In one of the earlier chapters of Look…

In one of the earlier chapters of Look Back In Love, before I leave Indianapolis, everything is in turmoil. I’ve started the stub of a psuedo life, working at the RCA plant on the west side assembling record players. There’s a chapter called “Rita” where I meet a girl who shores up my confidence by showing interest in me and the story of how the vocal group failed to become a band. This image is not the real Rita of course, in fact I purloined it from a Lands End ad, but it reminded me enough of her to save it as a model. Thought I’d show it to you.

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My Mom, in memorium

My mom’s funeral is today. She was 96 and lived a long and rich life. She was a red-headed Irish woman that my dad always called a firecracker. She lived every day she wanted, pretty much the way she wanted it and when it was time to go left in dignity and peace. I will always remember the way I’ve written about her, a firecracker, but a sweet and supportive one. Below, is an excerpt about how my mom helped me at a crossroads in my young life.

FORTY-THREE YEARS ago on a cool and foggy September morning I’d sat with my sneaks in the gutter and my back against a bent and battered street sign in front of our house on Salem Street. The night before, near the beginning of my junior year at Shortridge High, an obsession to sing a certain song struck me like a firebolt direct-delivered from destiny. Despite a forced six months of piano lessons at fourteen my mom insisted every child should have, I’d shown no musical inclination or interest, let alone talent. Other than sports, and a compulsive and bewildering preoccupation with girls, high school had been a big disappointment and waste of time to me. From the moment I’d stepped through Shortridge’s massive, two-story entryway I sensed the danger of losing what nebulous adolescent identity I contained in the milling crowd of 2200 kids crammed together under those 18 foot ceilings. I’d struggled for two years to find my bearings. Homework was especially irritating. After school, I needed to be out looking for a pickup game, working on my jump shot, figuring out how to get taller, quicker, faster. Making the school basketball team in Indianapolis was the only sure way to recognition and acceptance. So far, I’d been hopelessly unsuccessful.

Last night on the radio though, while working on Spanish translations, the song I’d heard was so neat it captured my entire imagination. Tomorrow, I decided then, I’m going to learn how to sing that song.

This morning my plan of attack was to catch the Baldwin Brothers; Virgil, always called Ginko, and his brother Patrick, on their way to school. I’d chosen these neighborhood friends to help me sing this song without a clue of whether they knew how to sing or not. They didn’t, but after I put on a full court press to convince them on the short walk to school they agreed to try. And fortunately, they knew someone who did, and better yet he was in the Madrigal Singers, the school’s elite choir. When Hastings Smith Jr, agreed to help, the four of us would form my first singing group, the Aristocrats and my life would begin to change. I would meet the teenage dream girl who would eventually become my wife and I would finally feel, for the first time, that I’d find my own place in life to stand.

But before all that could happen, I needed to figure out a way to learn the song that possessed me. At first, during morning classes I hadn’t yet put the happy coincidence of my mom being in the record business together with my latest obsession, but before lunchtime, I realized I might have an ally.

“I need to find a song I heard on the radio last night, Mom,” I told her sitting in the kitchen in front of the formidable lunch she’d had waiting. I’d demolished my sandwich half, started in on the soup and was already eyeing the steamy bread pudding she’d just set out. Mom made the best puddings. “Anyway, since you work in a record store and all — would you help me find it?”

“Really?” She said, pulling up a kitchen chair and picking up her half of egg salad sandwich. “I didn’t know you liked music Larry.” This was always a special time for us when she fixed lunch for me, and we could talk together. Or, if she was busy, I could read one of my science fiction paperbacks, secure in her nearby presence.

“Oh it’s okay I guess. But I really just like this one song. I’m going to sing it with some of the neighborhood guys.” I looked up to see if Mom thought my idea was crazy. I always seemed to be off on some project or other, diverse as a registered Civil Defense club, outfitted by the US Government and the local army surplus store, prepared to protect our families from the imminent radioactive fallout whenever the Reds decided to bomb us, to organizing a pre-teen shoplifting operation, that had been nipped in the bud and got my behind stung.

“What‘s the name of the song?” Mom asked. “Do you know who the artist is who sang on the record? What kind of song is it? Some of this new music, the “rock and roll” style of music?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, considering her questions. “It was on the radio when I was doing my homework upstairs. Could be rock and roll I guess, but it’s kinda slow, so I’m not sure if that counts. I call it the Silhouettes song. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the radio because, you know, I was concentrating so hard on my Spanish,” I watched her eyes to see how that was going over. “So I missed the name of the song.

“But they kept singing ‘silhouettes, silhouettes,’ over and over again, so I think that’s gotta be part of the song’s name. It means,” I concentrated, ‘the outline of a solid figure as cast by its shadow’. I got the librarian to help me look it up during study hall. It’s not spelled the way it sounds you know, so I wrote it down for you.”

“Fortunately for you, I know what a silhouette is so you definitely came to the right mom,” she said, smiling. I grinned back. “And you probably don’t know the song’s label either?”  No, I didn’t. This was getting complicated but I remained determined. “But you did hear the record on the radio so we can assume it must be popular,” she considered for a moment.”Come by the record store after school and we’ll see what we can find. Now finish up your pudding and get back to school on time.”

My mom had begun working at the 34th Street Record Shop record store a few weeks before I’d heard the Silhouettes song. I thought it was odd, and a little unsettling for her to leave the house to go someplace to work back then, even though it was a block from home and part time. Maybe we needed the extra money, it was about when Dad was deciding whether to open his own insurance agency or not. Whatever the reason she seemed to like working there.

“YOUR MOM SAYS you’re here to buy a recording this afternoon,” the lady in the flowery dress behind the counter smiled like she thought I was a little kid. “Your first, I think she said, is that right?” I nodded and so did she. A crisp, peppery smell permeated the store; posters and pictures on the walls displayed what I guessed were music people. “Well I’ll let your mother help you find what you’re looking for.” The woman swiveled toward the back of the shop.

“Ivy, I believe your good-looking young man is here for you,” she said. This was embarrassing. I wasn’t her good-looking young man; I was her son for Pete’s sake.

“Hi Larry,” said Mom,“ coming to the counter. It was strange to see her working in a shop. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“Uh, hi Mom,” I said.

“Are you here to look for your record?” Well, yeah, I thought sarcastically. But I nodded, going along with everything. “Okay, well step over here, please.”

Mom came out from behind the long counter, past the cash register, and walked to where tables with pockets stretched to the front window. “These bins here,” she said pointing to a row of labeled folders holding recordings, “these are 78 rpm records I’ve been clearing out. See how they’re numbered from one to ten?” Yes, I could see that. “Well, these are the top ten most popular recordings of single songs as listed in Billboard Magazine. A lot of people want to buy what’s most popular at the moment, this way they can easily tell.”

“Is my Silhouettes song in there,” I asked eagerly.

“No, but here’s what’s interesting,” she said, showing me some empty folders stacked on the floor.” We used to display the top twenty-five 78 rpm records before I took these out to store in the back.” She pointed to where she’d been working.

“So my Silhouettes song is over there, then,” I said confidently.

“No no, it’s not in that stack either,” she said crisply, walking a little further along the row of bins. “Here are the new-style 45 rpm records. We only used to display the top ten 45 rpm records, but the other part of my job today was to add fifteen more folders so we can rack the top twenty-five single 45’s; that’s according to Billboard Magazine, of course. Do you know what that means, Larry?”

“My Silhouettes song is here?” I said hopefully.

“45 rpm single records are becoming more popular than 78 rpm records. That’s what it means,” Mom said with satisfaction. “And I think that’s a very interesting trend, don’t you?”

I stared at her. What could she be thinking? Did I miss something? Maybe there isn’t any Silhouettes record. “Crimalnitly, Mom, what about my record? Couldn’t you find the Silhouettes song?” I said, in horror.

“Well, let’s consider this for a moment. Now that the twenty five most popular 45 rpm records are in these bins,” Mom said, sounding a lot like one of my dumb teachers. “And since we don’t have any 78 rpm records with the word silhouettes in their title, maybe we can find your record in the 45’s.” She smiled at me, and hope was renewed. “I thought you might like to look.”

“Sure Mom, I’ll look,” I said as I rushed to sort through the records in the slots. “Here’s one, Singing the Blues”, nope, Party Doll, uh-uh” I muttered as I pawed down through Pat Boone, Elvis Presley, Debbie Reynolds, Buddy Holly until in the bin marked, number 11, I found it.  “Silhouettes,” I reverently breathed out the oddly spelled word. ”By The Rays; on Cameo Records. Right here Mom. I found it.”

“Well, let’s make sure,” she said very professionally snatching the record in its pristine white paper sleeve out of my hand, and starting back across the store.

“But Mom,” I tried to point out trailing after her. “It does say Silhouettes you know, right there on the record.”

“Yes, but in here,” she said, opening the door to something like a public phone booth on the opposite wall. “You’ll know for sure because you can listen to your selection before you buy it. Lots of songs might have the word silhouettes in them; it is kind of a romantic word, don’t you think?” She smiled and drew me into the booth. She slipped headphones over my ears and all the sound in the world disappeared. I glanced up to see her put the record on a turntable, and it’s arm descended silently onto the vinyl plastic. A scratching sound like a hamster might make, broke the deafening silence, and then my Silhouettes song began playing, sounding better — much, much better than on the radio. I stared up at Mom. She was watching my surprised grin. She was enjoying herself, and that made me smile even wider.

Blog Party for BAND, memoir of A Naked Car Thief

Larry-photo-stillnakedHi, I’m Larry J. Dunlap, and I’m introducing my memoir BAND, memoir of A Naked Car Thief. I’ve been writing since the late seventies when I was in the business side of music. I did artist reviews and a cartoon strip for local music magazines then. Wrote my first story, a science fiction tale about built around a play-by-mail space empire game I was addicted to about then, too. I began professional technical writing after I’d gotten involved in technical training, eventually writing for Fortune 100 companies on contract. In recent years as the press of professional life lessened, I have returned to something I knew I’d have to do before embarking on any other authorial projects, a remembrance of my transition from a young Midwestern man/boy dreamer to a creator’s life in the warm California sunshine via a mid-sixties rock band. An excerpt from this memoir was published in an Inlandia Institute anthology last November.

I’ve always known it was likely I’d be a writer since I have been such an inveterate and addicted reader. For many reasons, I never attempted to write for a wide audience until relatively recently. During the six plus years I was leader of the rock band that grew out of my homespun vocal group in Indianapolis, I formed incredible bonds with my band mates. When we gathered to reminisce, we’d always remind ourselves of the interesting adventures we’d survived. I was always prompted by the guys saying, “Man, you have got to write a book about this.” As the years went by I heard from several of them saying that it was hard to talk about what we’d accomplished because no one could relate to their memories. When I could finally devote myself to this project I wanted to rectify that impression. I realized that vignettes, told out of context, sound like either bragging or disconnection. Telling our story would put it all in context. However, with our fading and differing memories there was only one way to do that, as a personal memoir. The more I settled into the project the more I realized I’d come to the right conclusion. I needed to write about my story, how I felt, what it meant to me, and let the rest of it shine through as I remembered and retold it.

My memoir starts on New Year’s Eve of 1964, though Book cover, BAND, memoir of A Naked Car Thiefchapter one covers a dangerous and violent night relating to the near hit record our vocal group in Indianapolis almost accidentally had in our nearby big city, Chicago. As a husband of two wonderful little boys and my high school sweetheart wife I loved, I was struggling with finding my creative place in the world. The environment around us in the structured world we grew up in and the hard line taken by our parents finally blew up when the group and I tried to turn ourselves into a working band. Though the first incarnation failed, a miraculous event sealed my fate and I was off to California to join my old buddies in a desperate attempt to create a rock band within a week in the seething musical chaos of San Francisco’s east bay dive bars. At the cost of the wrenching destruction of my family, the journey began that would carry us into adventure after adventure, to the top of San Francisco’s night life, through Hollywood, famous personal managers and record producers, to the heights of Las Vegas’ rock scene and the top of the largest Vegas resorts. A side trip to the Hawaiian islands found us performing for American warriors on R&R during the height of the Vietnam war, where I met a Hawaiian girl who touched me as deeply as my first love. As our status as performing stars rose, though we struggled with recording success, I was certain I’d reached the pinnacle of happiness and success. But there were undercurrents beyond my control that would bring me to the edge of sanity and the end of the music. Somehow I’d have to save my band, hope to save my new family, and try not to lose myself.

I’m currently working my way through the second edit. Memoir is a special form that I’ve come to really appreciate; I learned a lot from Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, and Candy Girl, by Diablo Cody, and read many, many others as I prepped for, and continue to write. I’ve adopted a narrative style including dialog to my memoir because that’s how I remember it even though it was so long ago. We moved through a time of great historical and cultural change the background behind the events of the story; there is no need to embellish the dramatic arc at all, it just is what it was. I hope other memoirists see their story as vividly as I see mine. I’m looking forward to finding more examples of this style to continue to inspire me.

Unfortunately, most memoir readers and many memoir authors see them as tearjerkers, while there’s certainly a low point in my story, so low that it feels more like black humor to me, I’m not looking for sympathy or redemption. Personally, I hate saccharine sweet stories. In my eyes I’m just trying to recount what I think of as a great adventure that I was lucky enough to be a part of, and survive — without judgment. To do this requires honing the skills and dramatic arts of authors of fiction. I hope from the Memoir’s Discussion Group on LinkedIn to be influenced by others who approach their life adventures in this way, and to be a source of influence to others in the style I’ve chosen.

General George and the Ventures

The Ventures Instrumental Guitar Band

The Ventures

When Dave, Mac and I first met Les, we didn’t realize what a good singer he was. He had an instrumental guitar band called the MG’s, who were highly influenced by Nokie Edwards and the Ventures. They were playing weekend sock hop dances with Bouncin’ Bill Baker for WIBC radio in Indianapolis, where they also backed our vocal group for a few appearances. Later, the MG’s backed us as the Reflections in our first studio sessions. When the vocal group made its first attempt to become a band, Les joined the three of us as a singer, and later became Stark Naked and the Car Thieves’ guitarist and vocal arranger. I do remember what a big deal it was when Nokie Edwards came in to a club to see us.

I just recently discovered that the Ventures’ first drummer, when they recorded Walk Don’t Run, and practically still a garage band, was George Babbit. Apparently, he was too young to play in many of the venues they were booked into when their record started to break. He entered the U.S. Air Force  and went on to become a four star general.

If your love rock ‘n roll, and remember the Ventures, I invite you to click on the link below to watch this reunion. I think it’s pretty cool and I enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully you will too, and it brings you a smile.

General George Babbit and the Ventures reunited

Stark Naked Indianapolis Homecoming 1968

After leaving Hawaii and stopping in L.A. long enough to do the Steve Allen show, we flew to Indianapolis for four weeks at the Holyoke club in Indianapolis, our first trip home since I had left for California three years earlier. Stark Naked and the Car Thieves was a big success by most considerations. Most of the guys from here seemed to bask in the admiration of friends and family. But whatever personal redemption I had hoped to find in Indianapolis didn’t materialize. No one in Indianapolis would recognize our name; to them, if they remembered us at all, it would have been as the Reflections. Our new record, apparently breaking in the east wasn’t getting local airplay. None of my school boy friends or antagonists came to the club, either moved away or indifferent. Despite the warm welcome from my folks and little sister there was unexpected turmoil as I revisited old landmarks and haunts reigniting bittersweet memories of my lost wife and sons; all complicated by the magnet that drew me four thousand miles away toward the islands we had recently left.

Members of Stark Naked and the Car Thieves at Indianapolis 500 Speedway 1968Nevertheless one of the highlights was the group visiting the 500 Mile Speedway just a few miles from the house where I grew up and could hear the race cars growling through each May as they circled the track. Les (second from left), me (Larry, second from right) and Dave (right) were excited to show this amazing facility to Mickey (left) and Leonard and Mac (not in picture), where nearly 300,000 people, less than a week earlier, had jammed into the stadia and infield for the 1968 race.

What is a memoir? And why I chose to use it.

Last August I began writing “A Naked Car Thief” as a remembrance of the years I was a member of our band, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves. Prior to that, I spent about four months in intense research and writing certain scenarios that I vividly remembered like when we opened Nero’s Nook at Caesars Palace. I was testing to see if I could develop the skill to write something worth the effort it would take and if I could actually dedicate the time and effort and will to finish it. Though I have previously worked as a technical writer professionally for over eight years for three Fortune 100 companies, started an unfinished novel and a few short stories (one published in a game sci-fi magazine), I had never taken on anything like the scope of this project. Of the number of books I have absorbed in trying to develop this skill set, I realize that I should make clear the expectations and limits to what should be expected in a memoir, what it means for my goal, and why I chose this form. I am quoting below from one of the influential books that is guiding me.

“Memoir is a rendering of lived life, as filtered through memory and the wider net of the needs of narrative. Memoir just tells the story, no explicit thesis here. Memoir examines a life, a self, and does so through a period of time, say early childhood or the month you spent with Grandpa in France. Like novels and short stories, memoirs tend to operate in time and space, tend to have a story arc, rising action leading to a climax, a balance of scene and summary. A reflective voice might tell the story, might analyze events, but it tends to stay in the background, tends to let the action do the work. Research can support the storytelling, but the point isn’t a display of facts or information. A memoir lays out the evidence of a life, lets the reader make the conclusions. The mode ranges from pure, plain storytelling to more reflective storytelling. Some memoirs get so reflective and analytical that they move close to and overlap with the personal essay. A few pages, a book, a few volumes, memoir is an expansible form.”

— Roorbach, Bill (2008-06-17). Writing Life Stories: How To Make Memories Into Memoirs, Ideas Into Essays And Life Into Literature.

I chose this form specifically because I am dealing with a time now well over 40 years ago, where memory does it’s best but cannot mirror specifics. Time and again, after relating vignettes about our group’s adventures people would say “you ought to write a book”, even sometimes a band mate. But as I got further into the project I realized that the story I had to tell, was really about my specific adventures through the lens described above; the band’s story and the story of the times and places had to become the background of my story. It had to become my story, not the band’s.

At first it was for a practical reason, it had become clear that some members of the group had glaring differences in interpreting the memories of our shared experiences. As my goal was to get at the truths that were seminal to my growth through those years; accuracy was bound to take a hit so I dedicated those early months to research and I continue to do spot research during the writing to be as accurate as possible. I also don’t want to take the stance of invalidating anyone else’s recollections so by personalizing them as mine and mine alone, though I make every effort  to find common ground, I am only responsible to being true to my own sense of this experience.

But more importantly I have come to realize in this much more personal approach I am uncovering things that go beyond the band and into my relationships with family and friends with far-reaching consequence. I also realized that I wanted to write a story, a book, that anyone could pick up and read for the adventure and journey of several fairly ordinary guys who combined their talents  in a leap of faith, and ended up experiencing extraordinary events at extraordinary places at an extraordinary time, the middle to the end of the 1960’s, in music and culture.

The Indianapolis Times 1964

The Indianapolis Times

My last job in Indianapolis was at the Indianapolis Times. I was hired in 1963 to sell classified advertising. I didn’t realize it at the time but it was a dead end job because Scripps-Howard had already announced they planned to discontinue the paper. The Indianapolis Star, a morning paper, had already gobbled up the Indianapolis News, portending the change in the business environment. You needed to know the news before your working day not leisurely looking at in the evening.

The venerable Indianapolis Times, also an afternoon paper, held on even longer than it should have to try and keep Indianapolis from becoming a one newspaper town. Even then it was realized how dangerous it was to have only one news source (FoxNews crack addicts are you listening?).

[Location: 300 block W. Maryland Street at Capitol Avenue, Indianapolis (Marion County, Indiana)]

Life at a Dying Newspaper

I was excited at the prospect of working for a newspaper at first but my department had realized long before I arrived that there was no future in working hard at the Times. We met at 8 o’clock in the morning for a half an hour sales meeting, usually including donuts and coffee (some people surreptitiously adding a little kick to their coffee even that early). Then everyone left, supposedly to work on sales for the classified ads. I was told to ‘cold call’ car lots, gas stations, radio stations, local businesses, etc. to drum up sales but within a couple of weeks some of the old timers told me not to waste my time. I would get ads from the companies that just wanted to be in every publication but I wouldn’t get any new ads because everyone knew the Time wouldn’t be in business much longer and circulation was way down.

Everyone in the department except me was split into two groups. The golfers, who left immediately for the links after the morning sales meeting, and the rest, who left for the bars. Around 4:30 everyone would gather again for the final sales meeting before leaving for the day. That could be a hoot as the barflys could be raucous and unruly and the golfers told outrageous lies about their golf game or sexual adventures.

For me, I found that I could slip into a library and read science fiction novels or meet up with some of the guys I sang with, most of whom were chronically unemployed. Often there were enough of us to get in some a cappella practice time. 1964 was the year we had a close brush with fame after recording “In The Still of The Nite” and our trips to Chicago to support the record. In the first few months of the year we still hoped we might be able to keep recording but the Indy Sound and Jan Hutchens Productions died as quickly as it had risen. It was on one such day in the fall that I recruited Mac Brown from the Casinos to come and sing with us. At our New Year’s Eve party on the last day of 1964, knowing that the day the Times would close was near I agreed to a brash proposal to try our luck as The Checkmates (precursor to Stark Naked and the Car Thieves) singing in night clubs. So in early February of 1965 I gave notice at the Times and tried my luck as a bar singer. Though that experience was a complete disaster life was never the same again.

Display Artist

One of the best things I learned at the Times was from the display artist. I would bring him display ads and he would draw them up right in front of me. He was half cartoonist and have illustrator. His main tools were a metal ruler and a #2 pencil. He would use the ruler to tear through newspaper pages and his pencil to block out new art, write in new copy using the ruler edge, and illustrate where and when needed. I’ve always been influenced by his rough and ready skill and talent even though the medium has changed to a digital world. I still keep a couple of steel rulers around for when I work on art in article, brochure, or book form even in this digital world.