In Memory of J.D. Chandler

My good old friend, John, known professionally as J.D. Chandler, passed yesterday, while in the hospital following his fifth heart attack.

We met in Jr. High School, 1975. John and Crazy Tom were budding film-makers, and they asked Dave and I, future rock stars, to create a soundtrack for their upcoming epic of the Spanish Civil War, The Unknown Soldier. It would take me several more years to catch the Hemingway reference there.

John and Tom would come by my house where Dave and I would set up in the garage and play our latest addition to the soundtrack. We'd ask how the script was coming, and if there were any pages we could see so we'd know what kind of a groove we were looking for. "Any day now," was always the answer. "Any day now."

At one of these garage sessions, my brother Miles stopped in to listen. After everybody had gone home, Miles asked who that older kid with the full beard was, somebody's older brother? No, just our friend John, fourteen like the rest of us.

After Dave moved out of town I joined with John and Tom in the film making and we created Ogilvy Cinema Productions. A Quiet Place to Live was the first major production under John's direction, and filming commenced in a room at the Vagabond Hotel rented for the project. The star was Shelly, who would be the star of nearly all of Ogilvy's productions, and my on-and-off sometime girlfriend through much of High School. But we met in a room at the Vagabond on Ventura Boulevard.

Other Ogilvy films directed by John in that period included Dismembered - a ripped from the headlines story of a jilted wife who dismembers her wayward husband, stuffs him into a trash bag or two, and takes him for a cross-country road trip - and Today is Friday - from Ernest Hemingway's one act play of the crucifixion (I played 1st Roman Soldier). 

Our final major Ogilvy effort, co-directed by John, Tom, and I, was Road Time - a documentary about the Small World Band, a San Diego group ready to burst out of the local scene and hit the big time (and, coincidentally, my brother, Steve's band). Our vision was to make a film that would book-end nicely with Martin Scorsese's Last Waltz, about the Band giving up the road and going their separate ways.

For John's eighteenth birthday we arranged to see eighteen films. We started with some early matinees of current releases, cheated a bit with a mid-day showing of that year's Oscar Nominated Shorts at the Nuart just to boost our numbers, and finished with the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Tiffany on Sunset. It was a fairly typical Saturday for us in those days.

Not to even begin to talk about all the concerts: The Kinks, Warren Zevon, The Kinks, Arlo Guthrie, The Kinks, Tim Curry, The Kinks, Flo and Eddie, The Kinks...

Then, just like that, our teenage years were over, some were off to college, others to work, John entered the Army, and Tom was in protective state custody. 

Not that the good times ended, they just slowed down a bit.

There was the time that we were all gathered at Bill's place just outside the Cal Poly SLO campus for a bout of heavy drinking, but were disturbed by the noise of traffic outside with horns blaring and people screaming. John, always one to take control of a situation, went out and, though he was barely able to stand, somehow got on top of a mail box or a trash can and began directing traffic and cleared up the situation in no time.

There's the story of the Morro Four (John, Dave, Bill, and I) and our arrest and trial for endangering the Peregrine Falcons nesting on Morro Rock while on our way to visit Tom (in protective state custody).

There was the time that John was stationed at DLI (Defense Language Institute) but on leave down in L.A. At the end of the visit he said it was time for me to drop him at the Greyhound bus station. I refused. He said it was either that or take him to DLI. I weighed the options: 20 minutes to North Hollywood or seven hours to Monterey? The answer was clear: one never turns down the opportunity for a road trip. We kidnapped Dave and Bill from their respective dorms along the way.

Visits back and forth slowed down as life and all the complications it brings came upon us, but we were never out of touch for very long.

The Morro Four held a reunion many years later in Reno, with a horseback ride along the Truckee River and visits to Virginia City (where you can see Mark Twain's commode) and some of the locations from The Misfits.

In 2010, John and I made a trip together to Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor on December 7 (and go back on the 8th), crash every beach-side hotel bar in Honolulu, and still get up for the free Ukulele lessons each morning.

My wife, Leslie, and I visited John in Portland probably three or four times in the last decade and enjoyed his walking tours of Portland's most notorious murders, burials, and hauntings (view my videos of John's Portland tours here...).

John had succeeded as a writer, finding his niche in the lesser known - some might say seedy - history of the Portland area, publishing several books on the subject. Like me, he also continued the film bug with occasional short videos to YouTube, and he did a bit with Podcasts and blogging as well. He'd just recently picked up a guitar and was finally starting to learn that as well. I was looking forward to jamming with him on my next trip up.

And then, earlier this week, he posted to Facebook that he was in the hospital following his fifth heart attack. Last night his sister-in-law posted that he had passed that morning.

Of course, it had to be in a week when I was re-reading the short stories of Ernest Hemingway, and right in the middle of The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

Farewell J.D. Chandler. He loved my Nana's knishes. May your memory be for a blessing.

New Books, Old Friends

A couple of months ago I told you all about one of my oldest friends, JD Chandler, publishing his book, Murder & Mayhem in Portland, Oregon. Well, now another old friend, Rich Samuels, has gone and put out a new book of his own, My Life at the Bottom of the Food Chain.

I'll be honest with you, Food Chain is not a book I would have picked up if it were not from an old friend. It is aimed at the "Young Adult" market, meaning teenaged kids, and it's been quite a long time since I fit that demographic. Still, I promised Rich I'd read it, so I did, and I loved it. But this is not the book review. My official review is over at Goodreads.

No, this is my blog, so it's for personal reflections. And reading a book about awkward teenaged boys written by somebody you knew years ago when you were each awkward teenage boys can stir up some memories.

Not that any of us needed to be quite so paranoid of bullies as Alexander is (the kid in the book), but still, there were some quite relatable scenes.

At one point in the book, Alexander and his friends meet at a favorite place to share massive orders of French fries. It brought back when Rich, JD, Crazy Tom, and I were taking a Super-8 film production class at the nearby University one night per week while we were still in High School. Following the class, we'd always stop at In-n-Out Burger and split a couple of orders of fries while discussing what we'd learned, and what we'd film that coming weekend.

When JD, Crazy Tom, and I started the class, and the fries tradition, we'd each take turns buying the fries. Once Rich joined the group, it seemed like it was always his turn to pay (I blame Crazy Tom for coming up with this idea). Rich never complained. A year or two ago, I finally confessed my pent-up guilt over this French fry scam to Rich. He claimed to have never noticed.

Reading Rich's book, many scenes like this came back in view. I wish somebody would have given me a book like this when I was an awkward teenager going to Junior High in a new town, trying to make some friends while navigating around the dangers. Maybe I would have learned something, been a little more comfortable within myself, and had a better time of things. Instead of just trying to scam free French fries off of nice guys like Rich.

Anyway, you can read my review of My Life at the Bottom of the Food Chain at Goodreads, or just head over to Amazon and order the darn thing already.

I Am A Bostonian

I am a Bostonian. I don't mean that just in a general "today we're all Bostonians" way - not "Ich bin ein Bostonian" - but in a born there, in my blood, key to who I am way.

No matter how long I live elsewhere, no matter how Californian I may also be, no matter if I never step foot on Massachusetts soil again, I will always be a Bostonian.

Growing up, going to watch the Boston marathon was an annual tradition. We had our usual spot, along "heartbreak hill," where the marathon wound its way up Commonwealth Ave through Newton.

Those memories come flooding back today with news of a probable terrorist attack killing at least two and injuring dozens more at the marathon's finish line.

There is now only speculation as to who and why this happened. I have my own theories, based on my own ideas of what the greatest threats are to America today. But I'll keep them to myself until actual facts are available.

Right now, all I have to say is, "I am a Bostonian." Hopefully we all are.

George McGovern: Acts of Faith

"Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public."

"No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public."

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain."

"For many years, I wanted to run for the presidency in the worst possible way - and last year, I sure did."

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

George McGovern, July 19, 1922-October 21, 2012

Early this morning, former Senator George McGovern died in hospice in Sioux Falls, SD. He was 90 years old and surrounded by friends and family.

McGovern was a proud liberal till the very end. A man who had "learned to hate war by waging it" as a decorated World War II bomber pilot, he was the Democratic Party's nominee to challenge President Nixon's re-election in 1972.

While I had been somewhat aware of the players in the 1968 Presidential election, and as a kid in Massachusetts, certainly was caught up in the tragedy of of Bobby Kennedy's assassination, it was the election of 1972 - and its aftermath - that first truly sucked me into the life of a political junkie. At the age of eleven I walked our precinct with my mother getting word out about McGovern, and on election day we stood outside the polling place (in the snow) with our last-ditch effort electioneering.

Of course, the result was that Nixon was re-elected in a landslide, carrying 49 states, and ceding to McGovern only the District of Columbia and Massachusetts. I was both devastated and fascinated by the results and began collecting souvenirs of the trouncing: bumper stickers bearing the slogans "Massachusetts the One and Only" and "Nixon 49/America 1," a pin that simply read "OS4MY" (for, "Oh Shit, Four More Years!"), and other memorabilia that I only wish I could still find.

Of course, even before the election was over, there was some question of dirty tricks involving Nixon's team doing something over at the Democratic Headquarters located in the Watergate Hotel and office complex. I followed the Watergate hearings closely. As for many others of my generation, this was hugely formative in how I would see politics and government for the rest of my life.

By the middle of 1974 both Nixon, and his VP, Spiro Agnew, had resigned in disgrace, and I had moved to California. I would eventually earn a BA in Politics and a Master of Public Policy and Administration. My career would allow me to have meetings with legislators at all levels of government. I would volunteer on a few more Presidential campaigns. But the inspiration and dedication of that first candidate, George McGovern, and the lessons of 1972-1974 have never been far behind.

My thoughts go out to the McGovern family and all those who knew this great man and hero to the left. I only hope that before he passed, he sent in his absentee ballot.
 

The blogger in 1972; the t-shirt says, "Vote."

Read more at:
The McGovern Center
George McGovern @ Wikipedia