Almost Leap Day 1988

It was a warm day in Lawrence, Kansas on February 26th, 1988. The title card says February 29th and I based that on the in-camera date stamp, but that was a Monday and it was definitely a Friday here. In a part of the tape I did not include in this edit, I passed by Bullwinkle's (a bar) and the place was packed, a common occurrence on Friday in college town, but not on Monday afternoon, not even on Leap Day. Plus nobody I interviewed on camera mentioned Leap Day. That's the official Leap Day disclaimer, now on with the party.

My friends Dave and Rob threw an impromptu gathering at their apartment at 11th and Tennessee in honor of the weather. Dan correctly predicted that the Jayhawks will win the Basketball National Championship. He received a vision from his medallion. Kurt M. stopped by with a pack of smokes and did his best Marilyn Monroe. Kiki and Kevin cuddled with a python. Chris made sweet love to the camera. Rob checked out the 1988 Winter Olympics and Katherina Witt did a jump in time with AC/DC. I can't believe it's been 20 years (give or take three days).

Video Capture #1: 600 Block of Mass

I figured out how to capture still images from my clunky PC video editing software. I thought about the picture in my previous post from Google maps and I remembered that my friend Alex and I shot some footage of downtown Lawrence in 1986. Let's compare still images from that videotape with Google map screen shots. Here's the first comparison:

From left to right: The vacant Trailways bus terminal, junior achievement office, and former Lawrence Opera House, 600 Block of Massachusetts street, May 1986.

The Free State Brewery, La Prima Tazza coffee house, and Liberty Hall, circa August 2007. Click on the photos for larger views.

Go Street With Google Maps

Google added several more cities to the street view version of Google maps this week. Lawrence, KS Overland Park, KS and the Kansas City metro are covered. You can see a picture of a location when you enter an address in Google Maps. My friend Michael left Lawrence in 1989 and never returned. He moved to New York and a return trip to Kansas isn't likely anytime soon. Now he can cruise the streets of Lawrence as if he were there, and the way they captured the data with 360 degree clarity is impressive. Lawrence photos were snapped in August 2007.

The software isn't flawless, addresses in the maps application are only approximate in the street view pop-up flash player, for example, and some locations have been excluded or overlooked, or kluged. I tried to cruise past William Burroughs' last home on Learnard Avenue and it skipped to the next block for no apparent reason. These are minor complaints. The body of work, the scope of this project is unreal, and I hope Google will keep distinct versions archived for historic reasons. I'd like to cruise 2007 Lawrence again, say, in 50 years. Approximate virtual time travel.

I zoomed over to Kansas City and found my current home. It was a sunny day when the Google Street View cruiser with the 360 degree camera strapped to the roof, drove past my drive (spot it in street view anytime by panning down). Oddly, all three of my childhood homes in the Roeland Park and Fairway area were not covered. The neighborhood between Roe & Nall at 55th street isn't included. I lived in the 5400 block of Rosewood from 1969 to 1974. We moved to Fairway between my 3rd and 4th grade year near St. Agnes church. In 1976, we moved three blocks west past the Shawnee Indian mission. That neighborhood is also absent from the google street view. A small omission when you consider the scope of the entire project, but a sizeable loss for me personally, or should I say for that time traveler of the future who might like to see what my stomping grounds looked like in 2007.

Salad Dressing Days

I sublet a room at a place called The Hippy Club back in 1986. The boys named it The Hippy Club before I got there and though I stayed only two months, it was a summer arrangement, I called it The Hippy Club almost immediately, and never questioned their judgment about the name, or their reasons for adopting that moniker though none of them were hippies. Most of us aspired to be punk rockers, and perhaps the name was an ironic commentary on our true musical interests. The club part of the name made more sense. There were household traditions, some that I didn't understand at first, like the mantle top display of celebrity footwear. But others I came to appreciate, and even instigate, like eating the evening meal in front of an open refrigerator. Oh, those were heady times my friend. We drank hot sauce straight from the bottle and dropped fresh produce down our shorts. Somebody washed the dishes, but not always. We lived in the moment.

We pledged our loyalty to one another, flaunted our access to fresh fruit and electricity, and attended summer school with a nod and a wink. I suppose every group of college guys that ever rented a tumble-down house together imagined their little traditions, nicknames, and rituals set the standard for higher learning hi-jinx. The Hippy Club was a cool place to live, even cooler when we dined full-frontal with the Swiss cheese and the mayonnaise that pretended to be salad dressing.

That was over 20 years ago. Surely you will understand, in this work-a-day world of ours, how a button-down guy like me with a penchant for hyphenation, might long for the days when a carry-out entree tasted better while on bended knee under the seven-watt glow of an open refrigerator door.

Nocturnal Banzai

Talk about basement tapes. It's the band And/Or with "Neighbors" - a local group that shot a local video and aired it locally. Thanks to Jason Willis for sharing this link with me, and for saving the tape for so many years. I've been waiting for some stalwart soul to unearth a bit from Lawrence's answer to MTV, TV-30. It features many Lawrence locales including shots of the Daisy Hill dorms, Johnny's bar, and the abandoned frat house on 9th street. Look closely for a cameo by the Olde Hip-eye, Matthew Moore, as the angry biker playing pool. Also, the clip ends with a glimpse of Mike Chitwood's Nocturnal Banzai - his segment on the all video channel.

Ode to Kansas Highway 10

There's a fascinating little stretch of highway between Kansas City and Lawrence called K-10. Johnson county sons and daughters who enrolled at K.U. were acquainted with the divided roadway that connected the southwest side of Lawrence with the outskirts of Olathe and Overland Park. It may surprise you that the 45 minute ride inspired a number of musical efforts. Chuck Mead's band The Homestead Grays sang about 285 Desoto, a highway exit back in the 1980s that has since disappeared. A few years later, a local band went one better when they named themselves after a similar sign on K-10, henceforth known as Kill Creek. Ditto for The Eudoras, who adopted the name of an entire town six miles east of Lawrence on the well travelled roadway. Most recently, Lawrence/Kansas City trio OK Jones released a song called, well, K-10.

Aimee's Coffee House, December 2nd

Come to the Kansas City Voices poetry and prose reading at 7pm Saturday, December 2nd at Aimee's coffee house, 1025 Massachusetts street, Lawrence. Here's someone I heard (and saw) at last year's gig. She was good.