My store. My store. And not just any store: a record store!
I had been an assistant manager with Cavages for about a year, and an assistant manager with Mighty Taco for over a year and a half before that. As 1985 rounded the turn for its final lap, I was set to take over Cavages' Thruway Mall store. This was...September, I think? Thereabouts. Their need was immediate, so I bid seeya-bye to my downtown mall, and headed back to the suburbs.
My store. It was a happy time. It was over and gone before I knew it. I tried to hold on to it. It slipped through my fingers like smoke, no more corporeal than a phantom, as elusive to my grasp as a fading shadow. But, for an all-too brief time, it was mine. For a tiny, fleeting moment, it was real.
I already knew this store well, but this wasn't the homecoming it should have been; all of my friends and former co-workers at Thruway had been jettisoned, for reasons that were never explained to me. Knowing what I know now, I'm prepared to believe they were shafted by the chain, and I probably thought so at the time, as well. But I was in no position to decline this promotion, no matter what I thought about it. Bills to pay. Records to play. Music is your best entertainment value! Welcome to Cavages.
By the time I arrived back at Thruway, Cavages had already assembled my new team. My assistant, Cheryl Dunn, was capable, resourceful, and likely the best single factor in this new arrangement; she soon graduated to a position of greater responsibility at Cavages' warehouse, and later joined her husband Dan Dunn in running their own floral shop, Dunn's Enchanted Florist. I mention that just because I love saying "Dunn's Enchanted Florist." Cheryl and I are still in touch on Facebook, and she and Dan remain among my favorite people.
The sales staff was mostly young, and included Lisa (who had previously worked at the warehouse), Margaret (a pleasant girl who suffered from diabetes, and whom Lisa called "Cookie"), Barb (a singer), Mary (an aspiring fashion model), and Marie (a teacher). There was one additional member of my staff, her name long since forgotten, so I'll just call her Sparky. Sparky got into an immediate conflict with Cheryl over something trivial. We hadn't yet revealed that Cheryl was to be the assistant manager, but Sparky never had a prayer of getting me to side with her in any dispute with Cheryl. Sparky quit instead.
Hasta la vista, Sparky.
Mary also didn't quite belong, and she knew it. She had no interest in record stores, and had wanted to work at Cavages' card and gift store instead. She was sweet, and I wish she'd felt more comfortable working with us, and with me. Looking back, I'm sure she thought I was ridiculing her when I corrected her on music-related things (like informing her that
George Harrison LPs would not be filed under "Jazz;" he was, y'know, in a rather famous rock 'n' roll group). It was never my intention to alienate her or put her down in any way, but I know I did my part in paving that particular highway to Hell. She quit, and I doubt she has ever looked back on the experience with any fondness whatsoever. I regret that.
After Cheryl, Mary, and--of course--Sparky moved on, my core crew remained Lisa, Margaret, Barb, and Marie, with various other personnel filtering in and out over the ensuing months. I think Barb and Marie also left eventually, and I remember relative newcomers Kathy (who came from a fundamentalist background, so her family disapproved of her working in a place that sold the devil's music), Kathleen (an immensely likable young woman whom I nicknamed KB), Marco, and...I forget the rest. I can picture one other young man, a black guy who was horrified when I told him I didn't like
The Police; nice guy, really, and I wish my dyin' brain cells could conjure up his name right now. It was a well-run store. Where the downtown store had a large urban and hip-hop clientele, this suburban outlet sold far more hard rock and metal than the Main Place Mall location ever did. We were clean, we were stocked, and we knew what we were doing. When
MTV's embrace of
The Monkees led to resurgent Monkeemania in '86, no one could answer the questions of newly-minted Monkees fans with more authority than we could ("No, sorry, that's out of print" might not have been the answer the fans
wanted, but hey-hey....)
Honestly, I'm trying to remember some bad stuff to balance out all this kumbaya, but the contented memories overwhelm all such attempts. I was in my heaven. All was right with the world. Hell, my
Island Records display--"Cavages Island: Just Sit Right Back And You'll Hear The Tale"--won the competition for best in-store Island promotion.
Warner Brothers rep
Jack Riehle got it into his head that I was a metal fan (though I really wasn't), so he always brought me a bunch of metal promo LPs each time he visited the store; knowing he was a jazz fan, I rewarded him once by having a
Benny Goodman live LP playing when he arrived, and he appreciated that gesture. One day,
Columbia Records rep
Teddy Marche came in and asked me, "Carl, what are you doing Sunday night?" I dunno, Ted, probably watching TV with the missus, I guess. "No, you're going to see
Eddie Murphy," and he put two tickets to Murphy's show in my shirt pocket; he also offered me a chance to see
Heart another time, but I was tired and let Cheryl have those tickets instead. Gotta share the wealth--a happy staff is an efficient staff.
At home, my work hours and Brenda's work hours were still out of sync--that has been the case for the entire time we've been together--but at least there were no more late, late nights. We had occasional parties in our apartment, and most of the Cavages staff (and their plus-ones) came to those. Barb quoted
Cheap Trick and wrote "I Want You To Want ME!" on a banner for one of the parties, and then was mortified that Brenda might misinterpret her intent. No worries there--we were all friends, and life was good.
During the time that Brenda and I lived in the crappy little converted storefront that our landlord called an apartment building, we were the only constant tenants. The place was full when we first moved there in August of 1982; I don't remember the tenants of the main apartment at all, but I remember an elderly woman (Dolores) who lived upstairs from us, and a student couple (Priscilla and...her anonymous boyfriend) who lived over the main apartment next door. We were cordial to Dolores, and she appreciated the fact that we never gave her any trouble. She didn't get along with Priscilla and Mr. Priscilla, but the young couple had Brenda and I over for dinner once, a fun evening of chatting and listening to
Otis Redding's
Live In Europe; Priscilla's guy, I may not remember your name, but I remember you turning me on to Otis, and I'm forever grateful for that.
Wait--
Mark! That's it. Mark and Priscilla. Thanks, Mark!
But all of them moved away. For a long time, Brenda and I were the only people living in that drafty, rodent-infested firetrap. In the winter, we wound up paying the heating bill for the whole damned, empty place; one $600 National Fuel bill nearly broke us like a butterfly on a wheel. I would often have to go down into the basement and try to light the pilot for our errant gas furnace, usually with a roll of newspaper which I'd set ablaze with a cigarette lighter, stick into the gas jet, and pray for the best. The place was filthy--Brenda was fastidious, and I was no slob myself, but it was just impossible to erase the dust and grime. I remember once discovering a dead rat the size of a tennis shoe, floating in a pail of (presumably toxic) water under our leaky sink. It is conceivable that our absentee landlord could have cared less, but difficult to imagine how much less that could have been.
There seemed to be a potential light on the horizon when this luxury hovel was sold to a new landlord--a
local landlord! The slum's new owner did make some minor repairs and upgrades, and we could at least get him or his wife on the phone when we had an issue. And the other apartments were rented: an older, mixed-race couple took over the main apartment; a divorced woman, Jeanne, moved into the apartment over them; and two cute girls, Joanne and Cheryl F, moved in above us.
Brenda and Jeanne hit it off pretty quickly, and they remained buddies for the remainder of our time in Buffalo. Jeanne didn't get along with her downstairs neighbors at all, though I remember them as basically friendly and easy-going (if a bit too religious for me); I think the husband helped inept li'l me install a rear-window defogger on the awful '78 Mercury Bobcat that had replaced our intrepid '69 Impala.
God, I hated that Bobcat. And we hung out occasionally with Joanne and Cheryl, both of whom were pretty easy to get along with.
 |
| Our crappy 1978 Mercury Bobcat, parked in the driveway of our apartment building. |
Except for the older couple (who may or may not have been teetotalers), there was much beer involved in the relationships between Brenda and I and our neighbors. Party on, man. One winter week, when the snow basically shut Buffalo down for several days, Cheryl F's boyfriend Chris and I trudged through the frozen murk the half mile to the Bell supermarket, just to be sure we had an adequate supply of Miller High Life. Unable to go to work, I spent much of that week in the apartment, growing a beard and drinking vodka.
Joanne moved out, but Cheryl F stayed. Cheryl and Chris broke up, and Cheryl met a new guy, Chuck. It turned out that Chuck was an asshole, but we didn't realize that at first. Initially, he was just Cheryl's guy, so we saw him around the apartment socially.
One night, as Brenda and I were sleeping, we woke to a weird banging sound coming from...somewhere. The front of the house? I got up to investigate, walked out of our apartment into the vestibule, and opened the door to the apartment building. It was Chuck.
Confused, I said, "Chuck! What's going on?"
He said, "I don't know what's going on." He pushed me aside, and ran upstairs to Cheryl's apartment. More pounding, Cheryl screaming from behind her door for him to go away, and then the crack and thud of Cheryl's door breaking. More loud voices. And I realized with horror what was happening.
Brenda appeared at our apartment door, her face white. I told her to call the police.
Now. And I started up the stairs. "Carl,
NO!," she cried.
And I turned and said, "Brenda, I'm afraid he's going to kill her."
I reached Cheryl's apartment and walked in. In her bedroom, she was in her bed, Chuck looming over her, his anger simmering, his fists clenched. They were yelling at each other. Cheryl screamed at him,
Get out! Go back to your wife! Chuck called her every venomous, sickening name you could think of.
In my life, I have never been more scared than I was in that moment.
Chuck was a big guy. I'm a pretty big guy, too, but I'm not a fighter; Chuck could have snapped me into pieces before I could even formulate a witty, self-effacing quip, and he'd still be free to hurt Cheryl. But I hoped I could at least stall him long enough so that wouldn't happen.
I mustered whatever faux authority I could put into my voice. "You've said your piece, Chuck. Now go."
"Are you gonna
make me?
You?"
"Am I gonna have to? Just go. This ain't worth it. The cops are on their way. You can leave on your own, or you can go with them."
Chuck hurled more verbal abuse at Cheryl, but didn't lift a finger. Maybe the gravity of the situation finally penetrated his thick, stupid skull. He pushed past me again, and left the apartment. He was met outside by the police, just arriving at the scene. Brenda and I got dressed, and drove Cheryl to the police station to press charges against his sorry ass. I called the landlord the next day, informing him of the damage to the apartment building. Not only had Chuck broken down Cheryl's apartment door, he'd also damaged the front entrance with his attempts to break in. Schmuck. Thirty years later, I'm still angry. And I'm still scared, thinking of all the ways that it could have been even worse.
I don't remember many specifics about my writing attempts in 1986. I sold a couple of capsule TV reviews (of
Remington Steele and
The American Music Awards) to
The Buffalo News, and probably did something for
Amazing Heroes, I guess. My favorite TV show was actually
Late Night With David Letterman, and my staff was sick to death of me going around the store saying, "He'p me! I'se been
hypmotized!" I also wrote my first-ever submission to
Goldmine in early '86; we'll talk more about that in our next chapter.
Working and partying took up most of my time. And, contrary to my initial memory of happy Cavages memories, there
was some work-related tension: early in '86, the entire staff of Cavages' Main Place Mall store--my
alma mater, and my co-workers from just a few months ago--was summarily dismissed in a company house-cleaning. I'm not sure what specific impetus prompted the purge, but the store manager's not-so-secret in-store drug-sellin' sideline either prompted it, or came to light because of it. Either way, that store was scorched earth. And a particularly humorless, unfriendly Cavages executive phoned me to ask if I had any knowledge of this illicit activity taking place during my time at Main Place Mall.
Drugs?! I feigned surprise, perhaps even convincingly.
No!! There was no good answer, no acceptable route out of this one. Lying wasn't good, but if I told the truth, the next question would be about why I hadn't come forward with this information myself. And why hadn't I? Because that manager had been a friend at the time, and because I was part of a collective social upbringing that says ya don't freakin'
tattle on someone. You just don't. Hell, when I worked at Mighty Taco, I had to fire people because of chronic shortages in their cash drawers, and not a one of 'em would roll over on the guy who was actually pilfering from the register, even though it might have saved them from losing a job in a tough economy. That's how deep the don't-squeal mentality went, and I wasn't immune to it, either.
The Cavages exec took me at my word, at least for the time being. Were things back to normal then? Probably not. The sands were starting to fall faster and faster; you could see a harsh light glaring through the top of my hourglass as it emptied. No refills. No future. No way out.
CHAPTER SIX: Buffalo Mining Disaster 1986
I've written previously about my Goldmine audition (detailed here), my first, failed attempt to sell my writing to GM editor Jeff Tamarkin. It was an unsolicited review of two then-recent albums--Stop! by The Chesterfield Kings and Different Light by The Bangles--which I mailed to Jeff on January 29th, 1986. It was quickly rejected, for a whole bunch of reasons: it was too long; it was unsolicited; both records had already been assigned to other reviewers; and it contained many, many violations of Jeff's editorial edict for writers to keep their first-person references out of the damned review--the word "I" was virtually verboten in Goldmine reviews.
But it was the most encouraging rejection slip I ever received. Jeff liked my style in general, and he thought I demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. He was open to having me write for Goldmine; we would just need to agree on an assignment first.
1986 was, for me, the year of The Monkees. If you needed proof of the extent of MTV's influence in '86, just ask someone who was running a record store at the time. Kids--young kids, teens, preteens--had seen reruns of The Monkees on MTV, and they were hooked on Micky, Davy, Peter and Michael. These new fans didn't care that this was an act from twenty years ago, nor that it was an act that was dismissed by serious arbiters of cool from the friggin' get-go; to them, The Monkees were as cool as anyone--Duran Duran, A-Ha, anyone--and maybe cooler. The new fans were the young generation, and they had something to say...thanks to MTV.
I didn't have MTV--Brenda and I couldn't afford cable--but our neighbor Cheryl did. On days when I had the afternoon off, I went upstairs to watch the noon rerun of The Monkees with Cheryl in her apartment. After our confrontation with her neanderthal ex-boyfriend Chuck, Cheryl seemed to think of me as a friendly big brother, and she was fine with having me hang around to watch The Monkees. (Cheryl was a blast. I remember one time that she accompanied Brenda and I to a show at The Continental, and she realized that she hadn't brought any ID. She laughed it off, and said if anyone tried to card her, she'd just open her jacket and say, Do these tits look like they belong to a minor? She got into the club just fine. I think I was carded.)
A Monkees reunion--even one without Michael Nesmith--was a dream come true for me. When I discovered that their concert tour would include a stop at Chautauqua, about 80 miles from Buffalo, I bought a pair of tickets immediately. But Brenda couldn't go. The Monkees' show was the night before Brenda's big state teaching certification test, and she couldn't risk a late night prior to such an important exam. I made the drive solo--a longer drive than I anticipated in those days waaaaay before Google Maps--and dispatched the extra ticket to this sold-out show at face value as soon as I arrived. I wished that Brenda could have accompanied me, but I understood, and she was right to skip it.
Things continued to cruise along at Cavages. The uncertainty following the Main Place Mall pink-slip jamboree had given way to confidence, security. My Thruway Mall store was a well-oiled machine. I felt like Cavages' golden boy, referred to by warehouse personnel as a walking musical encyclopedia, and called upon by upper management to run their Boulevard Mall store for a week while its manager was away. Issues? None! I believed that. Once upon a time, I also believed in Santa Claus.
The Main Place Mall location wasn't doing as well. I didn't know its story first-hand, but I gathered that it was chaotic, disorganized, insufficiently maintained, and in need of stronger managerial guidance. One of that outlet's best and longest-standing customers complained, and suggested with great conviction that there was only one guy for the job: Louie the Mad Vinyl Junkie wanted Cavages to make me the new manager at Main Place.
Mad Louie, wherever you are: I know you meant well. It wasn't your fault.
The customer has been known to be right on occasion. Cavages listened to this customer, and I was transferred back to Main Place as its new store manager. Adieu, Thruway Mall. You were the best job I ever had.
But I felt no sadness or trepidation at the time; it was a fresh challenge, and I was sure I was ready for it. I was welcomed back by Mad Louie and The Mystic Eyes' leader Bernie Kugel, and then started re-organizing the store immediately. I would accomplish my goals here quickly. I was certain of it.
And then my Spider-Sense finally warned me of danger, too damned late. And I heard the unctuous tones of the stiff, humorless suit who ran the chain, trilling in my ear: Oh, by the way, Carl: we do need you to take a lie detector test. We're giving you a lot of responsibility. We just want to make sure that we can trust you.
Ah, hell. Hiya, Spider; I'm the fly. But I guess you already knew that.
Would this have occurred if I hadn't returned to Main Place? I'd guess it would have, eventually. Another Cavages executive assured me that the polygraph findings would not be used against me, they just wanted to clear the air. I told myself it was a chance to clean the slate and move forward as the company man I wanted to be. It would be a good thing. It...it....
Cavages asked for my immediate resignation.
I try to look back on it objectively, and I have to concede that Cavages had a right to toss me aside. I had known that the previous Main Place Mall store manager was selling dope in the store, and not only had I not snitched on him, I lied to an officer of the company when asked about it. I had also once pocketed $20 when a cash drawer was over--a singularly stupid move on my part--though I had also kicked in money from my wallet when a drawer was short, so I thought it kinda balanced out. It was still wrong, and I'm not trying to excuse my action. And I should have known better than to believe that above-mentioned store manager when he said a bunch of sidewalk sale bargain LPs had already been written off and paid for as far as the company was concerned--go ahead and take as many of 'em as you like, Carl, and all you guys. I took a stack, some of which I kept, and some of which I traded to Gary Sperrazza! at Apollo Records in exchange for more garage fuzz. It wasn't until much later that it dawned on me that these "free" records still belonged to Cavages, and it wasn't the manager's call to let me have them.
I was a fucking idiot. My blood still boils at the thought of what a cretin I was.
So yeah, you could say Cavages was right to give me the ol' heave-ho. I still think it was a mistake. I'd been trying hard to do things better, to do things the right way, and I'd succeeded in doing all of that. They'd seen my success, seen the results of my efforts. I was worth keeping.
But I was gone.
I didn't see it coming. I'd convinced myself that I'd be allowed to continue with the company from that fresh point--see above reference to "fucking idiot"--and I was blindsided when the axe fell. I picked Brenda up from work, and I just broke down sobbing when I told her I'd lost my job. I felt desperate, depressed, and...lost. Just lost. Lost. Loser. Stupid, pathetic loser....
Before my sudden exile from Cavages, Jeff Tamarkin and I had agreed on an assignment for two reviews: Laughing At The Pieces by Doctor and the Medics, and a garage compilation called Beasts From The East. I owned a copy of the first record, and had planned to buy Beasts From The East at work that weekend. Now, I had no work, and no money to buy the record I was supposed to review. (Also no money for rent, food, gas, or anything else, for that matter; there would be no unemployment benefits, either, given the disgrace and shame that now clung to me like a shroud.) And I kept asking myself, in absolute, awful terror: What am I going to do?!
I have gone through bouts of depression in my life. This was one of the worst of them. I did not see any way out. I still can't articulate, or even understand, how I got through it.
The Goldmine part was easy; Mad Louie felt terrible about what had happened, even blamed himself for it (which was nonsense). But, because of the circumstances, he broke his personal rule of never lending out any of his records, and let me borrow his copy of Beasts From The East. I wrote the reviews, mailed them off to Jeff Tamarkin, and quickly returned the Beasts From The East LP to its rightful owner. Louie also tried to get me a job over at Record Theater, but it was to no avail. I'm not sure whether it was just a matter of no openings, or if I was now considered tainted. I suspect the latter.
I looked for work, and I wasn't too picky about what I considered. I found myself applying for a job selling major appliances at a local store; I didn't get the job, but I listened carefully to some of the things my interviewer was telling me, about how he required his employees to do things differently from sales staff in other appliance stores. I committed his words to memory, and thought to myself, Maybe these other stores will want a salesman who does the things this guy says his salesmen aren't allowed to do.
That knowledge paid off in my next interview: I said the opposite of what that other store's interviewer said he wanted, and I was hired on the spot. I could be a fast learner when I had to be.
My subscription to Goldmine had lapsed, and I hadn't yet been able to afford renewal. My debut as a Goldmine freelancer hit the stands in October, cover-dated 11/21/86. I tried to keep an eye out for the issue, but I missed it; I didn't even see a copy of it until many years later.
The new job sucked. It didn't matter. I didn't have a choice, anyway. It was a new store, a chain from Rochester and Syracuse trying to break into the Buffalo market. I was inexperienced, but earnest, hard-working, desperate. I made it through Christmas. Money was still tight, but I made enough for us to get cable and a VCR, albeit all on a shoestring. I survived the chain's purge of excess employees, and was still working there as spring approached.
And I hated it.
I'd enjoyed a teasing taste of what it was like to do something you loved and get paid for it. I'd run a record store, and life had been good. Now, I was trying to convince reluctant shoppers to purchase a new refrigerator or television set. But it was a job. I reminded myself: it was a job. It was not an easy time. It wasn't going to get any easier. We needed to do...something.
We had to get out of Buffalo.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Workin' In A Goldmine
By early 1987, our time in Buffalo was nearing its end.
Brenda and I were in dire need of another fresh start. Brenda had passed her state teaching certification exam, and had completed her graduate degree at the University of Buffalo, but was still stuck working at a day care center, with little pay and no discernible benefits. Me? I was selling appliances on commission, and hating every second of it. All of this should have been plenty bad enough already. But no, no, no--just when you think you've reached your lowest point, a smug, mocking cosmos often reserves one more vicious kick to the head, just for special little you. Our specific boot to the skull was the predicament of Brenda's dad on Staten Island. Brenda's dad had never really recovered from losing his wife, Brenda's mom, to cancer in 1983. Who really does recover from this? The memory of what you had--what you cherished--can warm you, comfort you, but it can also torture you with the ache of what's been so cruelly taken away. He'd tried, and he'd made a go of it, but by '87 it was clear that he could no longer take care of himself. He needed to get out of Staten Island even more than Brenda and I needed to get out of Buffalo.
But where could we all go? Brenda came up with the answer:
Syracuse.
It made sense. I still had a lot of family in the Syracuse area, including both of my parents, so we'd automatically have a support system in place. My folks loved Brenda, so there was no danger of friction there. Yeah, Syracuse was where we needed to be,
stat! We just had to figure out the logistics.
I answered an ad for a store manager position at a
Record Theater near Syracuse University, and traveled there for the interview, but it was not to be. The appliance chain I worked for had stores in Syracuse; seeking a quicker transition, I asked a company executive if I could be transferred to one of those stores.
Yeah, sure, we'll look into that! was the response, followed by the unhelpful sound of crickets. A month passed. Nothing had changed.
So I called another executive--the guy who'd hired me on the spot at my interview the preceding fall--and explained my situation.
Well, which store did you have in mind, Carl? I replied that my parents lived in North Syracuse, and there was a store about a half mile from their house--howzabout I look into a transfer there?
Can you start Monday?
This was Thursday.
Yes. Yes, I could start in North Syracuse on Monday.
Okay, Carl--be at the North Syracuse store Monday morning at 9:45.
Click. What...?!
We couldn't move out of our apartment quite that quickly, so Brenda stayed in Buffalo while I packed a few things and moved back to my parents' house on an interim basis. We notified our Buffalo slumlord of our intent to vacate within the month; he was none too pleased, and screwed us out of much of our security deposit, charging us for damages that predated our occupancy (and certainly predated his ownership of that goddamned rat trap), and for the defective wall oven he'd had to replace while we lived there. Bastard. Brenda served notice at her job, worked to tie up loose ends, and joined me in Syracuse on the weekends to go apartment-hunting. We found a place we could afford, a second-floor flat in a beat-up apartment complex on Syracuse's North side.
In late March of 1987, we said goodbye to Buffalo. It was indeed bittersweet. We'd had some good times in the Queen City, made more friends than enemies, and perhaps even grown up--just a little--while living there. But we'd failed.
Really failed, me especially. We had no future in Buffalo--
none. It was tough to leave. We
had to leave. We should have left sooner.
On the drive from Buffalo to Syracuse, as we neared our new home, Brenda noticed more and more cars decked out with orange trim and trappings; the Orangemen, the Syracuse University men's basketball team, were in the Final Four, and people were celebrating. Syracuse's embrace of its college team was infectious; neither Brenda nor I were sports fans at the time, but we got caught up in the enthusiasm anyway. In our empty little apartment, we hooked up an antenna to our tiny TV, and watched SU compete in the national championship game. In the final seconds, the good guys lost to Indiana, 74-73, thanks to a miracle shot by
Keith Smart (whose name remains a curse word in Syracuse to this day). But the seed was planted, and Syracuse basketball would eventually rival rock 'n' roll and comic books as one of my primary obsessions.
 |
| "Cold man?" No--COLEMAN! Derrick Coleman! |
The new apartment was adequate; a year later, when a crazy neighbor went nuts and carved "YOU DIE" in the landing outside our door, we figured we'd finally had our fill of apartment living. We bought a house in the suburbs, and we have lived in that house since 1989. In the mean time, we were able to move Brenda's dad to Syracuse; we found an assisted living facility for him, and he lived long enough to meet his only grandchild, our Meghan, who was born in 1995. If there is a Heaven beyond this physical world, then Brenda's mom and dad are together again, and they smile upon our daughter every day; I betcha they beam with pride. We know how they feel.
In Syracuse, I started writing more. I continued to write reviews for
Goldmine, including a review of the
Groove In CD by
The Flamin' Groovies, which sticks out in my memory for some odd reason. I submitted an unsolicited--
WILL I NEVER LEARN?!--poison pen review of the eponymous album by
The New Monkees, but editor
Jeff Tamarkin batted that one aside with the casual ease of the original Monkees shrugging off
Jann Wenner. My first feature article for
Goldmine was a history of
The Bay City Rollers ("Rollermania: A Hard D-A-Y's Night"), published in the 9/25/87 issue; I later expanded that piece for the 2001 book
Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth, and reprised it
here.
One Sunday night in 2014, when my
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio co-host
Dana Bonn took the evening off, I devoted the entirety of that week's show to a retrospective of the music I covered in my twenty-year
Goldmine career. I invite you to read that playlist and commentary--
Workin' In A Goldmine--but I'll be repeating a few points here.
The main point? I
loved writing for
Goldmine. It was a terrific freelance gig for me, and it was the gateway to whatever notoriety I eventually achieved. I wrote about my rock 'n' roll passions, from
power pop to
bubblegum music and
The Flashcubes. I interviewed one of my teen crushes,
Joan Jett, and the framed, autographed two-page title spread of that article is perched on the wall in my office at home. I met
KISS, who were the subject of my first cover story. I got a freakin' phone call from
Joey Ramone, a week after I interviewed him and his brudder
Ramones. I got praise. I got criticism. I got
fan mail! And, y'know, free records. It was a delight to work with Jeff Tamarkin, and it was never quite the same for me when he left the magazine in the late '90s. I soldiered on for several years after that, but with decreasing frequency; I finally decided it wasn't fun anymore, and just stopped sending stuff to
Goldmine. There were no hard feelings; by then, I doubt anyone still with
GM editorial even knew who I was, so no one noticed I was gone.
Goldmine will always loom large in my legend, and I will always be grateful for the experience.
And I don't get to my
Goldmine experience without the life in Buffalo that preceded it.
 |
| Joe Bompczyk |
"I lived in Buffalo, New York for almost five years, from August of 1982 until March of 1987. It was an unsteady period in my life, marked by giddy highs and depressing lows; I moved there nursing a broken heart, and I wound up getting married while living there. Saw lots of great rock 'n' roll bands, ate a lot of great junk food, had some righteous good times, but I lived in a rat-infested apartment, often had difficulty making ends meet, and maybe possibly drank a tiny bit too much. Moods? I had those! Many different ones! It was neither the best of times nor the worst of times, just that flat gray area in between, as I tried to figure things out."
I wrote the above paragraph in September of 2010 as part of
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's tribute to the late
Joe Bompczyk, veteran of legendary Buffalo bands
The Enemies and
The Restless. For years, I swore to myself that I would never write about my life in the '80s; I still sometimes feel in danger of buckling under the weight of the emotional debris I accumulated in that unfortunate decade. Plus, a lot of the music sucked. Even now, I look back on my time in Buffalo with both a cringe of regret and a glow of pride. I've written about some of those memories in this series, and still more tumble forth now:
I remember our first evening in Buffalo, sleeping on the floor of our bedroom in this unfamiliar place. I was 22, Brenda was 23. We didn't know anyone in this strange new city. As we tried to sleep, every odd noise, every random bump in the night, felt like danger, like impending disaster, the malevolent intrusion of the witching hour. We held each other more tightly, and prayed we hadn't made a grave mistake in coming here.
At the McDonald's company picnic, I remember coming up to bat in the softball game.
Strike one! Fine. Bring it. My coworker Dwayne shouted out,
Come on CC, this one's for the rock 'n' roll albums! My bat caught the next pitch square 'n' solid, sending it sailing far over the heads of the outfielders for a home run. This calls for more beer! Another coworker certainly thought so, and she cracked the front end of her car when she tried to drive home after the party. No one hurt. We were a collection of dumbasses nonetheless.
Brenda was a new driver; she didn't get her driver's license until we were living in Buffalo. To force her to acclimate to driving, I took her to work one day and then took the bus home--sink or swim, baby! Before I left for home, I noticed a rummage sale going on in the basement beneath the day care center, and picked up a stack of used soul 45s, including gems by
James Brown,
Solomon Burke,
Sam & Dave, and
Wilson Pickett's cover of "Hey Jude" (which quickly became my favorite version of that song). Brenda made it home okay, and was able to drive with greater confidence thereafter.
We saw
The Peter Tork Project play at
The Tralfamadore Cafe, and we were somehow able to get backstage to meet Tork and get his autograph. We were starstruck. And I told Tork, "I used to watch you on TV when I was six years old!" When
The Monkees reunited in '86, that very line became a (sarcastic) part of Tork's live performances of "Your Auntie Grzelda," and has remained there ever since. So, yeah...
my work. Sorry about that, Peter. And
so sorry, fellow Monkees fans!
At Mighty Taco, there was an employee named...er, let's call him "Malcolm." Malcolm was amiable and friendly, but you could tell he had a temper. During one shift, he confessed to me that he'd--no shit--
killed a guy some time before he'd taken the job at Mighty Taco. This was not a case of a coworker just makin' up a story about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die. Malcolm had been in a phone booth, and an older guy startled him. Malcolm panicked, and he beat the guy to death with his bare hands. Malcolm was arrested, but I believe he was acquitted; self-defense. It weighed on Malcolm's conscience enough that he wanted to talk about it, but he begged me not to tell the manager. I said...well, I think I knew better than to say
Are you out of your flippin' MIND? right then and there, but I told him he'd best tell the manager immediately, or I would indeed tell her myself. He told her within a few days, and was terminated immediately for lying on his application ("Have you ever been arrested?"). I was reprimanded for not telling the manager as soon as I knew about it.
Punk-funk superstar
Rick James strolled hurriedly by the Main Place Mall Cavages one day, not stopping nor slowing down as onlookers called after him,
Yo', Rick! RICK!! Brenda also saw some members of James' group
The Stone City Band at the airport when she was catching a flight to New York.
Also at Main Place, we had r & b group
Womack & Womack for an in-store. Just like
Spinal Tap's infamous in-store with Artie Fufkin, nobody showed up to see them.
I caught a career shoplifter trying to swipe cassettes at Thruway Mall. The arresting officer remembered me from a previous visit, when he was trying to return a radio; I wasn't authorized to accept returns on radios--all such returns had to be processed by Cavages' main office, no exceptions--but it didn't seem like he accepted the quaint, laughable idea of rules applying to cops. On this subsequent visit, he was more interested in insulting me than he was in taking the suspect into custody.
While still employed by Cavages, I came
this close to quitting in favor of a job with a local management company.
Starstruck Promotions handled booking and publicity for a number of local rock 'n' roll acts, including powerhouse Buffalo group
Talas (with bass virtuoso
Billy Sheehan). The money was negligible, and the hours were long, but it could have been a stepping stone to bigger things. The more I thought about the job and what it entailed--hangin' out in bars until 4 am, schmoozing (and presumably boozing) with performers, fans, and their attendant pretty young things, all while trying to seem both in charge and part of the crowd--the more I was convinced that this was not a job for a married man. I declined the job before it was often offered, and the guy I'd been speaking with at Starstruck was
pissed. One wonders how different my life would have been if I'd taken that job, but I don't believe it would have been better. And I'm not sure my marriage would have survived it. I'm not sure
I would have survived it.
Brenda and I did survive Buffalo. We have some fond memories, and we cherish the friends we made there. The misery and uncertainty of the most difficult times subsided over time. We're still married. We still love each other. She's the lead teacher and support person in an inclusive early childhood classroom. I still sell appliances, but at a different store than the now-defunct chain that hired me in Buffalo; I've been at my current job for over twenty-five years, and I've been much happier since I finally realized that people don't have to be defined by what they do for a living. Once I embraced that, I became a more contented person.
So, what am I? First and foremost, I'm a husband and a father; our daughter is the best thing that ever happened to us. At my core, I also remain what I've always been: I'm a writer. I enjoy writing, and I'm good at it. I felt disconnected from that for years, ever since I bid farewell to
Goldmine. I missed it. So I started this blog. I consider
Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) the true heir to whatever the hell it was I did for twenty years with
Goldmine. Buffalo brought me to
Goldmine;
Goldmine brought me here.
When Brenda and I moved to Buffalo in 1983, I guess we were hoping to find a path forward. We wanted to find ourselves, to find each other, to find our future, and to find out who we were meant to be. And we found the one thing inside of us that encompassed all of that, and more:
We found gold.
You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby!
