(at left-members of the cast of MTSU's 89 production of HAIR!)
Wow...I mean really...WOW! Time goes by so freaking fast! This little shot will be 20 years old
next May! My friend Tracey posted some old shots of all of us MTSU folk after the recent
reunion. This is a shot of some of us backstage during the run of HAIR in the Spring of 89. Strangely enough, I would adopt the hippie / mountain man look a number of times after this (for plays and just cause I was too lazy to shave!) In the front row and to the right of me is one of my best friends since childhood, Dave. Dave and I met at a showing of STAR WARS (no lie!) when we were 11 and 12 respectively. We've been pals ever since (despite the occasional dust up). This means I've known him, and been friends, now for THIRTY years! Again...all I have is WOW!
This shot is a little more bittersweet. To START with, there's the ensemble. (Why is it that my response to every shot of me from the 80's/early 90's begins with "WTF am I WEARING???) Then there's also the guy to my left. This is a shot from my old bachelor bad in the boro. The fellow is one of my former roomies, and at the time best buds, Chris. Chris is no longer with us, and his passing was incredibly painful. Chris was a brilliant man, and one of the most fun people I've ever had the pleasure of being around (well, SOMETIMES he was...) and it pains me that he's not still here to share my impending midlife crisis, and that my children will never know him. I had no pictures of the two of us up till now, and I am incredibly grateful to have this one. Thanks, Trace!
I was never a big picture taker in my youth. I was the third of three children, and where their are albums full of my older siblings, there exist about three shots of me in my infancy. So I guess because of that I never valued it. My wife, on the other hand, has about a metric ton of pictures from her youth. I envy her that...and I wish I had been smart enough to buy a damned camera back then...
So here's my question to you...what were the 80's like FOR YOU??? Love em? Hate em? Don't remember 'em????
I'll post later...I have a baby to tend to at the moment!!!
4 comments:
The eighties were damned good to me. It began by doing a play at the Ahmanson Theatre in LA, THE CRUCIFER OF BLOOD, with Charlton Heston as Sherlock Holmes and Jeremy Brett as Dr. Watson. I and another actor were the first two actors to break the open Equity call and get cast in a play there.
In '82, I was off to London, England (for the first of many times since), to see two scripts of mine become my first two films to actually get made,Sherlock Holmes again oddly enough, HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES & THE SIGN OF FOUR, starring the late, great Ian Richardson as Sherlock Holmes and a raft of great British actors...Denholm Elliott, Brian Blessed, Eleanor Bron, Ronald Lacey, Nicholas Clay, etc. I never had as much power as writer as I did on these films. People ASKED me if they could change a line.
In '83, WHODUNNIT, DARLING? won a play contest at Studio Players and was mounted, directed by Roger Leasor , starring Eric Johnson and Trish Clark, among others.
Back in LA, Julieanne finally came out in '84, THE FLY and PSYCHO III got made, I was married in '87, THE EBONY APE also premiered that year at the Opera House as an Actors Guild production, once again Starring Mr. Johnson as Holmes and Roger Leasor as Watson (you'll see this Sherlock Holmes theme running all through the eighties...Sherlock's been very, very good to me).
DOA, initially a great script, turned into a lousy film, also got made in '87.
I kept writing screenplays and getting paid obscenely for them, though several never saw the light of day. I bought my first house, first new car. All in all, a very productive and lucrative decade for me.
uhhh...I was with you all during the eighties. What was it like? It is all so fuzzy. Ahh Chris...I miss him too.
Early 80's. Highschool? Emphasis on HIGH. All the time. Terrible student, very undisciplined bass guitar player. Joined the Air Force. "Aim high" was the motto back then. I did. HIGH all the time (never at work). Got busted spent most of 87 in the Brig.
Moved to M'Boro in 88. Started college in fall 88. HIGH all the time. Finally got serious in the 90's.
i loved the 80's. it was a HIGH time. I had a bitchin' motorcycle. I was young, dumb and full of cum as they say.
My roguish reckless ways were very good life experience for me. I draw on that shit for my art.
I started out the 80's moving to Oklahoma City, as part of a vigilante troupe trying to revive the Oklahoma Theatre Center. Worked 20-hour days, slept in the prop storage room with hundreds of gigantic roaches, cleaned pigeon poop off the walkways, picked up after the drunks who hung out under the building, dodged tornadoes, and ate a lot of mac and cheese.
Then moved to Niagara Falls (step by step, inch by inch), where I froze my ass off and lived as far as possible from Love Canal.
Then moved to Lex, bought a house, got divorced, met my current spouse, and happily ever after.
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