Curtis B on KOAL '93

It was more fun in the late 1970s.   For one thing, the music was better, way better.

It all came back to me listening to Gino Vanelli's "I just wanna stop".  I know its totally sappy, but to my 16 year old mind growing up in Gillette, Wyoming it conjures up images of what was probably my biggest influence in high school, namely Curtis B.  Curt was always more worldly than the rest of us.  When my other friends were playing Dungeons and Dragons and struggling with football and wrestling, Curt had a gig as a DJ at the local radio station: KOAL.  Yes, he was that cool as a 16 year old.   Well, sort of anyway.   I just checked it out and KOAL is still around as the leading rock station in Gillette, though they now are at the dial on 106.1  FM.   Back then, it was Curtus B on 93.   I remember that part well.

I lived at 110 East Hogeye back then.  To get to the radio station from my home, you had to walk up to the hill which was the highest point in town on the dirt trail which was bounded on one side by the town cemetery and the other by Twin Spruce Junior high.  Then you had to walk past the football practice fields to get to downtown Gillette proper.  From there it was just a hop skip and a jump to the studios at KOAL.  There were many nighttime excursions there.   One of the earliest was with Curt and a pint of Cinnamon Schnapps.   That didn't end well--at least for me.

Curt worked the midnight shift when all the good little workers at the coal mines and oil fields were asleep. Back then, at one or two in the morning, the DJ's could play whatever the fuck they wanted.  That's how I remember it anyway.  Curt liked all the classic rock tracks of the day and crap like Gino Vanelli and Boz Skaggs.  Player's "Baby Come Back."  I think he also liked all the stuff that he thought chicks would appreciate like Gordon Lightfoot and Supertramp.   Maybe even--heaven forbid--Air Supply.   He had his cool streak as well.  I remember one evening we were trying to play all the Led Zeppelin and Rush songs backward listening for demonic messages.   I can't remember if we ever found them.  Curt was also into this band called the "Hawks" which though I didn't know it at the time must have been a blatant copyright infringement of the Eagles.  I think he was the one who started me listening to "The Cars."   He didn't appreciate my Gary Numan.

Curt was always popular with the women as well.   Well, some women anyway.  He considered Polly J. his "ultimate boning idol"--whatever that meant.  He liked women with big tits.  He came up with the concept of the "mobile nightclub."  In retrospect, it was prolly not the best of ideas.  It involved drinking with women while driving around in his big ass american car.   I'm not sure where we got the liquor.  Someone must have had a fake id (It wasn't me:-).) Back then we drank imported beer. Which meant Molson and St. Pauli Girl.  And Bartles and James for the women he was with.

  I'm trying to remember what kind of car he had.  If I were more of a gear head, I would probably remember.  All I remember is that it was as big as a tank, got really crappy gas mileage, and we went all over the greater Gillette metropolitan area with it.  Back then, kids still went "cruising" on weekend nights.

I also remember Curt being involved in a funny episode involving buying condoms.   He went to buy them at the local  Buttrey/Osco grocery drug store.  Back in those days, that would have been an extremely embarrassing thing to do for a teenager.   Supposedly Curt went to the check out lane to pay for them and my mother came in line behind him and started to talk to him.  I can imagine Curt diverting my mom's attention to his purchases with small talk.   It would not be surprising.  Curt was always much better about dealing with adults at the time.   I even went with him to the local school board's meeting to present a case that the high school should get a tennis team--which it did.

I can't remember if Curt was with me and Chuck when we took all the golf carts out at night and were jumping the sand dunes with them.  He probably was.  I seem to remember the police talking to his parents about the event afterwards.   I could be wrong about that.

Curt supposedly lives in Boulder now.  He's undoubtedly still way cooler than me.

Its the Other Way Around

The fact that the man had spotted skin was surely the product of a recessive gene not seen among the Posneri for generations.  But unlike humans, the Posneri find differences in color more interesting than disturbing.

As a boy, the man had been active and strong, but not to an extraordinary degree.   His most remarkable feature was his sudden moods of thoughtfulness.  These had worried his mother, so she consulted the counsel Elders.

"Well," said the Elder, his joints gnarled by age, "Some men are thoughtful by nature.  They have to be if they are going to survive in space with no women around to do their thinking."  "Maybe he'll become a scientist."

This seemed to appease his mother, who gave the matter no further serious thought--even when she caught the boy spending hours watching fish in a stream or the horned toads in sage brush.

But as the years went by the man did not show any particular inclination toward science, and could not bear to be separated from the company of women.  He spent his ever expanding free time in the company of the Blenari, and his best friend was Ashani.  Ashani often liked to tease him as such:

"With most men, listening to them is easier than screwing them, but with you I think its the other way around."

"Is that meant to be an insult?", the man asked.

"No silly, it just means you are different.  And I'm not talking about you spots.  But since you are obviously sensitive to the subject, how would you like to spend your remaining quint with me?"

"Just talking, Ashani."  "It makes me feel like I have a connection with you.  And I'm not sensitive to that or any other subject.   Thoughts come and go   We only seek connections which last."

"Funny," she retorted.  "I thought only men come and go.  So you seek only connections which last, huh?  Should we put that on your tombstone?"

"No," said the man, and then becoming thoughtful again, "Why don't you just write something like:  He had his moments.  That about sums it up."

Another ride to the winery at new Berlin.  The basketball season is unending, and I'm not even playing.  I put 1000 miles on my car last week, Chicago, Marion, Salem.  

More Tales from the Last Record Store

On the outskirts of Gillette, Wyoming in the 1980s was a record store in a trailer.   It was straight out of a David Lynch movie.   You go into the store and of course you are the only patron.  The owner sits behind a makeshift desk reading a newspaper.  He's obviously happy to see you, but it playing it cool.  You may be the only customer he has seen all day.  Which is not surprising.   In the old adage that success in retail is based on location, this store is about 10 miles south of a small Wyoming town where the only businesses around it are oil supply vendors.  And its not like there was much traffic going by of people shopping.  Rather, most folks like me probably passed the record store on the way to work in the coal mines which were 50 miles out of town (I worked there for two summers), or to the oil fields.  In short, this was the worst location imaginable for a record store.   Unless you were weird about music like me.  Then, the voyage necessary to go to the store took on mythic proportions like some kind of quest.

The name of the store was appropriately called "The Last Record Store."  In 2014 that name might suggest connotations that record stores are dying out and that this store may be one of the few remaining. But in the 1980s, record stores with a decent location were still a going concern.  Kids like me still bought vinyl and cassettes, and waited patiently for the new release of Devo or the Cars to make their way out to Wyoming.  I remember the Last Record store probably stocked more Ramones and Dead Kennedys then another other record store in Wyoming, Montana, and probably the Dakotas thrown in.  You had to go to Denver to find one of those mega record stores.   The Last Record store could have easily been called the "only" record store--or the last stop of any retail business (other than a gas station) for hundreds of miles .

The first record I bought at the Last Record store was the Ramone's "End of the Century."   I think that was their foray into pop which might have been produced by Phil Specter:

I may have bought my Germs and Agent Orange albums there as well.   I remember the owner raising his eyebrows when I asked to order "Tales of Topographic Oceans."  But he obliged.   I never knew his name until I googled it recently and found his obituary:

GILLETTE - Celebration of Life and gathering for Robert "Library Bob" Parkin, 53, will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 28, 2007 at the Walker Funeral Home Chapel.

The family requests that you do not wear black but make this a tribute and share a story.

He died on June 14, 2007 at his home in Gillette.

He was born on July 20, 1953, the son of John and Mae (Berkley) Parkin in Wanaque, N.J.

He was raised and educated and graduated high school in Clifton, N.J. After graduating high school, Bob was inducted into the United Sates Army and served a four-year term in Vietnam. After his honorable discharge from the service, he traveled to Colorado and attended Colorado Mountain College in Leadville, where he met the love of his life, Sally Crookston.

They were married on Aug. 16, 1980 in Rock Springs. They moved to Gillette and owned and operated The Last Record Store for numerous years. He then became employed with the Campbell County Public Library maintenance department where he had worked for the last 23 years. He was recently promoted to the Campbell County Court House Maintenance Department as a supervisor.

They were blessed with two sons; John Conner "JC" and Alex Parkin.

Bob was a Little League Coach, a Babe Ruth Baseball manager, an outdoor enthusiast and took his family camping in the Big Horn Mountains every summer. He was also a motorcycle freak and both his sons were raised on dirt bikes. He had a way of making people feel accepted being he was very non judgmental.

He was a great cook and was an instant celebrity among anyone who ever ate at his table. He was a vivid story teller and had a talent for bringing Yankee Stadium, the Nam jungles, or a great blues concert alive to the listeners of his life.

He believed in picking up hitch hikers and buying them dinner, simply on the basis that they seemed to be a little worse off than he was at the time.

He was a magnificently compassionate and loving human being, a wonderful father and friend.

Survivors include his wife and two sons, all of Gillette; his mother, Mae Turneau of New Jersey, his sister, Shirley Parkin of Clifton, N.J., his mother-in-law and her husband of Gillette, Wyoming, and one nephew.

He was preceded in death by his father, John Parkin and his father-in-law.

A memorial has been established and memorials may be sent in care of Walker Funeral Home, 410 Medical Arts Court, Gillette, 82716.

Come to the Honeycomb Hideout

It was 1983, and freaking cold in Gillette, Wyoming over Christmas break.   I was home having just completed my first semester college finals.   I walked through the snow to the record store that was way out of town in a trailer. It was appropriately called "The Last Record Store."   There were no other record stores for another 180 miles until you came to the mall in Casper.  And the record store there totally sucked. And I thought to myself as I looked up into the cold starry sky that "This must be the place."

I knew what I was looking for and quickly came out with my prize, the Talking Heads Album "Speaking in Tongues".  And I listened to the hell out to that for the next three years or so.   And when I wasn't listening to it, Gerry from across the hall with the much louder stereo was happy to oblige.

Then the album went into storage for many decades.

Then it was 2009 and the album came out of storage at the Homestead.   And we danced and danced to the vinyl like it was 1983 all over again.   And then we were in Bonaroo in Tennessee and after Elvis Costello kicked Beatle Bob off the stage we crept up to where David Byrne was going to sing, and sing he did, all dressed in white like an angel:

And as I looked up into the sweltering summer sky in that field I thought that "This must be the place."

But the world kept rotating despite my best efforts and it was 2014 and now the same album was being played in movie with Sean Penn and David Byrne.   The name of the movie was even called "This must be the place."

Then it became many many years later.   Maybe even several lifetimes.   I was in a church that was like a giant honeycomb. The church was empty save a lone figure at the front of the altar playing a giant organ. I listened to the deep bass notes and recognized the melody with a smile.  And David Byrne smiled at me as he played:

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me around
I feel numb, burn with a weak heart
Guess I must be having fun

The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground, head in the sky
It's okay, I know nothing's wrong, nothing

I got plenty of time
You got light in your eyes
And you're standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money, always for love
Cover up and say goodnight, say goodnight