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Saturday, August 13. 2011

Break Out Year

Facebook — isn’t that the thing these days? Used to be MySpace, except that most family members didn’t mess around with that; it had too much of a “young” vibe and if you ain’t young, or at least deluding yourself, then it just doesn’t have any appeal. I got on MySpace in 2005, then that profile was deleted so I started another. It’s still there, but hasn’t been visited in days. It’s all Facebook now.

Before even MySpace, my brother Tony, a computer whiz, created the Forkes Exchange, a website just for our family. Man! We had fun with that! There’s gotta be nearly 10,000 photos posted on it, between its two phases.

It’s kept “active” because it’s tied to this blog, but no one posts anything on it any more, which is kind of sad. It’s our own little island in the vast ocean of the Internet.
 Family, I would suggest downloading the photos you want to keep because one day that site will be gone.

Just had this thought, and I’m not mad at my brother Tony. Had we been thinking, we could have turned that into a social media site and instead of that Harvard kid being the billionaire, we could be the billionaires! Wow, what a missed opportunity, Tony-wan Kenobi.

Facebook, that’s the place to be on the Internets these days. The entire family it turns out is represented on Facebook. We keep in touch through it, share photos and do all the stuff that was once reserved for snail-mail letters. Remember back in the day when we got pictures developed we would try and think of how many copies of each photo we would need and to whom they would be sent? It’s probably been seven years since I’ve used a film camera. Can’t even remember where it is anymore.

So, once a day, at least, we will get on and check all the posts in the “News Feed.” There are a lot of models in my friends list or in my “Like” file and they often have … err … interesting posts. But then there are the posts of my friends and family.

Some of my friends post the most abhorrent political rants and I’m learning to let them pass, although sometimes I forget the tried and true axiom, “Nothing pays off like restrain of tongue and pen.” In this case, keyboard.

Most of the posts though, range from “not of interest” to humorous and interesting. My dearly loved niece doing her two-week stint in the Navy Reserve: You go girl! You are my hero!

Then there are the bromides — well, maybe not bromides. They might not exactly be trite, but the posts are common clichés. The thing about clichés is, they are always based on basic truths. And that’s probably why we find them so bothersome: they point to one or more of our shortcomings

Those types of posts have taken the place of chain e-mails somewhat. The thing is, with Facebook your standard posts can’t be longer than 500 words so they are limited. Hence we still get the chain e-mails.

But today my lovely sister MLou posted something interesting; “My Year” and then she posted about 500 words on the year 1967. At the end she added, “If you ‘Like’ my status, your year is 1970.”

All right! I got right to work! 1970 was a great year so off my fingers went to write about 1970. That’s when I bumped into that 500-word limit. So, here is that post, in all its uninterrupted glory:

That was the year I started going to rock concerts a lot. Before then it was mainly with an adult and they were few and far between. Saw Frank Zappa and the Mothers, my first experience with the “Freaks.” That was at the Milwaukee Auditorium, as I recall. A couple years earlier a friend turned me onto the Mothers of Invention with the album, We’re Only In It For the Money. That was a groundbreaking album and my first Zappa concert was a life-changing experience.

Then there was the Beach Boys at the Performing Arts Center. It was the best tour of their career, right before the album Surf's Up was released. I have the live album from the tour and it’s one of my favorite recordings. They concentrated on songs from Smile, Pet Sounds, Sunflower and Surf’s Up, the latter a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks. They did songs like “The Trader” and “Sail On Sailor” along with their surf hits. Including my favorite, “California Girls.”
 What bothers me about the album is that it doesn’t have a live recording of the song “Surf’s Up” or “Student Demonstration Time.” Great songs on the album, great songs live — but not on the live album.
 Smile had never been released and some of the songs on Surf’s Up had actually been written for Smile. A few years ago Brian Wilson released it, reworked of course, as a solo album.

The band was filled out too, with professional sidemen; a drummer whose name escapes me, and guitarist Blondie Chaplain and another bass player. Bruce Johnston was playing keyboards and singing.

Great concert, one of my most memorable. After that the Beach Boys began turning into a nostalgia act so I stopped going to see them.

Also that year there was the James Gang at the Milwaukee Arena, the last tour with Joe Walsh. That concert really stands out for a variety of reasons, most significantly how the James Gang started their set. Joe Walsh came out and delivered a scorching guitar solo for about 15 minutes before it slid into their biggest hit, “Funk #49.” Since then, Joe Walsh has killed it in every concert of his I’ve seen. They guy should be on everyone’s list of top ten guitar slingers.

John Mayall and the Blues Breakers were on the bill and that was a rare treat. No, none of the famous guys were in the band: Eric Clapton, Jimmie Page or Jeff Beck, but it was great to hear this band that had shepherded the British Invasion into existence back when the Beatles were first starting to get famous. I can’t remember who the opening band was, but I remember liking them a lot.

My friend Dave and I went to see Sly and the Family Stone at Summerfest. The band was so late getting on stage a riot nearly broke out. Plus, they only played about 45 minutes, a big disappointment. If I’m not mistaken, we also saw Santana that year at Summerfest, Maybe it was the next year. Things are kind of blurry after 1970, and not because of the aging process.

Music wasn’t the only thing going on in my life at the time, but it was the most important part of life.

Along with the concerts there was that weekend visiting my brother Carl and his new wife Pat (now Allida) in Madtown. Just so happens my visit coincided with the HUGE anti-war demonstrations at the University, my first experience with tear gas.

It was a great year, my entry into the adult world. I was breaking away from parental bonds, feeling independent and doing things a kid that age ought not be doing. I had a regular dealer who had pot every weekend and buying liquor was rather easy. Those habits eventually took me down, but I recovered nicely.

The Vietnam War was still raging, Richard M. Nixon was president, The Beatles broke up and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died. That was a shock, hearing the news that Jimi Hendrix was dead. He had played the Milwaukee Arena on May 1st. Oddly enough, I was in Madison that weekend and missed the concert and the next at the Dane County Coliseum. Missed opportunities. Hendrix would be 68 years old had he lived.

Despite the low points, 1970 was my “Break Out” year, the kind of year people make movies about when they want to tell the story of their youth. The kind of year everyone has, when we feel like we have finally arrived. But that just meant the journey had only started.

That’s the beauty of life, I guess: it’s a journey with no destination. We just get to pause now and then and slow down, take some time to appreciate the rich pageant. Life’s too beautiful to do otherwise.