Chapel Hill Daze: Pictures of Another Gone World: West Franklin Street, 1968-2018

Along West Franklin Street, starting at the Columbia Street intersection and heading toward Carrboro, there are still some vestiges of the Chapel Hill of 1968. There were more when I was a student at the University of North Carolina.

Of the "south" side of West Franklin, I've previously discussed University Square in another post. Next was Hardee's at 213 West Franklin (now there's a Panera at that address); Union Bus Station at 311 (the Franklin Hotel is now at that address) and the Chapel Hill Weekly newspaper at 501.

I certainly remember the Hardee's and the newspaper building, having eaten at the former and worked immediately next to the latter (at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill).

The bus station building I remember vaguely. Having been completed in 1946, it soon thereafter became part of the history of the civil rights movement:

"On April 9, 1947, eight African American and eight white members of CORE (known as the Freedom Riders) set out from Washington, D.C. on Greyhound and Trailways buses; on April 12, both buses arrived in Chapel Hill. As the buses departed Chapel Hill for Greensboro on April 13, four of the riders were arrested. The commotion aboard the buses drew a large crowd of spectators, including several white taxi drivers. 

The men were taken to the police station, with a fifty dollar bond placed on each man. As white rider James Peck got off the bus to pay their bonds, a taxi driver struck him in the head.  

In May 1947, those members who had been arrested went on trial and were sentenced. The riders unsuccessfully appealed their sentences. On March 21, 1949, they surrendered at the courthouse in Hillsborough and were sent to segregated chain gangs." 

The bus station's food service desegregated in the early 1960s, under pressure.  Source: "Trailways Bus Station," Open Orange. Website link here.

Of the "north" side of West Franklin, an earlier post covered the first block off from Columbia Street, heading toward Carrboro. If you crossed Church Street going in the same direction in 1968, there was a Belk-Leggett department store at 206 West Franklin, Fowler's meats at 306, Carolina Grill at 312, Village Pharmacy at 318 and The Cavern at 452 1/2.  

The Bookshop (pictured above) came into being in 1985 at 400 West Franklin, a merger of Keith Martin Bookshop and Bookends (both Chapel Hill book shops). I remember all three of them, having bought books at each. The Bookshop closed in the summer of 2017, having lasted close to thirty-two years in that location.

Belk-Leggett was gone from its 206 location by the time I came to Chapel Hill. Fowler's was still at 306 for a while and then folded. There was one in Durham, too. 

I loved the Carolina Grill -- you could eat like a king on the budget of a college student. Which may be why they eventually had to close. I remember flat steaks there, excellent meat and potatoes type staples, probably requisitioned from next-door Fowler's. It was sort of like a large hall with tables, for some reason making me think of a Bavarian beer hall in memory. 

Village Pharmacy, 318 West Franklin, "Home of the Big O." This place was around for a while but must have eventually died on the vine. Browsing issues of the Daily Tar Heel, I came across an advertisement for Village Pharmacy from the September 28, 1949 issue: "Opposite Bus Station - Phone F-3966."  In "land line" telephone exchanges of the twentieth century, "F" might be named Flanders, Fleetwood, Factory, etcetera.  In any case, when I was working at Algonquin Books, I'd occasionally walk to Village Pharmacy for its soda fountain features. They served fresh lemonade, orangeade, milkshakes and grill food. No longer.

The Cave is a long-standing underground bar and music venue. Because I have detailed location notes from college journals dating to the 1980s, I'll devote more time to The Cave in a later post. It nearly folded after fifty years (1968-2018), but was saved by Melissa Swingle and Autumn Spencer in the summer of 2018 -- thank God! Here's a link to their website. Dig it!

Invaluable resource to cross-check memories, places:  OCCUPANTS AND STRUCTURES OF FRANKLIN STREET, CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA AT 5-YEAR INTERVALS, 1793-1998, by Bernard Lee Bryant, Jr. Chapel Hill Historical Society, printed out by J.D. Eyre in 1999. Link here.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Chapel Hill Daze: Pictures of Another Gone World: Internationalist Books

It's like the book title, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. Elegiac America. Chapel Hill Daze. Since I first scampered around Franklin Street as a kid till now, a lot of melting. 

Life must go on,
And the dead be forgotten;
Life must go on,
Though good men die;
Anne, eat your breakfast;
Dan, take your medicine;
Life must go on;
I forget just why.

~ from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Lament" (1921)

Internationalist Books is gone! It had, believe it or not, four locations before vanishing into the ether of Saṃsāra. Perhaps it'll cycle through again. The four locations were:

Chapel Hill. 108 Henderson Street (upstairs, above Henderson Street Bar & Grill; aka Linda's Bar & Grill; now Imbibe), by the Continental Café/Hector's (now gone) and across the street from the US Post Office (still there). It was tiny. (Notice in Daily Tar Heel, February 3, 1982). Call 942-REDS. Early 1982 (late 1981)-1984.

Chapel Hill. 408 West Rosemary Street, 1984-1991+. Part of a spacious former house. This allowed plenty of room for meeting, reading, discussing, organizing. I worked at this location as a volunteer. The house is still standing and serves as Mama Dip's Kitchen, which used to be at a nearby location (405 West Rosemary).  

Chapel Hill. 405 West Franklin Street, circa 1995-2014. I took the photo at top on November 24, 2012.  

Carrboro. 101 Lloyd Street, 2014-September 2016. Final stand.

International Books founder Bob Sheldon (April 17, 1950--February 22, 1991) was murdered during the opening phase of the Gulf War, which he opposed. The case remains unsolved. Originally from Colorado, he graduated from Temple University, Philadelphia, and worked as a nurse at UNC, as well as being an organizer and book store founder. He is buried in Colorado Springs (see "Find A Grave"). 

I am really happy to see that his papers are held at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Here's a link to the Guide to the Bob Sheldon Papers, 1968-1991.  

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Chapel Hill Daze: Pictures of Another Gone World: University Square

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pictures of the Gone World (The Pocket Poet Series, Number One). San Francisco: City Lights, 1955.  A salute to Ferlinghetti, who is ninety-nine years old -- born on March 24, 1919. Graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1941. I saw him give a reading in Chapel Hill in the 1980s, when he was but a young lad in his sixties. Afterwards, he signed my copy of Jack's Book. (I also remember when Harlan Ellison came to town to write a story based on a given first line -- but that's another story). 

And now it's time to turn to pictures of another gone world, a University Square of the Mind, as it were. University Square was an entry point for me, I liked the area for parking, sitting with cups of coffee, writing in journals. And now it's gone, gone, gone, transmogrified into "Carolina Square." The buildings and entire complex that comprised University Square were demolished in 2015. 

So let's do the Proust thing and bring back some of the names of that lost world. 

In the 1980s, let's say around 1983, you could walk from Columbia Street along Franklin Street on the "north" side, going toward Carrboro, and you'd pass Logo's Book Store (Christian books?), Mr. Gatti's Pizza, the Yogurt Pump, a jewelry store, an electronics store, the entrance pathway to He's Not Here (which always made me think of the Alamo - lots of stories to go with He's Not Here); a Pizza Hut, a sporting goods shop, the Pump House, a funeral home, McFarling's Exxon, Hunam's Restaurant, and a parking lot that ended with Church Street. If you kept going, you'd pass another parking lot, a telephone building, Peppi's Pizza, Woofer & Tweeter, a Gulf station; Fowler's Food (giant deli type meat place), McFarling's garage, Chapel Hill Rare Books, Martin Keith Book Shop, a florist, Phoenicia Restaurant, Village Pharmacy and Noel's Sub Machine. 

The only place left standing from the previous paragraph is He's Not Here.

Let's walk back to the intersection of Columbia and Franklin and cross the street to the "south" side.

Just at the corner is a large Baptist Church (still). Back around 1983, there was next a beauty salon (Scissorium) of which I remember nothing except that maybe it was a small single story stand alone. 

University Square was divided into three large sections: University Square East, University Square, and University Square West. The anchor for East was a CCB (Central Carolina Bank) Bank with ATM designed to trick students into overdrafts (or so it seemed to students). East included Kemp Jewelers: Circle Travel (anyone wonder about travel agencies?  This was one and I went in there occasionally); the Chapel Hill barbershop; Aesthetic Styling Salon; Cabana Tanning Center; Monkey Business -- never went in that one and have no idea what it was pitching.

University Square [Central]. Time-Out Restaurant was a 24-hour place with biscuits and salty kinds of college student food. The aroma of fresh buttered biscuits perpetually hovered about.

There were green and white awnings that fringed the roof edges, and cool passageways that let you cross through to the back side of the complex, one of my favorite design features that I often took advantage of -- built-in desire paths.

Time-Out still exists but has moved to where Hector's once stood, at 201 East Franklin at Henderson, across Henderson Street from the US Post Office.

Swensen's Ice Cream was one of the those old-fashioned places that left me bewildered -- a lot like Mayberry's. There are three Swensen's left in the entire USA, as of this post. Mayberry Ice Cream is down to a couple left in North Carolina, I think.

Other places in the middle section: Ken's Quickie Mart; Knit-A-Bit; Second Sole (shoe repairs, I think); Cameron Craft. The Painted Bird had various types of cool little things, arts type goodies. I think they had stationary and cards, too. 

And there was my favorite University Square hangout of all, on the side facing away from Franklin Street: The Looking Glass Café. More on this at some point, I suspect. The scent of fresh coffee permeated. There's a place with the same name now open in nearby Carrboro, at 601 West Main Street. I'll have to inquire to see if they are connected in some direct way, or even indirectly by inspiration. 

University Square West. Little Professor Book Center. I frequently ducked into this and many of the other Chapel Hill book and record stores. At its peak, there were more than one hundred Little Professor book stores around the USA; there are now (in July of 2018), as far as I can determine, three left.

Other stuff: Tyndall's Formal Wear (rentals, mostly); Shoe Doctor; University Opticians; Fine Feathers - clothes; and T'Boli Imports. The last one had lots of wine, if memory serves.

I have no idea what was in the upper floors of the main buildings: offices, apartments, condos?  

University Square: gone but not forgotten. Anyone who has any idea of what the above is about, please add details, memories, observations. And if not about here, how about somewhere that you once knew that's now part of another gone world?

Photos: "Downtown Chapel Hill" website; University Gazette (2008); Wiki Commons (July 28, 2008). 

Invaluable resource to cross-check memories, places:  OCCUPANTS AND STRUCTURES OF FRANKLIN STREET, CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA AT 5-YEAR INTERVALS, 1793-1998, by Bernard Lee Bryant, Jr. Chapel Hill Historical Society, printed out by J.D. Eyre in 1999. Link here.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Jim Jarmusch: 'Stranger Than Paradise' (1984)

Jim Jarmusch: Stranger Than Paradise (1984) -- same year as the Coen Brothers' first movie, Blood Simple.

Stranger Than Paradise, made on a shoestring budget, is all verve and imagination, a lovely film. 

There are really only four substantive characters in it, all related by Hungarian blood or American friendship: Willie (John Lurie), his cousin Eva (Eszter Balint), their aunt Lotte (Cecillia Stark) and Willie's pal Eddie (Richard Edson). And one key song: "You Put a Spell on Me" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. All but Aunt Lotte are in movement -- New York City, Cleveland, Florida. Jarmusch employs fades between scenes, and it's shot entirely in black and white film -- elements that one will not forget. 

Stranger Than Paradise may very well be the "freshest" of all of Jim Jarmusch's films, though Gimme Danger (2016), his recent documentary on Iggy and the Stooges, is "fresh" in its own way. 

Can you dig? I love seeing such perspectives on things, what Russian theorist Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) dubbed --  -- one hundred and one years ago -- defamilarization. Seeing ordinary seeming people and things anew, those and that which we've become "used to" -- or tired of -- with "refreshed eyes" -- and a renewed magical sense of possibility.   

Today's Rune: Strength. 

'Wild Wild Country" (2018): One Wild Nutty Ride

Wild Wild Country (2018): "A Netflix Original Documentary Series" in six parts (so far). Set mostly in the 1980s and the nearer past, it's a dazzling, freaky kaleidoscope swirling with the cult of personality, tipped elections, conspiracy, challenges to the separation of church and state, surveillance, immigration themes, homeless people, cuisine, religion, G-men and semi-automatic weapons. What a show -- and how pertinent to our current Trump show!  Imagine the Branch Davidians and Jonestown on a large, international scale, making it successfully. Are you ready? Think Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the 700 Club and the PTL -- Praise the Lord aka "Pass the Loot" -- Club, armed to the teeth and ready to rumble.     

Wild Wild Country: the Eyes of Texas are Upon You. Or more accurately, the Eyes of Oregon and India are Upon Each Other. "You can't make this shite up."

For all these years I've had this snapshot of a restaurant sign in Copenhagen, Denmark, loving its name: "Zorba the Buddha."  Not until I saw Wild Wild Country did I realize that this was part of the Rajneesh movement -- even though it clearly reads just below the name: "RAJNEESH RESTAURANT." Location in 1983: Strøget, Frederiksberggade 15, København 1459. Suggesting once again that everything is connected to everything else in the grand scheme of things.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Frederick Wiseman: 'The Store' (1983)

On the one hand (the rich or pretend rich hand): Prada, Saks Fifth Avenue, Escada, Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Dolce & Gabbana, Georgio Armani, Nordstrom, Barneys New York, Bloomingdale's, Net-A-Porter, A'maree's, Bottega Veneta®, Morris & Sons -- Neiman Marcus, and so forth (see also El Corte Inglés in Madrid and Lisbon).

On the other hand (the poor or working class not pretending hand): The Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, Dollar General.

In between, you name it.

All of the above share being stores or product lines, their owners desiring and needing to sell merchandise. All share having customers who in turn desire, want or need to buy stuff with cash money or credit. 

Given this, Frederick Wiseman's in color "observational cinema" documentary The Store (1983) serves as a microcosmic look at all such stores, from the most expensive to the least. 

The Store, along with numerous other Wiseman films, plus a couple of books, is available directly from Zipporah Films -- which is where I acquired a DVD version. Link here: http://www.zipporah.com/

Zipporah's description of The Store: 

'THE STORE is a film about the main Neiman-Marcus store and corporate headquarters in Dallas. The sequences in the film include the selection, presentation, marketing, pricing, advertising and selling of a vast array of consumer products including designer clothes and furs, jewelry, perfumes, shoes, electronic products, sportswear, china and porcelain and many other goods. The internal management and organizational aspects of a large corporation are shown, i.e., sales meetings, development of marketing and advertising strategies, training, personnel practices and sales techniques.'

Let me add: The Store is also about the architecture and design of massive department stores (rarer now in smaller cities) vs. those of other retailers; anxiety; identity; conspicuous consumption; ennui; desolation; labor; weird, prissy shoppers; changing mores (smoking allowed inside) and fashions (including hideous 1980s outfits, then "the cutting edge" of fashion); depressing store lighting and flooring (the lap of luxury?); the battle for hearts, minds and moolah; and let's not forget The Zodiac® restaurant. 

With no overarching narration and no clear "heroes" to follow, The Store is all the more fascinating to behold.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.  

The Differences

"Art is educating, provocative, and enlightening even when first not understood . . . creative confusion stimulates curiosity and growth, leading to trust and tolerance. . . . It was not until I realized that it is the celebration of the differences between things that I became an artist who could see." ~ Robert Rauschenberg (1984)

Rauschenberg: Collecting and Connecting. Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, November 28, 2014. Link here. Runs through January 11, 2015. Click, click, click . . .

Mesmerized at the Greek Festival, Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, Fort Worth, Texas, November 9, 2014. 

Everything we need to "see" is all around us. 

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Pedro Almodóvar's ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984)

Pedro Almodóvar's ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? / What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984) is as wacky and incisive as anything else I can think of. Almodóvar gets at people's underlying realities -- the ways in which people may feel trapped, left out, bummed out, desirous of something beyond the status quo, or aiming for escape. Aspirations for greater freedom and autonomy abound; sometimes they even suddenly and unexpectedly come to be realized.  

Mother and son -- apple, tree. Chus Lampreave's character (on left) is particularly funny in her "ways."

Is sisterhood powerful? Wait and see. Here, Verónica Forqué as Cristal and Carmen Maura as Gloria. 

If you have yet to check out a Pedro Almodóvar movie, ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? may be a good second one to see. (Note: There are "risqué elements" peppered throughout the film). You may first want to give this one a try: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). Oh, yes.

Today's Rune: Journey. 

The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War

The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (1984) is a thoroughly absorbing documentary look at Americans who volunteered to help the Spanish Republic defend itself against fascism during the Spanish Civil (1936-1939). Soldiers, nurses and drivers; Jewish, African American and white Gentile; integrated and progressive -- years ahead of the curve in many ways. They endured a high casualty rate before being pulled out of the war just months before Franco took over all of Spain, which was in turn only six months before Nazi Germany invaded Poland.  The Abraham Lincoln Brigade (aka Abraham Lincoln Battalion) was part of the overall force of International Brigades, upwards of 40,000 anti-fascist volunteers from around Europe, the Americas, Asia and North Africa. 

Salaria Kea (Tamiment Library, NYU, ALBA Photo #13, Box 02, folder 09)

The Good Fight, wonderfully woven together from interviews with surviving members of the Lincolns as well as "supports" (vivacious and memorable characters all), archival footage, period music and narration by Studs Terkel, was written, directed and produced by Mary Dore, Noel Buckner and Sam Sills. What a great film!

It just so happens that Mary Dore (with Nancy Kennedy) has a new film in the works that I'll be excited to see upon its completion, She's Beautiful When She's Angry, covering the women's movement from 1966 to 1972. Here's a link.

Today's Rune: Gateway.     

See the Bells, Up in the Sky: Lou Reed, RIP

The death of Lou Reed (March 2, 1942-October 27, 2013) is a "Proustian moment:" the man, the music, his words and vibe, all serve as memory triggers. All day today and probably well on into the future.

From Lou Reed solo, from Velvet Underground tracks, too, I can remember people, places, trips, journeys, books, surroundings, time drifts, compadre artists and lit candles. Among other things. 

The time my buddy-pal JC and I schlepped our way to Richmond, Virginia, to see Lou and his crazy-electric band rip this joint, the Mosque, on October 9, 1984. (Life lesson: do it!) 

Birds of a feather like Andy Warhol, Nico, John Cale, Stooges, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Laurie Anderson (his widow), William S. Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Bob Dylan, Ramones, Talking Heads, Hotel Chelsea, Václav Havel -- and outward goes the spiral.

"See the bells, up in the sky
Somebody's cut the string in two" 
-- Lou Reed, "What Goes On"

Lou Reed was sharp, pithy, jangly, often a pain in the ass, an artist. With him, beauty comes through distorted guitars and talking songs and words that stick in the mind. Rarely would Lou put up with "a saccharine suburb in the mush," to use the Iggy phrase. Love him or hate him, he was great. A fond farewell. 

Today's Rune: Joy.  

Chapel Hill, North Carolina: West Franklin Street 3

Among other places, I ducked into Internationalist Books at 405 West [Benjamin] Franklin Street over Thanksgiving Break. This Chapel Hill cultural institution was founded by Bob Sheldon in the early 1980s, orginally over on Henderson Street above the then-location of Linda's Bar. Hector's, a Greek (and Trojan) hangout, was next door.

Bob moved into a bigger space at 408 West Rosemary Street, behind (north of) Franklin, about a year later. That's the one I worked at while still an undergraduate student at UNC. Bob also graciously permitted the Internationalist to be utilized as a meeting and yakking place and staging point for ad hoc protest groups, such as the one I joined to march and occupy Republican Congressman Bill Cobey's office with in 1985.

Now, in 2012 at the latest incarnation of Internationalist Books, I bought some artwork and chatted to a new worker about more recent goings on, and about Bob. 

To the right on the fringe of the picture above is the front of a record store, another still thriving Chapel Hill tradition.  

On the top shelf of this scanned image from inside Internationalist Books is a photo of founder Bob Sheldon, who was killed on February 21, 1991. The 1992 song "Chapel Hill" by Sonic Youth is loosely based on his death.

A salute to Bob and the Internationalist Books community!

Today's Rune: Journey.   

Sonia Johnson: From Housewife to Heretic

The recent death of environmental thinker and activist Barry Commoner (1917-2012) at ninety-five reminded me of several things. One, that Commoner ran for president of the USA on the Citizens Party ticket in 1980, the election that Ronald Reagan won (boo!). Two, that the next -- and last -- Citizens Party candidate to run for president was Sonia Johnson (b. 1936). That was in 1984, the same year Garaldine Ferraro (1935-2011) was chosen as Democratic Party vice presidential candidate backing Walter Mondale (Reagan-Bush won again -- double boo). Three, that not too long before Ferraro and Johnson, Shirley Chisolm (1924-2005) had aimed for the presidency as a Democrat in 1972 -- when Richard Nixon was elected to a second term (boo -- but at least that second term didn't last long thanks to the Watergate scandal).

Before she ran for president, Sonia (Harris) Johnson came through Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the early 1980s, to speak about her then new book, From Housewife to Heretic (Doubleday, 1981), which sometimes is given a subtitle (derived from the 1983 paperback cover, I suppose): One Woman's Struggle for Equal Rights and Her Excommunication from the Mormon Church. She was energetic and fiery, still furious with the status quo of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) because of what she saw as its backward patriarchal ways, particularly the way gender roles and expectations were seemingly set in stone from on high. I wonder how Johnson, assuming she's still alive and cognizant, feels about Mitt and Ann Romney in 2012?

Today's Rune: Growth.

Factotum Notes: Reagan Years

Notes from the 1980s, excerpted from a notebook I bought in 1984 for $1.39. It's lined, with a spiral at the top of each page instead of the left corner. There are no transitions and little context is provided, but I believe this entire section was scrawled out during a "required" Statistics class.   

How many temp jobs have there been? A lot. Did you learn something at each job? Yes.

Job moving trucks last two days. You drive from the dealer to the exhibition hall, five miles, then take a shuttle back and do it again. A taste of what it must be like to be a cab, bus or shuttle driver.

Radio ads. Toyota has sold 19,955 trucks!
Celebrate your right to sleep comfortably!

I wish I could believe in communism. There is lucid insight in Marxian analysis of Capitalism, but in practical response, the communist solution seems as absurd as anything else people can come up with.

I'm taking a Statistics class surrounded by Reagan youth. The teacher is peculiar. His voice is timid, he's easy, but no one can hear him. So far there's been no homework, no reading, nothing. A slack class, whereas in Art History I have a lot of reading and analysis to do.

Root Boy Slim [either at the Cat's Cradle or Rhythm Alley within that past week or so]. Step back into foolishness, Cheech and Chong clones, every third man with a moustache and Hawaiian shirt . . . The music is a a sort of jazz fusion that quickly grows tiresome, but the Big Chill people love it. See them move and groove to the confused band. No, the band's not confused at all. They've got this routine down to the last crude detail. Root Boy himself, a bug-eyed slob. I never heard that song about WWIII before. "Inflatable Doll" was trite and most of the show just gross. Interesting to observe. [I've since learned that Root Boy Slim died in 1994, age 47. Obviously I thought he was horrible at the time].

Saturday I worked all day at Durham County Stadium with Clifford, J.C., Billy U.G., Old Joe, Slick and Whimpy Bob (who'd been to Ecuador for seven months). That was for the Chattanooga Tent Co. and a lot of banging pipes. However, after a lot of work we got up the big tents for a festival [an English Cultural Festival, I think]. 

This guy, whose name turns out to be Greg Samsa and not Batavian the Armenian, has an unnerving capacity for inaudible speech. His volume is so low that most words are indistinguishable. Thus it is a ludicrous charade.

Conservatism is so flagrant and rampant. Chapel Hill feels dead. It's an effort to even get worked up about it anymore. I sent away for The Guardian today. . . . [The year was 1984].

Today's Rune: Flow.  
  

Teachers I

The setup for Arthur Hiller's Teachers (1984), starring Nick Nolte and backed with a large cast of supporting character actors, reminds me of a gazillion other school-related books, series and films. On any given day, an American school might resemble any one of the following. If applicable, what was your experience?

Also, the school names in fictional tales are always a sort of lame inside joke: compare the "great person" (sometimes not great at all) they're named for vs. the more conflicted realities on the grounds of each institution.

Lord of the Flies -- deserted island
Room 222 -- Walt Whitman High, Los Angeles, California
Dazed and Confused -- Robert E. Lee High, near Austin, Texas
Fast Times at Ridgemont High -- California
Teachers -- JFK High, Columbus, Ohio
Freaks and Geeks -- William McKinley High, Chippewa, Michigan
Welcome Back, Kotter -- James Buchanan High, Brooklyn, New York
Election -- George Washington Carver High, Papillon, Nebraska

Another running joke name for schools is Millard Fillmore High, named after the usually low-ranked one-term US president of 1850-1853, last of the Whigs.

Today's Rune: Partnership.  

This is Radio Clash -- On Pirate Satellite

I saw The Clash exactly twice: first (with Mick Jones) on October 15, 1982, in Williamsburg, Virginia, at William & Mary Hall; and second (sans Mick Jones), on April 6, 1984, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at Carmichael Auditorium. Notably, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five opened for them in '82 hot on the trail with "The Message."

Today's Rune: Signals.

Vinyl Daze 1984 and 2012

No cellphones, no internet, no digital for the general populace. It's 1984 and these are artifacts for 2012.  In Chapel Hill in '84, you can get a fair deal on used records. 8 Track tapes ("Stereo 8") are dead, cassette mixes are raging. CDs are in the pipeline -- dressed in long boxes resembling thin caskets. People are afraid to shell out big bucks for such little products without the extra dressing. Shops include Schoolkids Records, Record Bar and Sam Goody. Pictured above is a 1984 snapshot of my records, with two Iggy Pop albums out front and center -- The Idiot (1977) and Lust for Life (1977).

The Relics, one of the bands that in 1984 plays the Cat's Cradle.

THE RELICS will debut at the Cradle on Thursday, March 29th [1984]. . . They cite their musical influences as Kenny Randall, John Lennon, Iggy Pop, and all their musical peers . . . The Relics are: Tom Scheft on drums, Russell Proops on vocals, Jeff Biddell on bass and vocals . . . Mike Evans on keyboards, Jim Choong on guitar, and Jim Carleton on guitar . . .

Today's Rune: The  Mystery Rune.

The Twin Cities at the End of the World in 1984

On a road trip to help my sister Vickie move her car and some of her stuff from North Carolina to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota in November 1984, upon arrival at our destination I was able to get out and hear some of the local music scene. Prince was already well into megascale, but there was Duffy's, featuring the Urban Guerillas, a band I'd already come across at the Beat Exchange in New Orleans, where gigantic projections of Debbie Harry and Blondie ran between live sets and outside, drunken dudes fought and a passing witch shrieked, "Magic Beads! Magic Beads!"

At Duffy's in Minneapolis, the Replacements had previously played with the Urban Guerillas and let's not forget other bands on the prowl like the Suburbs and Hüsker Dü. Those were the days of SST and Zen Arcade and Stiff and Slash Records.

The more things change: End of the World Party Part II. Didn't we have another two of those in 2011?  And why are we still here anyway?

Today's Rune: Signals.

Chapel Hill in the 1980s, Part 2

Drawing a little more from a 1984 journal with entries mostly written just before or after an art history class, here's a little about hanging around Franklin Street and the Ackland in Chapel Hill, and something about an apparently homeless dude I nicknamed Zuccone, after Donatello's eerie statue of the prophet Habakkuk pictured below -- there was a resemblance in demeanor and I was, after all, taking an art history class.

July 31st Tuesday [1984]. Still raining, still dreaming. "Can I borrow six cents?" Zuccone asks in a friendly, leisurely Western manner. I offer him thirty-five cents, all the money I have on me, but he declines it politely, counting out four pennies in exchange for two nickels. His weird gray eyes are friendly, respectful. "That's all I need," he says, "Thanks." He huddles within a gray blanket wrapped around his shoulders. We go in opposite directions: he goes down the street, I go up the street.

Now I am just walking around, having finished at the Ackland looking at Rodin's Head of Balzac and two other bronzes for art history. I like the Balzac, it captures his little rat head well. Balzac. I like his novel The Wild Ass's Skin [La Peau de chagrin, 1831], on the whole, better than [Le] Père Goriot [1835], although Goriot has the young Rastignac & villain Vautrin -- what a villain! Rastignac is a cool anti-hero, but he gets his in the end of Chagrin.

 

I probably didn't know it at the time, but this particular journal was nearly done for. There are two more entries, one a sort of existentialist treatise and the other, setting goals for the future -- some kept, some discarded. The existentialist outlook remains. 

Today's Rune Fertility.