corn fields, yard gardens, and people of every type and race in California, but there is nothing like that in any part of the whole Pacific Coast, I assure you).
 
    We found a little gas market (without the gas) and went in for a Snapple and maybe a bite. There was a large white lady with a missing tooth or two, dirty apron, flipping burgers, with a distant look in her eye like she wasn't expecting company. A couple of ne'er-do-wells were smoking cigarettes indoors and shooting the bull. I peered back into the kitchen and saw it was large, dirty, empty and scary back there. We skipped the burgers and got back on the freeway for the next gas stop, and within 30 minutes we were back in mini-market land again.
 
  It was the implied moments of the past that made the biggest impression. I would love to see that again. People write whole novels after 3 days in a place like that...

May 15, 2009

Newspapers: a history of loving them, and watching them struggle.

When I was a kid in 1960’s New York City we got the New York Times, and at that time it was way over my head. I thought “All The News That’s Fit to Print” meant everything they could cram on that many pages. And there were no funnies at all. So I accepted the wisdom that it was a high-brow newspaper from the capital city of the world, and I was proud of that status.

 

   Then we moved to San Diego when I entered the 6th grade, and we went through family culture shock that first year. The newspaper was the San Diego Union-Evening Tribune, a Copley newspaper, and to be honest, it was a conservative rag. You resorted to looking at the headlines and local columns such as a zero-spin piece on the Lost and Found Dept at the Del Mar fair, and watched the news to make up for it.

 

   In high school I discovered the Los Angeles Times when my Dad began working there. He would bring me the “Calendar” insert magazine on the Wednesday before the Sunday paper came out, and I would pore over the music articles with rapturous gratitude. I soon realized the LA Times was my favorite paper. It kicked a-- over the SD paper, and it was way friendlier to read than the NY Times, which still seemed too advanced for easy consumption.

 

   After college years came my move to the San Francisco Bay Area, and here we had the SF Chronicle. But on first glance, it seemed like a comic book next to the LA Times. The columns were jokey, and it seemed that was the tone in some of the hard news. So for the most part I stuck with reading the Pink Section to keep up on music.

 

    During my first year in Berkeley I remember this friend of Laura Miller’s discovering I had never heard of Herb Caen at a party and saying, “welcome to the Bay Area” and then explaining who Herb Caen was. I realized the Chron was a real unifier if the college kids were reading it. But I generally avoided all media in my 20’s, partially because my Mom and Dad were Broadcasters and I needed to find my own way once I left home.

 

    My submission to the newspaper came when I moved in with my future wife Adrienne in 1990. She insisted we subscribe to the SF Chron for (what was then) $150/year! Whoa, what for? Is it that good? Wouldn’t Time or Newsweek be cheaper and better? Isn’t that paper kind of lightweight? (I was still a loyal LA Times person, although I rarely saw it anymore).

 

   Well, I agreed and it took about a month, but the bug really bit me. I read a VERY funny bit from Mick LaSalle interviewing Paul Anka that brought me to my knees. And then I began to see that the news was good, I trusted these guys, and I started taking my political cues from the editorial page which seemed to cut a balance between the extreme views I would hear in Berkeley and a more middle view. They helped me get over my fear that if I veered slightly away from the far left I wouldn’t end up in Santa’s lap and realize it was Rush Limbaugh I was talking to.

 

  The talent at the SF Chron always remained high. Art critic Kenneth Baker is as good a critic as I’ll ever need. He’s a virtuoso writer, and yet he never gives me the cynical creeps I got from some SoCal art critics.

 

   Then my friend Laura Miller started to appear with a few articles, and I felt that bonded connection that comes with coming of age.

 

   After I got acclimated to reading the Chron, my brother-in-law Kevin sent us a long subscription to the Sunday New York Times, and I had my homecoming with my childhood newspaper, finally old enough to enjoy it.

 

   When Herb Caen died in early 1997 I thought it might be the first funeral bells for the SF Chronicle, but they kept bringing in great people, and we stayed loyal. Now they are suffering financially like all newspapers (and the music industry). Recently they made a serious miscalculation and changed the font and format of the whole paper. It’s like New Coke, I don’t know what they did but it feels wrong, and lots of people think so, because we read the letters.

 

   Adrienne and I have been going to our iPhones and the Apple Laptop for more news, not all of it, but the scales are tipping away from the morning kitchen table where the paper sits until dinner time. If newspapers go under, it will be like losing vinyl record albums. We’ll still get content, but that special feeling will be lost, and our kids will never understand what they missed, (and we’ll all feel old trying to explain it to them).

 

    I’m not going to campaign about this too much. The way I see it, this tide is way too big for me to change a thing.

 

   But it will be sad if we lose newspapers forever.

May 14, 2009

Race jokes on TV: I never thought I'd see the day.

    Some time before Obama took office I began watching prime-time TV for the first time in years. It’s been quite a while, and one of the first things we noticed was that race issues have become common fair game on most, if not all of the popular comedy TV shows. (Has this been discussed in the media? I expect I missed some magazine article about it because the change has been profound. Please click me with anything interesting you might have read).

 

   Precisely when did this begin? Did it begin to surface with those clever Simpsons episodes, such as with the East Indian convenience store character? Were they the first to test the race waters with their pop-culture wit, slowly thawing us out in the 90’s and the early 2000’s? (South Park has been over the top for some time now, maybe it was the shock-and-awe approach?)

 

   Examples of the current appearance of wide-open race jokes include The Office, 30 Rock, My Name Is Earl, and of course Comedy Central, but then that’s not Primetime. Maybe Comedy Central started the whole thing when I wasn’t looking. 

    When I’m in the mood (and you have to be) I have a taste for Sarah Silverman, who is by design the most offensive you can get and still be funny. Then again, if you are like some of my family and friends, you don’t find her funny and then the only thing left is the offended part. You have my support either way. I didn’t say Sarah Silverman was Lenny Bruce, but to me it feels good to laugh at subjects we have avoided (openly, anyway) for decades.

 

   Before this new development occurred I would cringe and wince if someone attempted a race-related topic of any kind. In the past, particularly for whites, just bringing up the subject of race could be like painting an “I’m a Racist” target on your back.

 

  I think Bill Clinton started to change things when he began talking about race during his two terms as president. He could speak respectfully and eloquently about minorities without pissing off the whole nation, and it was a big relief. Like letting a little pressure out of a very tight balloon, Americans began allowing more discussion and finally, humor about the subject.

 

    I probably missed some key moment somewhere, but to get to the point it is now at 9pm Primetime it must have included key African-American leaders changing their views and opinions over time. Was it Oprah, or Jesse Jackson? Was there an announcement?

   Of course, this is a collective thing, not just leaders. In the end, we’re all making this decision together or it just wouldn’t happen.

  

   I appreciate the change. As a 50-year-old, I find it as amazing as I do funny to hear the kind of jokes they do now on The Office. A few seasons back, Rashida Jones, (the actress daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton), arrives as a new employee and her boss Michael wants to know if her father was military. The joke is that Michael’s an idiot of course, but we get it, and it’s funny and offensive.

 

   But the main thing is we’re laughing now. As long as my black friends think it’s funny, if the joke is good I’m laughing too, and it feels great.

 

  The icing on the cake is our new president. Obama himself reminds us he is bi-racial. But I think we see a black man for the most part, and I think it’s because he navigated the path a black man takes. I love thinking I might have something in common with him; we both have white mothers and we’re about the same height. Obama is so cool I’ll take any comparison I can get.

 

  Did you catch that Wanda Sykes joke at the White House Correspondents Dinner? The way she sees it, “You’re a black man until you screw up, and then it’s “who’s the half-white guy?” I don't know if she meant it this way, but I think she makes another point; it seems (particularly these days) that whites have made the biggest screw-ups in history. I hope Obama breaks that cycle using whatever source he can find in himself.

 

But either way, I hope we can keep laughing.

May 12, 2009

The Love Of A Bargain

Last night was my 18th wedding anniversary with Adrienne, and as all anniversaries do it brought back memories...


When Adrienne and I were married in 1991 we chose Cancun for our Honeymoon, and I hadn’t been to Mexico in some years.

 

One of the first things anyone thinks when they visit Mexico is that you can score great deals haggling in the marketplace, and I do love a bargain, although I hate to haggle (big difference there). The true issue is whether you really want what’s being sold, and not getting caught up in something just because it’s a great price. So I planned ahead for what I wanted: a pair of shorts made of that colorful material from Guatemala, popular at the time.

 

 When we got there, I asked about Guatemalan clothes at the hotel front desk, and with no surprise they directed me to the hotel gift shop. I knew there would be no bargain there, but I priced them anyway: $24 ea. I was just doing my homework, so we went to the mall across the street, and they had the shorts for $22. Well, not much better; I would wait for the market.

 

Well, what a drag that was. Like jackals in The Lion King, the locals jokingly touched Adrienne’s purse as we passed through the aisles, sneering disrespectfully mostly out of boredom. Through this jungle of intimidation I found my shorts, $18 at first, and then $15, maybe $14 ea for 2 or 3 if I felt like the awful bartering. "Screw it", I thought, "I’ll wait and pick a vendor I like".

 

          Then we went over to Isla Mujeres, an island people talk about all the time for it's more relaxed people and atmosphere. We took a leisurely walk, and I found a lady with tons of those shorts, and she wanted $12 ea, or $11 ea for two. By that point I finally gave in to the bartering thing and told her it had to be $11 for one or no deal. She resisted at first and then relented, and I succeeded my mission in scoring a great deal.

 

          When we got home I wore the shorts often, including to the trusty Berkeley Ashby Flea Market where I was excited to find a table full of the same shorts I had on.

 

“How much?” I asked with some self-satisfaction, and the reply came:

“Eleven bucks a pair.”

 

So, stick to the beach when you get to Cancun, (and you might try the Berkeley Ashby Flea Market if you’re in town).

May 11, 2009

Question to musicians: How does the groupie thing happen exactly?

There was a time during my musically busy days in my early 20’s when I was hoping to meet girls by being in Rock bands. Everyone knows the myth that Rock musicians are supposed to attract groupies, yet this never seemed to happen easily to me or my friends.

 

 I spoke at some length about this one time to Larry Carr of The Snails during a break at a Fraternity party at San Diego State (this was 1982, and we played Punk and British Invasion). He told me that before he was in a band he used to stand in the audience and think, “Man, when I get in a band, I can’t wait to meet some girls”. Then he explained, “Now that I’m in a band, I often think ‘Man, some night when I’m not up here playing, I’m going to go down there and meet some girls…”

 

This story really got me going that night. It sounded like me. “We’ve just been making excuses, we’re really suburban white guys who were raised too properly to have any fun”, I thought to myself. “I’m going to get over it and work up the guts to just meet some girls.”

 

And there they were: two beautiful blondes who were watching us play every song at this party. They were watching us pretty closely, and I knew this was it, I better make my move. So I put my Sax down after the set and went right over and introduced myself.

 

They were nervous and so was I. I had to get over it, and I felt it was my job to make them comfortable if I could. I didn’t let the silences last long, I tried to be cool but not give up. We had another gig at the beach later that evening, would they like to come? You don’t have a car? No problem, I can drive you of course. I can have you home by such-and-such a time, it’s going to be great.

 

They were very shy about it, but I knew I was a safe bet and wanted them to get over it. I kept at it, (my friends will remember enthusiasm was my entire personality that year), and finally they couldn’t say no. So we piled into my van, but they couldn’t relax, they were way too nervous. Too young (possibly Freshmen in College) and probably as inexperienced as I, they had never done this sort of thing before.

 

We dropped by my house in Hillcrest to grab my friend Jim Bradley, which rounded out the four of us, and then one of the girls, the one who would be with Jim got sick. They disappeared into the bathroom and the girl was in there flushing a lot. They came out and said they were sorry but they had to go home, she was really sick, and we knew she wasn’t faking. But Jim and I couldn’t help but blame ourselves. Jim was sure the girl had gotten ill when she saw he was her date. He went into a comedic tailspin over it, but nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.

 

 But I also felt I must have been pushing too hard once I saw where it was going. We were super nice and really quick to help them get home properly, but no phone numbers were exchanged; the situation was over.

 

Carmen’s sister Mary Borgia was visiting that month and she joined Jim and I at the last second.  I went wild on a very large stage playing sax like there was no tomorrow, and I remember Jim having a good time also, probably because we were both relieved the pressure was off.

 

          Two funny things happened after this. The first really mortified me: the girl I had made such a play for had been at the Frat gig to see and be with the drummer in our band, and they were so new and she was so shy that she didn’t say a word when I chatted her up. The drummer himself told me this later and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t come right over and make this clear as it was happening. Weird.

 

Then the other girl, the one who got sick turned out to be the sister of my sister Laurie’s first husband. I only realized this at her wedding, and I thought “Holy s***! This ghost from my past is now my sister-in-law!” Lucky for me (and for Laurie as well, she would agree), this marriage didn’t work out; there was a quick annulment in the first 6 months. I kind of figured it was a sign that this was not in the stars somehow, for anyone.

 

          So I soon learned not to push it when it came to girls, the experiment had been another self-defining experience, (and things went much better after that).

May 6, 2009

Kleptomania

   Last Friday my 9th grade daughter had her iPhone lifted out of her purse during PE class at school, and we spent the weekend doing things like filing a Police report, which was aided by the fact that the thief made a few calls to friends (including his Stepmother), all the phone #’s of which are readily listed on our online cell account. The Police have already identified the perpetrator and are now in touch with the school Administration, so we are hopeful for a retrieval and swift retribution.

 

    We have learned the student in question has a sketchy background, and I am naively wishful that his encounter with the Police and his family will have a deterring effect on his behavior of stealing. With the other influences in his life I can’t be fully optimistic about a life turnaround, but when I look back at my own life, quite untroubled in contrast to this teenager, I do recall going through my own experiments with shoplifting.

 

   Like most of us I have managed to push aside wherever that stealing impulse comes from and get on with an honest life. But to get to that place of maturity I went through a period in the summer before 8th grade when my neighbor buddy and I experimented with shoplifting for about 2 weeks. I actually remember following it on the calendar because it started on a Saturday and continued for the next two weekends, coming to an end when we ended up at his parent’s beach house during summer vacation.

 

   I know this behavior came from puberty, and in our case it was not so much disrespect or destructiveness as experimenting and thrill-seeking. I have a goofy memory of my buddy picking up an erect broomstick and holding a bag of shoplifted items underneath his crotch like huge testicles, laughing ourselves silly as cars whizzed by along the mall entrance road. Puberty was making its grand announcement, and we were barely aware of it.

 

   We spent that entire Saturday coolly entering different stores each with a shopping bag and competing with each other to see if we could lift something without the other knowing. We relied on our previously sincere demeanor of innocence as we cruised breezily into each store, scoping out the awareness of the employees and making our call as we went.

 

   We never got collared that day, never got busted, and it was fairly amazing how well our luck ran. All the stuff we took was small in size: there was candy, a fridge magnet, a small bottle of cinnamon oil (very popular at our Jr High School), and other things, maybe 20 items between the both of us.

 

   The following week we went with my friend’s family to Mission Beach in San Diego for several days, and soon we were exploring the local beach shops and stores. This was 1972, I was discovering counter-culture at that time, and we happened to stop into this hippy-owned natural food store, hoping to see things I would never find at the mall. I chatted with the near 30-looking woman and learned that she owned the place with her husband. She was vintage Woodstock in culture and appearance, the real thing, and she and her husband had created a modest but sincere business based on their ideals. There was natural yogurt made from organic dairy, macramé vests and wall-hangings, and handmade leather items popular at the time.

 

   Then I spotted a cabinet located at the register containing little vials of extracts of different kinds, similar to the cinnamon oil, but interesting types you wouldn’t see anywhere else. As soon as I had gained the woman’s confidence, I made a move when she turned her back and slipped one vial into my pocket. She never knew it was me, and we said goodbye and were out of there.

 

   As we hurried back to the beach house the weather turned from sunny and idyllic to clammy and cloudy, and with that sudden cue of darkness I began to feel a tinge of guilt over my theft, a feeling I didn’t have from the mall spree. These shop owners were the most honest people I could name, they were living in the Age of Aquarius and I took it very seriously. People over 30 were to be distrusted; they had ruined this world with misplaced materialism and support for a bogus war, but these people were reinventing an honest business from the ground up, considering every resource and ideal in how they proceeded in an effort to eradicate their parents’ mistakes, and I had taken right from their pocket.

 

    I didn’t freak out over this, didn’t lose any sleep, I just pondered it with sad regret as the summer wore on and we returned home. In my bedroom I had made a shrine of all my stolen items on the dresser by my bed. I treasured each one and marveled how we had not been caught. But I decided this was to be a limited collection, not to be added to any longer. I made an informal pact to myself that the vial of Pine oil was the last thing I would ever take, and I would come to use that totem to draw the line between what I had done (mostly forgiven) and what I might do again (taking things no longer being OK).

 

   All the little stolen items were discarded as the years went by, but the Pine oil went into my Memory Box, my treasure box of totems and power objects from my childhood and teenage years that I still have today. My kids go through this box all the time, and through their curiosity and amusement the Pine Oil vial has re-emerged into the light of day, sitting incidentally on my dresser. It’s a friend, casually hanging around like a supposedly indifferent cat when you pull into the driveway.

 

    I have a hunch my daughter’s iPhone has no relationship whatsoever to the Pine oil vial, but if her cell phone does come back to us through the pursuit of the local Police, I hope this teenager will find some truth somehow after the full weight of the law (and his Stepmother) has been delivered.

About using the name “Ed Ford Summerfield”

   I have always had a problem with actors that use three names. I won’t bother naming actual examples, but I think it usually sounds pompous. I can understand the necessity of distinction, like if your name is David Jones and you don’t want to be confused with the Monkees guy (or David Bowie to his knowledgeable fans). And then there is the connotation that you are an assassin; I think they do that on purpose to make the infamous figure unique and not intrude on the people that share the same first and last name.

 

   When I was born I was called by my middle name Ford, (a name I love), until I entered 4th grade. At that time through some natural impulse I asked my parents if I could go by “Ed”. I’ve always loved both my names, and they each identify something different about my personality. Ed is about my relationship to the outside world; it is common and durable and can be jokingly compared to TV shows. Ford is about my closest family and my private world. At several times in my life I strongly considered returning to the name Ford in my everyday life, but in practice I never felt right about it, partly because I felt protective of the name.

 

   When the World Wide Web came out in ‘93 or ‘94 I discovered there were other Ed Summerfields out there, including my uncle the Reverend Edward Summerfield. (I always got a kick out of that). So recently I decided to compromise and go by Ed Ford Summerfield for public things, despite my previous concerns. (I plan to use this as my name when I complete my recording project of my music). Maybe it’s something to do with turning 50. Or just that I want everyone to see all parts of me before I finish this lifetime.

About the foto: "Birth of The Edroom"

    When my maternal Grandmother Marie Chauncey died in 2000 at age 89,  she left my sister Jenna and I an amazing collection of color slides taken in the 60’s that we had never seen before. This one shows me at around Kindergarten age in my room on Riverside Drive NY holding my first album, “Burl Ives Sings For Fun”.

     I still have the album; it has occupied the first position of my LP record collection since its earliest inception, (and is followed closely by the worn copy of “Meet The Beatles” that my Dad brought me from his NY public radio station WRVR the following year). The chair peeking out behind me is a vintage wood/iron school chair that later became the perfect guitar-playing chair due to its height and position, and remains in my music studio to this day.

    (When I get my geek act together I will straighten the foto into portrait mode using this blog software).