STORYTIME
all you need is a spark to ignight a flame
KAOS-FM, Olympia WA…
THE RAMONES AT THE ROCKER TAVERN, Aberdeen WA…
What Stephen Tow described in his seminal book, “The Strangest Tribe” summarizes what occurred, but, of course, there’s more to the telling…
The Rocker Tavern in Aberdeen, Washington was the go-to place for those living in even more-remote locales — places where lumberjacks and isolation were elevated rather than rarified — to partake in some live music while participating in the, well, the clearly standard weekend mating rituals.
As the cover band played, prior to The Ramones hitting the stage (along with unsuspecting eardrums): at the beginning of each song the men in the crowd would stand up from their tables and then comb through the tavern, spotting any/all females sitting at other tables who seemed available and then who would be asked to dance.
At the end of each song, the cover band would wait a couple of minutes so the dance-couple could either spend those moments talking together or go their separate ways back to where they started.
This ceremony was continual throughout the cover band’s two sets that night — not unlike cultural peculiarities Margaret Meed would write about in a journal.
And those pauses between songs seemed looonnnggg, albeit clearly purposeful; that was the rub, the setup before the punchline pertaining to that particular crowd on that particular night who experienced The Ramones live at The Rocker Tavern.
As DeeDee launched his first-of-many 1-2-3-4’s, the men stood up, following the prescribed protocol, and combed the crowd. Usual stuff.
Those who didn’t complete their dance-partner-connection before DeeDee’s next 1-2-3-4 count-off didn’t seem to be concerned — as they probably should have been — because, of course, the second song sounded like as if being a continuation of the first song (and so-on), so, eventually finding their respective dance-partners, they then found themselves on the dance floor.
It may have been by the fourth song that distress signage began to appear; eyes looking back at those still seated (lucky bastards that they were), eyes looking at each other then quickly looking away, eyes looking at Joey’s torn-at-the-kneecaps jeans, wondering when they might slow down, if not altogether stop.
But they didn’t stop. And the dancers were indeed trapped.
The rush for the exit doors after the first set completed was ominous, some of those who remained were talking with each other and shaking their heads. I headed to the bathroom where good fortune would find me peeing next to the manager who, speaking to the wall he was facing in a vituperative outburst, “If they don’t turn their fucking amps down I’m goin’a be throwin’ beer bottles at them…”
It was at that point I decided to go to the “dressing room” (an over-sized closet) and see if I could somehow prevent potentially being lobbed by longnecks due to the aforementioned pejorative perspective.
The boys looked shaken and scared, I introduced myself and reminded DeeDee that I had met him once at CBGB’s (he had some vixen on his lap who wore a mink coat, nothing underneath) and when we talked back then I suggested they should come to the Northwest because they had fans who loved them…although The Rocker Tavern wasn’t what I had meant. Johnny then said, “the manager told us to turn our amps down, that’s never happened before, we don’t know what to do.”
“Look,” trying to be as diplomatic as possible, “these people have no idea who you are. You are The Beatles and it’s their loss they don’t understand. But if you don’t play your second set then you probably won’t get paid…no one will ever know about this…turn your amps down this one time and get paid. That’s the most important thing.”
They looked at each other and nodded their heads in agreement, and then went out and played probably the quietest Ramones set as never before or since.
I, with my then-gf, pretty much had the dance floor to ourselves. True bliss.
From KAOS to KZAM…
After graduating at Evergreen, in Olympia, Washington, I took the first job I applied to working Admissions at Virginia Mason Hospital in the evening shift (4 p.m. to midnight) which was actually a pretty wonderful job/position; back then the Admission Department was in charge of every bed in the hospital such that my position was being the central-hub for anytime a patient needed to be moved from one bed, room and or floor to another and, as I was working alone after 7 at night, that made me the immediate “friend” of every floor supervisor, every nurse, every doctor and everyone working in the ER whom I would interact with in order to take care of their needs.
My goal after graduation was to get a PhD in epidemiology and MD combo and then join the World Health Organization to work in third world countries (where McDonalds didn’t exist), however, Virginia Mason was a teaching hospital and, because of my position, being the literal hub for all the spokes, my interaction with everyone, including nurses, floor supervisors, ER, OR and the resident and post-med school physicians there, continually resulted in my being told by everyone exactly the same thing: “don’t do it!”
They saw the changes coming (big pharma taking over) and they told me I’d be in so much debt that I’d never get out of the country, and that I would lose my sense-of-self (including my sense of humor and compassion).
Meanwhile, this 4-Midnight work schedule allowed me to launch a weekly radio show on KRAB-FM (Seattle’s freeform noncommercial radio station, similar to KAOS in many respects but not connected with an educational institution) while also to “volunteer” at KZAM late mornings, early afternoons, to help them expand their music library, utilizing a computer program printout featuring a comprehensive listing of American independent record companies, developed technically by my friend Dale Crouse with my college housemate, John S. Foster, then culling and inserting the names/addresses.
This same computer printout would later work in similar fashion at KAOS, the campus radio station in Olympia, and likewise would be the foundation of the Lost Music Network’s OP Magazine (or, LMN/OP as affectionately referred).
Once in-place at KZAM, and contacting a broad range of indie companies to send in their records for airplay consideration, I asked if I could program their weekly Import Hour which (clearly) needed some attention as that specialty hour would often consist of audio-cardboard and Styrofoam-sounding waveforms.
“The only thing that never changes is change itself.”
Not long after that programming transition was accomplished and deemed “successful” KZAM was purchased by Sandusky Newspapers, with the new General Manager, Michael Henderson, quickly ordering the killing of this too-adventuresome-for-his-ears hour of radio.
The killing of “The Import Hour” by Henderson was, perhaps, a harbinger of what was to come: when I suddenly (and unexpectedly) found myself on the front page of the Entertainment Page of “The Seattle Times” it felt like maybe that would be an interesting/fun journey to do radio, rather than pursue a career in medicine.
Sooo, I quit my hospital job and within about three months KZAM-AM’s “Rock of the 80s” was killed off.
Nevertheless, those who warned me about the future of medicine were spot-on and I’m glad I listened, deciding that entertaining people was just as important as fixing ailments. (See the film “Sullivan’s Travels” if you haven’t yet; that movie underlined the rationale for the decision I ultimately made.)
My “Date” with Laurie Anderson…
One evening while on-air at KRAB-FM in the Spring of 1979 I received a phone call from one of the uppity-up Board members of the Seattle Arts Museum, she asked me if I’d like to join her and her husband for dinner at (some fancy restaurant which I can’t recall much of other than it being very dark and extremely expensive) with Laurie Anderson and, afterwards, would I be willing to take Laurie out and show her a good time since she had never been to Seattle before, and because Laurie was staying at their home — a mansion, actually — and the Board-Member-Hostess didn’t think that would be “quite entertaining enough.”
Um…sure…okay…
[I did bring a portable tape recorder with me and I did record our dinner conversation and I did play some of it on KRAB during my next show, however, where it is hiding –assuming I still have it somewhere buried in a box — I truly have no idea. Nevertheless, I’ll plug it in here if ever located.]
Sooo, after diner I escorted Laurie to KA-BOOM, my 1976 Ford Pinto, purchased during the Pinto Fire-Scare-Sale, that had been lovingly “touched-up” with flames pouring out of the trunk by my friend, Paul McKee.
I had to explain to Laurie that, traditionally, cars-sporting-flames were painted from engine-back not from trunk-forward, and also what the significance was, with the Washington State KA-BOOM license plate being the proverbial cherry-on-top. She appeared to find that amusing, so I was happy my assigned mission was succeeding.
I asked Laurie is there was anything she was interested in? “Cappuccino!” So we took KA-BOOM over to The Elliott Bay Book Company which I knew had what she wanted; back then, there weren’t many places where you could get espresso drinks…only five that I can think of, including the original Starbucks in Pike Place Market.
Sooo, there we were, sipping our cappuccinos and the conversation turned to surrealism. That’s when I mentioned Max Fleischer, and how he had a rule that every five-seconds something that couldn’t happen in reality had to happen in one of his cartoons, and that you could follow that pattern in every Betty Boop cartoon.
“Who’s Betty Boop?” “You’re kidding me…”
We then drove KA-BOOM over to a theater which specializes in retrospectives and art films but when we got to the door…it was locked. So I knocked. “We’re closed,” we were told through the now half-way opened door by the projectionist/manager/janitor who stood in command, one hand slightly propping open the door, the other holding broom.
“This is Laurie Anderson who will be performing tomorrow as part of Seattle Art Museum’s outdoor concert series and she’s never seen a Betty Boop cartoon – is there ANY way you could throw one on for us?”
Hmnn….okay, I’ll set it up and then you can watch while I’m cleaning up.
Sooo, we took our seats. Then our new-best-friend brought us some popcorn. And we ended up watching three or four Betty Boop cartoons, then the lights came on and we thanked him very, very much.
By then it was very very late, sooo KA-BOOM and I dropped Laurie off at the uppity-up’s domicile and we hugged. “That was fun.” “I’m glad you had a good time.” (Insert “sigh” here.)
The next evening I went to see the first part of “United States”, Laurie Anderson’s magnum opus performance-art piece featuring musical numbers, spoken word pieces, and animated vignettes about life in the United States. Yes: wonderful.
KZAM-AM and LOCAL MUSIC…
Mr. Epp and the Calculations…
WHAT SYNDROME…
From KZAM to YESCO to KYYX (with a touch of SUB/POP)…
In 1982, there were two “Foreground Music” companies based in Seattle: YESCO, owned by Mark Torrance and AEI, owned by Mike Malone.
They had been roommates in college together and, together, came up with the notion that MUZAK — the omnipresent elevator “Background Music” company, notorious for producing sounds resulting in immediate cringe for any true music lover — desperately needed some healthy, viable competition.
Somewhere along the line they had a falling-out, resulting in two similar companies producing similar MUZAK-alternatives, both anchored in Seattle.
After KZAM’s Rock of the 80s format was murdered and I was subsequently fired (being a square-peg, perpetually), I decided to visit YESCO — choosing that company to check out first over AEI because of the inherent “yes” positivity in its name — and was immediately hired by Mark Torrance to begin producing an array of “Foreground Music” tapes and, in short time, I was promoted to National Program Director with responsibilities that included being the supervisor of the others who made programs and of those working in the mail-room.
This allowed me to hire former DJs from KZAM in the production department and, in the case of the mailroom, two friends of mine, Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, who were trying to launch a new record label together that would focus on indie-artists exclusively, but both needed steady income to get things started…Sub…Sub…I can’t quite remember the name of their label…Sub/Something?
And, when Program Director Paul Sullivan was fired from KZAM — he being the one who launched the Rock of the 80’s format on the AM, he being the one who hired me to launch a Monday night, 10 p.m. to Midnight, weekly show (but only after I first sold the requisite advertising for that timeslot myself), I was able to talk Mark Torrance into hiring Paul to help direct the company forward.
Then Rick Carroll, of Los Angles’ progressive KROQ, was hired to reformat KYYX. And then Rick hired me to do a weekly Sunday night “House Party” while never actually hearing me on-air, just based on the petitions signed by 10,000 Seattle radio listeners demanding the return of “The Rock of the 80’s”…um, okay, so I actually threw the petitions up in the air and they sort-of floated upon Rick’s makeshift desk, and I guess that’s why he didn’t need to listen to an aircheck.
While still working, happily, at YESCO and with the success of the weekly “House Party” that had generated both street-noise and inked-press, I was invited to have lunch out with KYYX’s owner, Seattle’s legendary announcer Pat O’Day. Lunch turned out to be 3-martinis, nothing else. (True, I used to think those things were myths and never actually happened.)
That’s when Pat (with some libation-help) convinced me to leave YESCO (where I loved the people who worked there) and to become a fulltime DJ at Pat’s station.
A fulltime DJ? I had only ever been part-time at KZAM, but Pat offered me twice what I was making at YESCO so…
Meanwhile, under Paul Sullivan’s management, YESCO became streamlined and even more successful.
BUT (yep, that’s a BIG “but”) as the saying goes, “Man plans, God laughs.” In 1986 YESCO was purchased by MUZAK, Inc. (insert “omg” here) with the entire corporate headquarters moved from NYC to Seattle, and into the YESCO building.
Whowouldathunk?
Hmmm…I wonder if anything ever happened with Bruce and Jonathan’s record label?
KYYX and LOCAL MUSIC…
The STOLEN “Seattle Syndrome Two” Project…
Initiated as a project to support Seattle’s NORTHWEST HARVEST FOOD BANK, featuring a selection of artists who submitted cassettes to KYYX with the understanding that partial funds would go to support real need within the community, but, instead, the project was stolen (no small words) by Neil Hubbard and Danny Eskenazi (AKA Engram Records).
GARY WILSON…
KRAB Benefit Concerts…
In my humble – and one particular case feeble – attempt to expand awareness of local music, I was able to coordinate a few shows to support KRAB-FM, Seattle’s non-commercial beacon of freedom, founded by the Godfather of Community Radio, Lorenzo Milam.
One particular showcase included a set by The Refuzors who, unbeknownst to me ahead of time, brought a dead cat as a “prop” that was swung around during their hit-song, “Splat Goes The Cat”…this included sundry guts being splattered onto the crowd.
That incident was — truly — awful, I had to answer for it in the press (“I never would have invited them, had I known…”) and to the KRAB people who loathed punk-anything, being the antithesis of hippie-anything.
The only time I ever witnessed something even coming close to said awfulness was at a Vancouver, B.C. show when Joey Shithead (of the punk group, D.O.A.) pulled out his shlong, introducing The Dils (another punk group) by peeing on those unlucky enough to be standing in the front of the stage.
So much for “performance art”.
From KYYX to KHIT…
Prior to KHIT launching, I was the first “personality” hired by the station — a Monday-Friday 7-midnight on-air gig for what I considered to be an inordinate amount of money — I was to be the highest paid “DJ” in my time slot in all of Seattle.
I agreed to this Art of The Deal with the condition to also be on-air Sunday nights to revive the “House Party” weekly and then put on the “Local Tape Extravaganza” once a year as well.
The station was owned by Bob Bingham, who also owned a few stations in Alaska. Mr. Bingham told me that he wasn’t going to pay extra for my Sunday shift (money apparently does have limits) but I said I’d do it for free: the “Local Tape Extravaganza” being my ultimate objective, where anyone could submit anything on cassette and it would be played on commercial radio. (No small thing.)
Weeknights included “Pet Name Dedications”, “Stupid Record Package Giveaways”, “Megamix Mondays”, “Which One Is Better”, “Goodnight Messages” and lots of excuses for live phone calls which made the evenings on-air feel as different as different could be while (mostly successfully) distracting me from a playlist of musical pablum gunk.
The KHIT “MILLION-DOLLAR GIVEAWAY”…
It’s true. Bob Bingham, owner of KHIT 107-FM, decided to launch “the biggest radio promotion in Seattle history” by giving away one-million-dollars to one-lucky-listener.
Yes, it was (and is) a huge number, but throwing money around in the mid-80s was the standard; “The Art of The Deal” being the template.
The contest was simple: fill out an entry-blank at (name of participating locations) and listen to KHIT to find out what was in that hour’s Prize-Package which would be movie or event tickets, records (but not bellybutton-lint, unfortunately). KHIT “radio personalities” would let listeners know what was in that hour’s Prize-Package and then call someone who had submitted an entry to find out if they knew the answer. If you knew the answer, not only did you win what was announced but you also would have a 1:1000 chance of becoming a millionaire, sort-of – the million dollars would be paid as an annuity over 20 years – nevertheless, once 1000 Prize-Package winners were culled the contest was over.
And it took about four months for that to happen.
The tables were round, the lighting minimal – nightclub like – and the disc jockeys…well, yes, they were still being touted as such, although the actual spinning of vinyl had been replaced by songs-on-cartridge, the “art” of playing any given song was now innovatively dictated by prevised computer-generated printouts, formatted by consultant from a far-away major-market, utilizing the alchemy of focus groups. (What? What do you mean “and also ‘gifts’ from various record labels”? Hey, I didn’t say that…) And so the DJs, now-turned button pushers with voices deemed listenable-to, were all decked, somewhat uncomfortably, in formalwear.
DJs, with or without cartridge-machines, don’t show up for their radio airshifts in a tux. But this was different. This was the ballroom atop of Seattle’s Sheraton Hotel, just a short roll down from America’s original “Skid Row”, the names’ origin due to this being where lumberjacks would end up skidding their logs down the sloped incline towards the waterfront, and where taverns and prostitutes would set up shop to take advantage of the inevitable logging-loot. Sadly, no Seattle beer was ever named “Logger Lager” – sadness defined as potential lost – however, this part of town was affectionately rechristened as “Seattle’s Sleaze District” where skidding offered new meaning: if you skidded on something walking into or out of one of that area’s adult entertainment centers’ private booths.
But tonight, KHIT, 107 FM (106.9 FM for hall monitors who live life exactingly by the book) was giving away ONE MILLION DOLLARS to ONE extremely lucky listener! In the history of Seattle radio, nothing like this had ever been done before; one million dollars would be about $2.75 million dollars adjusted for inflation today.
On stage-right, and likewise all dressed in penguin attire, Jr. Cadillac was performing. Now, I can’t count the number of times I went to see (and dance to) Jr. Cadillac, perhaps Seattle’s most revered and most popular bar-band of that era, but I never-ever saw them wearing tuxedos before, not even when I saw them once on New Year’s Eve.
What I’m trying to get across is how surreal everything was: over-sized round tables where the Prize-Package winners plus guests (which included families, which included children) were seated, radio announcers who rarely used deodorant now wearing uppity-ups, two television-news cameras on-stage focused on a huge spinning-wheel basket filled with 1000 entries (that would soon be recycled into mulch), Sheraton servers perpetually bringing “what kind of drink would you like” to the tables…
And finally, the moment came. Mr. Bob Bingham came to the microphone and announced, “one person, in this room, is going to leave here tonight, a millionaire.” Andy Barber the morning-personality was given the honor of spinning the HUGE basket filled with 1000 dreams-of-monetary-excess, as Bingham counted down…10…9…
Then Bingham reached into the basket and pulled out a card and read “the name”…
From a couple tables behind where I was sitting I heard “the scream”…
It was a woman who won, that much was immediate. “Oh my fucking god!!!” “Holy shit!!!”
As she was simultaneously jumping and stumbling and swearing, doing her best to make her way towards the stage, her trajectory brought her near to me just as her enormous breasts flopped out her “dress” — my first thought was she was wearing a shower curtain with a flimsy elastic band to hold things in, although I was informed later it’s called a mu mu — the elastic band was failing miserably.
Seeing that her mountainous mammaries were more-than-slightly displaced, she stopped right next to me, and, while tucking them back in, her brain synapses clearly came alive, sending her a reminder-alarm that SHE WON thus initiating more jumping up-and-down while screaming at the top of her lungs, “Jesus Fucking Christ” which, of course, immediately ejected her ENORMOUS breasts out, flaying as if on a trampoline.
Once again noticing that her bodacious bosoms were pogo-dancing in public for all to admire, she managed to stop jumping, tucked them back in, and finally made her way (somehow) up to the stage.
As the two camera men stood behind their equipment, and Mr. Bingham stood at the center of the stage in front of the microphone somewhat stunned, the shower-curtain-laden-lady walked up the steps to the stage platform but then, suddenly, those darn synapses must have switched back on to alarm-mode, happening, fortuitously, directly in front of the news-cameras.
Jumping up-and-down (yes, screaming, yes, swearing, and yes, tucking her profound-puppies back into her whatever-it-was) she then made it over to Mr. Bingham who spoke into the microphone, “Congratulations, you are our lucky KHIT millionaire, how does it feel” and with that, he pointed the microphone towards her, as she physically and vocally quivered…”Oh my fucking god! I don’t even listen to this fucking station! A friend of mine filled out the entry and used my name. I can’t fucking believe it!”
Word had it that KISW-FM (heavy metal station which was VERY popular) then ran a similar “million-dollar-promotion” with the promise of $1.00 for the next million years to the winner.
KCPQ-13 (“The Northwest’s Movie Channel”) and The Seattle International Film Festival…
It was just too obvious.
“The Northwest’s Movie Channel” and The Seattle International Film Festival deserved each other; I made the proposal to each entity and — without so much as a “what” or “why” — it was a perfect fit.
My first year being on-air volunteer/conduit, I sat facing the camera in a “director’s chair” which was being utilized by famed Director Stanley Kramer for his weekly film introductions (and I did my best impression of him which the camera-crew enjoyed, but it didn’t go beyond that) while I announced the upcoming festival schedule.
..um…yawn…
The following year I asked if I could leave Stanley’s seat and get a bit more creative and somewhat surprisingly was allowed. I had bonded with the General Manager, we talked about how current actors didn’t really act, they were simply “attractive personalities with scripts”, that Harrison Ford wasn’t Charles Laughton.
And those quirky 10: and 30: “spots” for the Festival must have worked: when I moved to Sarasota I received a letter from Festival founder, Dan Ireland, informing me that I now had a lifetime-pass; I haven’t been able to use it, but remains a nice and unexpected gift nevertheless.
The KHIT “FEED THE WORLD” Benefit Dance…
LIVE (on-air) Suicide Prevention Phone-Call…
In a psychological sense, taking phone calls live on-air in 1984 was akin to highwire circus acts: sans screener, sans broadcast-delay-button, sans net.
“Thrilling” describes it well.
One evening on KHIT, after it was announced that Nick Rhodes, one of members of the Fab-Five (AKA Duran Duran), was going to get married I opened up the phone lines and found myself having to talk-down a frantic-fan who claimed — live on-air — she was going to kill herself because, of course, said boy-band-member was destined to be betrothed to her.
Little did I know that my shows were being monitored and recorded by the higher-ups, such that the next day Mr. Bob Bingham, owner of Bingham Broadcasting (KHIT-FM along with a couple other stations in Alaska) handed me a cassette tape with the prior night’s CPR phone-exchange and asked me if it would be okay to send copies to the local media.
I said, “No way.”
Mr. Bingham, of course, pressed-on, being interested in the publicity for the station while I, of course, adamantly refused, being concerned about the person on the other end of the line and didn’t think she, nor her family, friends and or pet ferret would appreciate the spotlight on a momentary emotional tsunami.
From SEATTLE to SARASOTA – “Name your price. How much do you want?”…
As mentioned above, I was the first on-air “talent” to be hired for KHIT’s launch. I was also the first to be let go, prior to the station officially dying in 1986, being informed of my impending severance the night before it occurred by KHIT’s janitor who had a habit of reading whatever happened to be on Mr. Bob Binghams’s desk; I continually tried to get the janitor, a handsome young black man with a friendly disposition, to go on-air with me but he wouldn’t, probably due to also being acutely aware “the boss” was usually listening.
It was during this in-between break when I produced the 1996 Seattle International Film Festival promo-spots and, using the Father’s Day Hallmark Holiday weekend as an excuse, I packed the videotape along with a swimsuit, making my first-ever trip to Sarasota, Florida to visit my father and grandfather who both owned condos in the same building on Siesta Key.
As it turned out, my father played tennis with Jeff Rosenberg, owner of the Magic Moment Restaurant (where the waiters were trained to be magicians and would perform tricks tablesides before, during and after dinner), The Pazazz Lounge (a nightclub which often booked national touring acts), an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the back, two actual clay tennis courts in front, a Total Tennis pro shop and an array of boat docks — all of which were located directly next to my paternal lineage’s condo building.
Sooo, after laughing at my film festival spots, my father said, “You have to show this tape to my friend Jeff, I’ll call him and you can walk over there. He’ll love these.”
Walking the path from concrete-condo to the adjacent magical mystery multi-use, I dropped off the videotape with the front receptionist at the restaurant, telling her I’d be back the next day to pick it up.
The following day, following the same path, I was greeted by the same receptionist who told me that Jeff Rosenberg had my tape and he wanted to meet me in his office.
…okay…
Jeff readhed across his large desk, piles of paperwork below, to the sides, on the floor, on the shelves, and handed me the videotape…I reached for it and had one end in my hand, but Jeff wasn’t letting go.
“How much do you want?”
“For the tape? You can have it. My father and grandfather saw it, that’s why I brought it with me, and I can get another back in Seattle.”
“No, how much do you want to come work for me?”
“What?”
“We are building a new nightclub, called ‘Blueberry Hill’ with a 50’s 60’s theme, we don’t have anyone to be the DJ and I want you, how much?”
“What?”
“Name your price. How much do you want?”
I threw out a number (very high) and Jeff said, “okay, but I need a one-year contract.”
“That’s fine, as long as you pay for shipping my things from Seattle to Sarasota, which includes 6,000 albums and about an equal number of 45s and cassettes.”
“How fast can you get back here?”
Soooo, I flew back to Seattle, a bunch of (very good) friends helped me box up the record collection, arrangements were made for a moving company to pick everything up and I drove back to Sarasota from Seattle in five days.
The contrast between these two municipalities is as wide as the distance between; Seattle, a liberal bastion of co-op progressiveness, and Sarasota, a conservative enclave of get-off-my-lawn reactionaries.
It was perfect.
I never honestly knew if I had any real talent or if Seattle was just weird. And I loved the thought of being challenged with a completely new format (50s 60s) as a live-stage DJ. in a hyper-conservative community. Would being different with an unusual approach actually work?
I think it was my third day in Sarasota when I was having breakfast at the Dutch Oven — Amish restaurants continue to be quite the thing in Sarasota — and the moving van was still making its way across the country, when I looked at that morning’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune front page: FIVE ARRESTED AT THE MAGIC MOMENT RESTAURANT ON COCAINE CHARGES
“Oh, shit.”
Jeff Rosenberg wasn’t arrested, but a few of his employees were, including the #2 person under Jeff.
“So THAT’S why he could say, ‘name your price…’”
Sure enough, on my very-first night at Blueberry Hill, prior to my “show” beginning, one of the henchmen brought me a tray filled with lines of cocaine, telling me, “this will always be here for you.” To which I responded, “Uh, no thanks. I didn’t move from Seattle to Sarasota to meet Bubba in jail, spending my nights singing like Michael Jackson, ‘Ow! Ow! Ow!’”
That tray never reappeared. I was fueled on dance-oriented-energy, accompanied with wigs and props and games and promotions — being unlike anything else — quickly turning Blueberry Hill into a major local attraction, in fact, there were hour-long-lines to get in. However, if you had dinner at The Magic Moment you then had access to the back-door from the restaurant to the nightclub with no wait.
The front end of an actual 1956 Chevy (with functional headlights) became the front end of my DJ booth. The work — if you can call it that — was essentially five hours of continuous exercise between lip syncing, toy-instrument playing, wig shuffling and record changing while the crowd were served drinks by waitresses dressed as cheerleaders.
Swept up with the word-of-mouth impact, WSRZ, a local FM radio station, decided to broadcast my “show” live on Saturday nights. The local ABC television affiliate, WWSB, hired me to be their Feature Reporter. I was even written up in Variety.
Whowouldathunk?
Chubby Checker…
Fats Domino…
WWSB-TV (ABC/Channel-40)…
In 1973, which now seems like another world, not just another century, I stopped by Evergreen’s KAOS-FM studio to see if I could sign up to learn how to use the equipment and possibly get a show on their 10 WATT campus station. The on-air “talent” said, “sure, how about right now…here, this is Turntable 1 and this is Turntable 2 and here is the Board, and here are the switches for each and here is the switch for your microphone, have fun!”
In 1986 I was approached by Jean Reed who had been a camera operator for Channel-40, then known as WXLT (and who had been operating the camera directly in front of Christine Chubbuck when she ended her life on live-television).
Jean wanted to interview me for The Pelican Press, the weekly community newspaper of Siesta Key and, just afterwards, she called me and told me that she told the Program Director at Channel-40 (WWSB by then) and that they wanted to meet with me.
“Okay, so you put your raw tape into this machine and then you edit onto the blank tape in this machine, this third machine is for your voice-over and you add that to your final mix on the blank tape…have fun!”
Now the designated Feature Reporter, yet, never instructed to how long my first feature-story should be, there was a general meltdown in the newsroom once I handed in my piece on Myakka State Park that clocked in at almost 5:00 minutes long.
I apologized, profusely, and learned from there, taking about 6 to 8 hours all together to drive to the location, oversee shooting — I offered to do all the video shooting myself but wasn’t allowed access to those VERY expensive cameras — edit the raw footage, add vocals, add music, and get my no-more-than-2-minutes package to the News Director before airtime.
Because the “packages” I delivered were so time-intensive, I often would go into the station after midnight so I could have access to an editing booth, as the three available were always given priority to “real news” of course.
Various staff members told me that Christine was still in the building — she never left — and I can verify that many times, in the middle of the night while editing, I could hear footsteps upstairs (and went to see if someone else was in the building: nope). And sometimes, I could smell (Christine’s?) cigarette smoke.
WWSB has since found a new home in a new state-of-the-art digitally-equipped building; the digital wonders of the 21st century would be unimaginable when typeset was still being utilized for newspapers and A-Roll/B-Roll was the only way to produce a story for television news. (The only thing missing is walking three miles to school in the snow, that doesn’t happen in Sarasota, Florida. Yet.)
Fun Promotions, an Escape to Africa and Crushed Blueberries…
It was a fabulous first year working/playing at Blueberry Hill and the response was unexpectedly massive.
Included in the fun, beyond the waitress-cheerleaders, acrobatic waiters, drinks-served-via-golf-cart while you waited in-line to get in, were ongoing promotions — mostly any excuse for a theme to focus on — but two in particular were developed by my friend David Sederberg from Olympia, Washington, who came down for a visit and observed my Blueberry Hill “show” during that first year.
Dave is owner of Pacific Stage, a multi-talented sound/lighting/promotions/creative force in the Olympia community, and we became connected when I received a photograph at KYYX of a car hood Dave had painted depicting Seattle post-climate-change. I put his photo on the cover of the final WAVE/KYYX Magazine, our friendship began there and has continued ever-since.
It was Dave who, in 1984, inaugurated the annual January 1st “Polar Plunge” at Olympia’s Capitol Lake as a charity benefit and, to my knowledge, it continues to this day, often drawing over 500 brave souls to dunk themselves in truly frigid water.
Upon Dave seeing that there was — conveniently – an Olympic sized swimming pool right behind the Magic Moment/Blueberry Bill complex, he suggested that I do something similar, but involving ice cubes: two tons of ice cubes.
So, on January 1, 1987, the first annual “Blueberry Hill Polar Plunge” happened at “Lake Magic Moment”.
Dave also told me about how successful his Tricycle Races were in Olympia at his own nightclub, “The Pacific Surf Club” — this involved taking an adult-weight-ready tricycle and structurally reinforcing it (for come what may), then setting up a “track” consisting of chairs and tables with a single start/finish spot.
Okay, so they were “time trials” rather than actual racing, but contestants were racing against the clock for an actual $1000 cash prize.
The Trike Races were perfect for the summer months, when locals could at long-last get into the club; from October through May it is Tourist Season in Sarasota and good luck getting into anywhere even slightly-popular then.
Needless to say, over the course of the year Blueberry Hill could very well have been rechristened “Greenback Hill” — a money-making monster had been created.
A few weeks before my one-year contract would be coming to its end, Jeff Rosenberg asked me if I would sign-on for another year, to which I responded, “Sure, but only to work on Friday/Saturday nights plus one night of my choice, and I want 10% of the gross — not of the restaurant, just the nightclub — and just for those three nights I work each week,”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Okay, no problem.”
I continued to work/entertain/play until the contract ended, never really worrying about what would come next.
Jeff had scheduled a meeting with me in his office for the morning after my contract expired and he wasn’t alone, a few of his upper-staff members were there as well.
“So, Steve, your contract has ended. Are you ready to sign up for another year?”
“No, I told you what I wanted.”
“Well, we aren’t going to do that, so what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go to Africa.”
“Seriously, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to Africa. I’ve booked the most difficult tenting safari I could find and I’ll be back in two weeks.”
“When are you leaving?”
(Looking at my watch) “The plane leaves in five hours. Look out your window, see the suitcase in the back seat of my car?”
“What??”
“I figured I’ve been working very hard and deserve a two-week vacation, but don’t panic, you can use my records and my wigs and my props and I’ll pick them up when I get back.”
(Then I pulled out the airline tickets showing my flight to London, then to Nairobi.)
“I’ll pick my things up when I get back in a couple of weeks.”
NOTE: If you get to go, and get to rough-it-up at all while you are there, Africa changes you. You quickly understand that you are part of the food chain and you will forever be more attuned to everything going on around you: a predator could be lurking anywhere, you are nothing more than lunch.
Two weeks later (after an amazing trip) and back in Jeff’s office, a new contract has been ready for me to sign. It’s everything I asked for. I worked 15 hours per week there and made about $55K while simultaneously working at WWSB as their Feature Reporter. ($55K in 1987 is equivalent to $147,727 in 2023.)
Okay. Fine. I finally found out it wasn’t Seattle that was weird.
Oh! I forgot to mention that I suggested to Jeff that he should open up a microbrewery because I was sure that was going to be the next-big-thing, based on what I saw happening in Seattle before I left (Red Hook was the key example for this premonition). So Jeff was able to put together a group of investors (um, I somehow wasn’t invited) and he opened up The Sarasota Brewing Company — Sarasota’s first microbrewery — in The Shops of Gulf Gate Village, Sarasota. (The brewery is currently closed due to a fire, Mr. Rosenberg no longer associated, and I really don’t want to know the details.)
As the second year at Blueberry Hill wound down, this time Jeff had bigger plans. He was building a second Blueberry Hill on Harbor Island, Tampa and he asked me what I wanted to work there.
“I’ll do it for one hundred thousand dollars.”
Jeff just shook his head, but I had no interest in moving to Tampa, I was loving Sarasota and — thanks to my three nights a week schedule — was able to enjoy life while continuing to “play” as a television Feature Reporter at WWSB.
In a similar scene to what happened at the end of my first-year contract, I was again approached about what it would take for me to move to Tampa to work at the upcoming Blueberry Hill there, on Harbor Island. The “compromise” proposal was for me to work there for three months at the salary I was asking for, prorated, and then after the three months were over “we’ll see where we are at”.
I said. “No thanks.”
I was told, “Well, you can’t work here anymore.”
I said, “Fine.”
Having saved enough money, I just enjoyed life for a year, however, I can’t say the same was true for Blueberry Hill: the Siesta Key club closed within 6 months after I left, and Tampa/Harbor Island lasted about a year.
C’est la vie.
Club Bandstand, The Chophouse Grille and The Downunder Jazz Bar…
A few months after both “Blueberry Hill” establishments went dark, the original on Siesta Key and the spinoff on Harbor Island, Tampa, I heard a rumor that a new 50s 60s club was going to open in one of the Sarasota Quay spaces; I found out who the principles were and invited them out for sushi dinner, during which I was hired as a consultant (no DJ work anymore, yay!) for $1000/week. (That’s a little more than $2500/week in 2023 dollars.)
I was then taken to Sarasota Quay and entered “The Space” where this new venture was to be built from scratch: a completely empty concrete shell of a space, nothing there. But that would change quickly.
This was the beginning of Club Bandstand and, not too long after opening, their sister upper-end restaurant overlooking the water from The Quay, The Chophouse Grille and Downunder Jazz Bar.
Jerry Wexler…
Taj Mahal was running late for his second set at Blueberry Hill, so I went searching for him, hoping to gently nudge him back on stage. Blueberry Hill would, on occasion, book a well-known performer for special concerts; this allowed me a chance to spend time alone with a few musical heroes…Donovan…Chubby Checker, Fats Domino…and Taj, who had disappeared.
I found him in a back room, talking with an elderly gentleman…
“Uh, Taj, it’s getting late, the natives are getting restless…”
“Hey man, don’t you know who this is?”
Reaching out my hand to the visitor, “Hi, I’m Steve Rabow, nice to meet you.”
“Hello, I’m Jerry Wexler.”
“THE Jerry Wexler?”
“I suppose so.”
“Aretha Franklin’s Jerry Wexler?”
“Yes.”
“Dusty In Memphis’s Jerry Wexler?”
(now laughing), “Yes.”
“Careless Whisper’s Jerry Wexler?”
“What? How do you know about that?”
“I have a copy of it”
“How is that possible? It’s never been released?”
“It’s on a Japanese import, I used to play it a lot on the radio in Seattle.”
“I need to see it, you need to come over to my house with it…”
So, I brought my copy over to Jerry’s home the next day listening in as he called his lawyer — “where’s my royalties?” — and so began a wonderful friendship with the person responsible for the term “Rhythm and Blues”, prior to which that classification was solely termed as “Race Music”.
Jerry and his wife, Jean Arnold, were gracious hosts in their Siesta Key home, where I was invited for dinner about once a month, usually with visiting musicians sitting around the dinner table where Jerry would tell stories and more stories and then even more…he was not only an encyclopedia of popular culture but well-versed in foreign films and fine cuisine.
In later years I took them both out for dinners to various local restaurants, likewise monthly. We laughed a lot and it was during these times when I made occasional suggestions: who might be the perfect organist for an Etta James album, and, after being told that on his gravestone, Jerry wanted two words, “more bass,” I suggested something else. Surprisingly, he went with it.
Through his lifework, Jerry Wexler may have done more to help African Americans than just about anyone else: he shoved records by black artists down the throats of radio station DJs and programmers…okay, not literarily, nor was he a bagman or a thug.
He accomplished airplay through sheer tenacity and a deep true-love of the music itself.
Bid For Bachelors for American Cancer Society…
Dedicating time and energy-focus to support area charitable efforts has always been on ongoing activity, utilizing whatever spotlight I may have had to provide something/anything to those in need. This included dressing up as The Easter Bunny to bring gifts to children in Sarasota’s Newtown community, spending Christmas mornings at Salvation Army to serve food, hosting an annual Halloween Dog-Costume Parade for the Humane Society, serving on the Board of Directors of Florida WineFest and Auction for Children’s Charities and the Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix for Handicapped Children, and auctioneer for countless charity events, being just a few examples.
When asked to participate in the annual Bid-For-Bachelors I wasn’t exactly as enthusiastic as I was for other “asks” – dressing up as Santa or the Easter Bunny much easier assignments. Nevertheless, I had a more difficult time saying “no” to any charity event. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to provide a “date package” and submit myself to whatever semi-legal act of prostitution this would entail…
“We are sorry to announce that Steve Rabow has changed his mind and will not be auctioned off tonight…”
The crowd booed loudly.
But then, suddenly, bursting through the swinging doors, two tux-clad “bouncers” holding me aloft in a chair, it became quickly apparent that I was struggling – being bound and gagged and, by way of packing tape, affixed to the precariously elevated chair – that the sound of boos transcended into screaming, reverberating somewhat wildly as the two burly-bully-boys threw me, strapped/bound in my chair, to the floor of the stage.
“Oh! It appears Steve has changed his mind…let the bidding begin!”
An older woman (I’m guessing in her 50’s) won the bidding and then was escorted to the stage to untied me from the chair. Thankfully she was petite, so, upon receiving my freedom, I immediately lifted her up – matrimonial-threshold-like – and carried her off the stage as the crowd clapped and cheered.
I thought it was over. But I was wrong.
“I want you to know that four of us pooled our money together and we bid on you!”
“Um, I can’t take all four of you on that date package…”
“We don’t want any of that stuff…we aren’t interested in massages, or dinners or a trip to Key West…”
Somewhat worried, “Okay, so what DO you want?”
“We want to go to all those funky bars with you. We know those bars, we LOVE those bars!”
Sooo, I arranged for a full-day of limo-escorted pub-crawling, although using the word “pub” would be disingenuous; starting at 12 noon and ending at 12 midnight, limoing around to some of the sleazest and off-the-radar bars in Sarasota with four very funny and semi-wild women who laughed though the whole escapade.
Mission accomplished.
Sarasota’s “Ground Zero”…
When I heard that a 20-screen movie theater would be arriving downtown Sarasota on Main Street I immediately called the two savvy investment-entrepreneur-philanthropists (and would-be-moguls) who were responsible, Dr. Mark Kauffman and attorney David Band, promptly inviting them both out for lunch.
Once settled in, I said, “You probably are wondering why I asked you to meet with me…well…I want you to write me a check today for $10,000.”
I paused as they both laughed.
“Let me explain, right now you can bowl down Main Street, however, once your theater opens its doors that will inevitably change. But, respectfully, you need to position yourselves as the crusaders you actually are and let the businesses downtown be part of what should be a tsunami of excitement. What I am proposing is that you give me $10,000 today so I can launch a quarterly publication to help make your theaters and the surrounding shops and restaurants and businesses become ground-zero for the entire city. In exchange, you’ll have the back cover for the first year and as the publication expands then it will always be available in the theater so patrons will always know they can always pick up a copy there. Always.”
“$10,000 will cover the cost of producing the first issue. Of course, I can’t guarantee a second issue. But if for any reason it doesn’t succeed then you can, um, water the flowers atop my grave in any way you feel would be appropriate.”
Yes, they wrote the check, and what started out as simply “Sarasota Downtown” with its first issue as a free quarterly fold-over newsprint tabloid grew into two sections by the second issue, then three. Then, expanding as a 4-color bimonthly, it was rechristened “Sarasota Downtown & Beyond,” finally taking the leap to a free glossy monthly, sometimes with a “barndoor” cover where you could open the flaps of the cut center.
And it was huge, not just in reception, but also literally — a few progressive issues measuring 11″ x 15.5″ — filled with the area’s best writers and photographers.
Hooters in China?…
In 1986, when I arrived in Sarasota, Florida and saw a Hooters billboard for the first time I was honestly shocked — my Seattle esthetic still intact — and I remember thinking to myself…”no-fucking-way…”
A decade or so later on my first-and-only visit to China, take a guess what the one-and-only billboard on the one-and-only road leaving the airport amazingly enough happened to be?
If you guessed, “Mao, wearing Hooters-orange skimpy-shorts with tucked-in (and tightly-fitting) white tee-shirt sporting a Hooters-logo,” you aren’t far off.
No chairman, just an overendowed (owl-enabled?) Chinese girl sporting requisite accoutrements. And it was déjà vu all over again, “no-fucking-way…”
9/11 and Sarasota…
I was listening to NPR on my way to my office that morning when they announced that a “small aircraft had apparently hit one of the World Trade Towers” — I then saw the presidential caravan drive by on their way to the airport.
It wasn’t until later that I realized I had watched two of the hijackers at Selby Library apparently just be given some kind of “news” while at a computer desk — one stood up, wide-eyed, looking blankly in a trance-like state and smiling — it was clear that “something was up”…I wanted to go over and talk with them because it was obvious whatever they were looking at on the computer screen shook them both and I even pointed their behavior out to my now-ex however, as I was with my two (very young) boys, I stayed-put in the checkout line for their books.
Months later I found out that all the computers in the library were confiscated by the FBI.
Those of us in Sarasota at the time remain connected deeply with 9/11, not only because this is where the above photo was taken as Bush was given the news at a local elementary school, but also because some hijackers lived here, were trained to fly here, and — like myself — had a personal encounter. Concurrently, there remain many unanswered questions concerning 9/11 and our community.
KCMU (now KEXP) and Mike “Damien” Stein…
One night in 1977 while driving in Olympia and listening to KGY, I was impressed with the DJ — the young high school student, Mike Stein — so when I got home I called him on the phone and requested anything by The Sex Pistols, not actually thinking that would actually happen.
But it did.
“God Save The Queen” came blaring through my home system in exquisite monophonic splendor for what was most likely the first and last time on that AM station. Just a couple of years later I picked up a copy of “Kill The Bee Gees” by The Accident, a group featuring Mike on drums — Mike’s mom paid for the small pressing, copies of which are now listed at $500 on Discogs — I still have that copy.
I eventually met Mike in 1981, when I was invited to be a “guest DJ” on his weekly KCMU radio show just after KZAM-AM (Seattle’s first “Rock of the 80s” station had died). After Mike introduced me the first thing I said was, “What’s that!?” Mike explained it was a “color wheel” which the “DJs” used to pick a song to play from a pre-selected group of songs filed under that color.
I then spent the entire “interview” criticizing the fact that KCMU was set up exactly like a commercial radio station and I presented musical examples of diversity (from a box of records I brought with me) including “You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath” and Beethoven; I stated that The University of Washington, the license holder for KCMU, should be the LAST place for a pre-formatted radio station, that college should be about exploring differences and even making mistakes, that once outside of the university in the real world, a “format” would be found most everywhere, so this certainly is the time and place NOT to require one.
Through my ranting and taking live phone calls from an extremely upset station manager, Mike was calm and composed and supportive. (A few weeks later KCMU relaxed things, allowing their DJs more freedom which eventually evolved into a horse of a dramatically different color, eventually, evolving into what it is now: KEXP.)
And even more years later I worked with Mike at KYYX — his on-air moniker, “Damien”, inspired by the film “The Omen” — where he was continually professional, always in good spirits and very much fun to be with.
Katherine Harris…
I can’t remember when I gave Katherine my business card, it must have been at one of Sarasota’s many black-tie events as I was on the Board of Directors for both Winefest and Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix, both being dedicated to providing proceeds to underprivileged or handicapped community members, so I went to quite a few of those.
But one day I received an email from her, “I’m sitting here in Congress, bored out of my mind…” Other emails followed, along with phone calls, sometimes late at night, “I have to tell you about a dream I had…”
To this day, I have no idea why.
The last time I saw her was at a small gathering at someone’s home where a local politician was introducing himself so I was able to talk with her, aside from the cocktails and finger-food.
“Look, you have a rare spotlight in Congress that few others will ever have, if you sneeze it might make the news somewhere. Why don’t you do something extraordinary with it? Why not introduce a Bill that creates a mandatory Draft for both men and women aged 18 with a 2-year commitment and a choice of options including military, inner-city, rural help, nursing homes, national park service or Peace Corps and provide barrack housing that takes city dwellers to the country and rural to the cities, with the promise of free four-year education grants once service is completed?”
Katherine looked at me, mouth open, somewhat stunned; “Well, I support Israel…”
“Look, you can package this as a constructive response to 9/11, making generations to come to accept what we have here as unique and worth contributing to, with military service being one of many options; even if you get laughed at you will be planting seeds for the possibility. And if or when the next 9/11 happens, this program will be necessary anyway.”
Katherine looked around, and went to shake someone else’s hand.
And that ended the emails/phone calls: I never heard from her again.
Christine Jennings…
One day, in 2006, I received call from Christine who wanted to meet for coffee early the next morning prior to her bank opening; Christine had risen from her first job as a bank teller at age 17 to Founder, President, CEO and Chair of the Board of Sarasota Bank where I did my banking.
I assumed she wanted to talk about my possibly helping out with her campaign, as she had already announced her run as the Democratic Candidate for the House of Representatives in the 13th District, replacing incumbent Katherine Harris whose seat was left open when running for the U.S. Senate.
I arrived at Starbucks before Christine did and picked up a copy of that morning’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune which sported the front-page headline: VERN BUCHANAN ANNOUNCES RUN FOR HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE.
While my personal encounters with Vern were both few and brief, I knew enough.
“It’s over, Christine,” I said to her as she sat down across from me, sliding the newspaper towards her.
“Vern is running?” Her eyes widened — Christine is someone who is as stoic and calm as they come — “Well, that’s interesting….”
“You can’t win against him, Christine. He’s too well connected in too many places with unlimited funds.”
“That doesn’t worry me, we have a strong base of support…”
“That won’t matter, this is one of those situations beyond ‘the good guys’, if he wants this he will do everything to get it, that’s just who he is.”
The election came and went. But not really.
According to WIKIPEDIA, “In the 2006 election, 237,861 votes were cast, but for unknown reasons, 18,382 of the electronic ballots in Sarasota County recorded no vote for a congressional candidate.
By the tally of the remaining votes, Jennings received 373 fewer votes than her opponent, Republican Vern Buchanan. Of the counted votes in Sarasota County, Jennings won 52.8%. If the missing votes had broken for Jennings by the same percentage as the counted votes in Sarasota County, the Democrat would have won the race by about 600 votes instead of losing by 368, according to a review by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
An audit of the machines found nothing wrong (this was the first time non-paper optical voting machines were utilized in a Sarasota County election) and it is believed that some voters failed to vote for the congressional candidate because it was on the same page as the crowded governor’s race. Other voters who failed to vote in the congressional race initially were able to catch the mistake on the review page of the ballot.
Still others, who had voted, noticed their votes had not been recorded when they reviewed the votes at the end. There has been no explanation as to why some votes did not record after they were made.”
And yes: she asked me if I could help with her campaign and, of course, I demurred, maintaining a non-political stance within my professional life.
Christine has never stopped caring and giving back to the community she loves, she served as president of the Sarasota Downtown Association, president of the Sarasota Film Festival and CEO of Westcoast Black Theater Troupe whereby, under her leadership, the Troupe became financially strong and was able to purchase a 2½-acre site for their own theatre.
Sarasota Bank, which Christine founded in 1992, was bought by Colonial Bank in 2003 for $40.5 million; $67.8 million in 2023 dollars. (Insert applause here.) Most recently, Christine was named Chairman of the Board of Directors for Canandaigua National Trust of Florida. I remain a fan.
Endnote…
ALL events and or accomplishments as cited within this observant digital didgeridoo would have not been possible without the help, support and belief from MANY different people within different stages of my personal timeline; this cyber-scrapbook is dedicated to each one, individually, with deep and sincere gratitude.
