FOURTEEN

    In 1979, an economic downturn in Florence caused us to move our store and ourselves to Eugene. Eugene is one of those hip, counter-culture cities along the lines of Berkeley or Ann Arbor, chock full of radicals, anarchists, feminists, socialists and so forth. I lost no time in jumping into the fray. Carl, my radio partner, and I emceed a fundraiser at the WOW Hall there, located catty-corner from where our record shop would later move. I don’t remember who or what we were raising money for; we were happy to do it to promote our radio program on KLCC. At one point in the show, someone asked me to warn those in attendance that plain-clothes policemen were arresting pot smokers outside the hall. I announced to the crowd to beware of ‘blue meanies’ lurking outside, a reference to the movie “Yellow Submarine”.

    For the next few weeks, my wife, son, and I were followed everywhere we went, people looking up from their newspapers, etc., just like a spy movie. We’d rented a house across the street from a run-down park near downtown, with a large picture window. It was nice to look out on the park, and at first we didn’t worry about who might be looking in. But after the WOW Hall thing, we found a plastic egg outside our door containing a piece of paper with backwards writing on it. We had to hold it up to a mirror to read it; there were four lines of verse. I can only remember the last two: “I can see your smiling faces, pretty soon they will be crushed.” There was some sort of right-wing 'minutemen' organization operating in Eugene at the time, made up partially of police officers, according to the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper. I don’t remember if we reported the incident to the police or not, but we were scared and ran back to Florence for a spell. When we returned to Eugene a short time later, we rented a nice, new condo apartment on the river and bike-path, and tried to keep a lower profile.

    We moved our store near the WOW Hall, and painted the building pink; how’s that for low profile? My doo-wop group, The Whitetones, appeared live in the store for its grand opening, and we took in about $1250. that day. We’d never had a cash register; I was used to $50. or $100. days. I just kept stuffing the money into a metal lock box; I couldn’t believe it. I thought we were going to become millionaires! But reality hit the next day as the business settled into a more typical $100. a day pattern. It was, however, the start of the 'new wave' craze, and I convinced KLCC of the need to jump on this bandwagon. The “Modern Mono” radio program began, with yours truly and a friend from Florence as hosts; we were Damaged Dave and Loony Lenny!

While we’d had our shop in Florence, Franklin was successfully operating his record store fifty miles south in Coos Bay. After our pink store failed, Franklin sold his location but kept his stock, and we all moved to Eugene’s downtown mall. Ninety percent of the business was Franklin’s; our share mainly consisted of accoutrements such as buttons, stickers and T-shirts. We only stayed under this arrangement for a few months. Our merchandise was lost in the huge store full of records, so we moved into our own space on the mall about a block away. 

    Both stores succeeded wildly, at least for a couple of years anyway. Franklin eventually amassed an inventory of over $300,000 and then sold it all to a competitor. His dream was to move back east and start a commune, with a huge pyramid shaped building. Meanwhile, our shop, 'Diana’s', began selling rock clothing and advertised locally on MTV. Our lurid ads, our dressing rooms with almost no privacy, and our radio program, a wild weekly party on-the-air, all combined into a winning formula of sorts. Additionally I was still performing with the Whitetones, who collectively took up cocaine snorting as if we were some sort of rock stars. I remember one rare afternoon gig, when I had to go to work afterwards. At the time I was on KRXX (K-rocks) doing midnight to 6 a.m. weekends. I snorted a little more than usual to stay awake, and felt like my brain was on fire. I prayed that night, I can tell you. I was also involved with the local high school radio station, which opened its airwaves to the community and adopted a new format, which I named 'Radio 80’s'.

    I had ‘conquered’ Eugene as easily as I had Florence; the world was my oyster, whatever that means. Wherever I went I was recognized, if not by my face then by my voice. Diana and I were quite the ‘hip’ couple, in our thirties now but still looking a decade younger and dressing accordingly. I was typically all in black, while she wore sexy tight pants and tops often with the tiger-striped designs that had started in the 50’s but were all the rage now. She even had a tiger-striped patch of hair on her now shorn head, although we eschewed the safety pins of punk that have given way to the hideous body jewelry of nowadays. A post office employee told me he thought Diana was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and to let him know if I ever broke up with her. A guy at a department store was less blunt; spotting us at a rack of clothes and practically begged to 'swing' with us. 

    Diana and Teresa (Marilyn's daughter) together could hurt your eyes if you gazed too long. Once during a trip to San Francisco, I purposely walked ten feet behind them for a while, to watch men’s responses as they strolled along that summer day dressed to the teeth. Teresa was kind of Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot rolled into one; Diana, wearing a tight knit skirt and heels that brought her closer to her friend’s height was no slouch herself. We three were local 'stars', but it wouldn’t last. Teresa moved to New York City next, and I recently discovered an artistic video she did on the internet. I think she married a Hollywood producer after that!

During the first half of that decade, I spent much time on the air between Modern Mono, Cruisin’, Radio 80’s, and occasional side projects like “Sinatra & Friends”. The short-lived “New Music All-Nighter” on KRXX, took the rest of the week to catch up with sleeping, and was a harbinger for the station itself, which only lasted a couple of years. Apparently drug profits were fueling the operation, unknown to the air staff until the story came out in the papers. Still, those were amazing days when a person, not just a mega corporation, could own a radio station and play the music they loved on it. By the mid-eighties I’d quit all my radio projects, and the doo-wop group, in an attempt to spend more time with my family.

                                          Cruisin's 10th Anniversary on KLCC (1981)

                                            Diana's, downtown mall Eugene (1980)

Thanks to the MTV cable ads, Diana’s turned into a standing-room only affair on the weekends. People had to literally wait outside until someone left to be able to squeeze in. The best selling item in the store was the lowly button that sold for a dollar. I’d found these on Polk St. in San Francisco, witty little one-liners like “It’s been lovely but I have to scream now” or “Sorry girls, I’m gay”. One that caused a little controversy was the “Anti-Christ Fan Club member”. At least one customer asked if I was really against Christ. I replied that I had nothing against the leader of any religion but that I took it more as an anti-Christian button; after all, who wasn’t against Christians? Our other best sellers were T-shirts with band logos on them. In those days when punk was really anti-establishment, bands didn’t have marketing departments for selling merchandise yet, and 'bootleg' T-shirts proliferated. We also sold them mail-order all over the world advertising in Creem and Maximum Rock & Roll magazines.

It was a time of partying with drugs that lower inhibitions, but it came to a head with the advent of AIDS. Suddenly we had to think about who had slept with whom. The free-love pass had been revoked. I truly believed back then that people would now just stop having sex, outside of marriage anyway. In that little window of time when the downtown shop was popular and we seemed to be making money, I even gave baggies of cocaine as bonuses one Christmas; we were able to live a grand life on the river. 

Then we had to move to a smaller apartment; then a cheaper one north of the U of O campus. The store moved around as well, to the campus area, but a bad spot that students never passed; then back to the WOW Hall neighborhood. Eventually we were forced to live in the back room of the store, a small room with a bath, but no warm water, and the bath was metered allowing only an inch of water in the tub. And there was a crazy ex-Vietnam vet with a gun upstairs, who threatened to shoot us through his floor. Still, in some ways it was superior to the campus apartment, owned by two elderly spinsters. They didn’t allow any bicycles or alcohol on the premises. I had to chase after them in my underwear one Jewish holy day as they carried my bike to throw it under a building across the street. But that back room of the store was scary; the noise of our window fan couldn’t completely mask the almost nightly sound of gun fire.

Franklin bailed me out when he sold his business to Everybody’s Music. Essentially, they just bought his merchandise, and gave him a hefty down payment, which enabled him and his long-term girlfriend to make the move back east. Everybody’s only wanted to give him a nickel or dime on the dollar for his used LP’s however, so rather than do that, Franklin gave me all the used stuff on consignment. I was back in business, and rented a spot a block from the U of O. Unfortunately for my friend, he never received another payment on his inventory as his ex-competitor soon went bankrupt. While he did buy a nice piece of land, the pyramid building would never be built. With Franklin gone, we were able to move into his house in Eugene and spent our last six months in that town in it. The rent was added to the records debt to enable us to get back on our feet, which we were barely able to do. Franklin wound up getting sued over the details of his lease at a second store in Corvallis, and then sued by Teresa, who had been working for him, for sexual harassment. But it wasn’t as juicy as it sounds; he wouldn’t allow her, or any woman, to work after dark so to get home safely, while she wanted to be treated like any other employee. Ironically, Franklin was one of the few in our group that never tried to make it with her. His version of morality precluded that; he wasn’t 'in love' with her. They settled out of court and with that tiny nest egg, Teresa left us for New York to prove her worth, and as I understand it she did just that.

On a spiritual level, while we marginally continued as part of the Jewish community, we certainly remained enamored with new age things. At Eugene’s temple, one Passover, the chicken soup just looked so good that I decided to give up vegetarianism. Over 11 or 12 years I’d religiously stuck to my diet of no meat and condemned the fools that ate it. Once in Coney Island at my father’s favorite Italian restaurant I sent a plate back because I’d found a tiny molecule of something that looked like meat. Shouts and screams erupted from the kitchen and I watched as my dad sank into his seat. He was embarrassed to return there for quite some time.

I broke with the diet only a few times that I can remember. The first time was at an industry dinner held at a record shop in San Francisco. Dinner was late and I was so hungry. When the soul food buffet finally arrived, I’d lost any scruples I might have had. It was delicious; but then I 'repented' until another confab a couple of years later. Jefferson Airplane was celebrating starting their new company, Grunt Records. A mountain of cases of wine caused great inebriation hours before an incredible buffet appeared. I’m not sure if I ate meat or not that night, but seeing that beautiful pink ham is one of my few remaining memories of the evening.

The third time was in Florence; some of the men had been fishing and were cooking the freshly caught repast on the empty lot right across the street from my shop. The whole block was invited, and when I initially said, no, I didn’t eat meat; my friend said something to the effect that I’d have to be crazy to turn down a meal like this, and anyway it wasn’t meat but a sort of vegetable of the sea. I was hooked, and I’m salivating right now just thinking about it.

For all my vegetarianistic fervor, I still wasn’t healthy. Of course any health gains I might have made from eating organic food, were probably cancelled out by the beer I drank, not to mention the illicit drugs. I sought the advice of alternative physicians, and at one office filled out a lengthy questionnaire to determine the correct diet for health. In my case, I was told to eat steak! I had nightmares about chewing steak and didn’t believe it would be possible. Nevertheless, I just knew that if I ate the chicken soup at shul that night it would make me feel good, which it did. My mind was flooded with memories of past holidays and it tasted good too! A little while later, the Whitetones were offered a free meal at a club in Creswell after our performance. It turned out to be prime rib, and one of the other group members warned me that after so many years of no meat-eating that I would be unable to digest it. He was wrong; it was great, and that was the end of what had been a religion for me, and I an orthodox member. For the record, Franklin, who is in perfect health, still hasn’t eaten meat for over 40 years now, nor has he squished a bug in all that time. I remain in awe of his respect for life and self control. I just wish he’d get saved.

Another author I admired in those days was Carlos Castaneda. While he used peyote to achieve higher consciousness at first, he realized after a while that it wasn’t really necessary to use drugs. Taking this principle to be universal, one day I surmised that it was not necessary to have a silver amulet and chain, as was used on me at the Oregon Country Fair, to contact otherworldly spirits. I spotted a cheap doo-dad on a string lying on the counter in the kitchen, probably a necklace belonging to Diana and decided to give it a whirl. Holding it still at first, if it turned to the right, it would mean 'yes'; if left the answer would be 'no'. After a test of several questions I realized that I’d made a breakthrough into the beyond.

The necklace answered all questions correctly that we threw at it that had obvious answers. This caused us to also believe in its answers to questions it was otherwise impossible to prove, such as “was I alive in a previous life?” The novelty of this makeshift ‘magic ball’ soon wore off, but I was hungry for a larger glimpse into the unknown and would shortly receive one.