The Common Vein

Post High School

Some of my doings since graduating high school. First a stint in Walvis Bay defending our borders. Last week Sam reminded me that he was there as well. I was a useless soldier but an excellent sharpshooter (where that came from I have no idea). Then on to Wits where I majored in betoging and minored in hippiedom. I also gave up my ambition to do law and instead gravitated towards journalism and politics.

I came to the US to do a Masters in Journalism at Penn State and while in the midst of that my parents showed up and announced that the family was moving here, specifically to Los Angeles. After graduating there I moved here and have been here ever since. I started in journalism, drifted into the film business, then the music business, then the computer business where I started a mail order software company in 1984. It grew to about 60 employees and imploded in the mid 90?s when the industry changed and
marginalized software only dealers.

I then started a graphics design/invitation company with my wife, We separated a few years ago. I have been doing insurance (life and investments) since then but am also drifting back into the movie/music/writing world which is where my passion lies.

My current writing project ties into the themes of nostalgia we have been discussing in the thread. It started out as a book about the World Cup tentatively titled, ?Heroic failures and gross injustices: futility and frustration at the World Cup.? It?s all about the losers, focusing on stories of teams that have exceeded expectations but still lost in the end. The story about Australia (I have already written Sam about that) involves a witchdoctor in Mozambique who did what he was paid to do for the Aussies who then stiffed him on the payment. It took years to remove the curse during which Australia always fell one game short of going to the finals. Once the curse was lifted, they qualified only to lose to Italy in the round of 16 on a dive which resulted in a penalty in the last minute of injury time. Other great stories are Trinidad, Holland (1974), England, almost all the time, Hungary in 1954, Algeria who were knocked out in 1982 by West Germany and Austria colluding to construct the one result that would put them through at the expense of Algeria.

Anyway I ran out of time to get it done before 2010. Through a South African publishing connection the project has metastasized into a personal memoir of growing up in SA, playing soccer (not very well), my grandparents and their arrival in SA, being a soccer fan and culminating in an expat returning to SA for the World Cup next year and writing about the event as well as SA today. Part of it will be to revisit Aberdeen, in the Cape where my grandparents settled and where my father was born. The town has obviously changed but many things also have stayed the same. I also recently discovered my grandfather?s restored tombstone and a photo of it on the internet which brings things full circle. I am currently writing the first part which is my, my parents and my grandparent?s stories and hope to sell the idea on this. A publisher in SA has seen my writing and likes what I have done and is looking to see more.

I?m enjoying the memories in the thread and recall going to the Rand Stadium on Saturday afternoons with Lindsay and his dad. I also remember watching Tottenham Hotspurs playing SA in 1962 in the freezing cold, sitting between my father and Dr. Beron. It?s amazing that I knew far more about what was happening in the English 4th division than in the black leagues that were being played less than 20 miles from where we lived.

Terry, BTW, I was also a Durban City fan and recall listening to LM radio at 6PM for the results on Sundays. I?ve always gone against the grain in most things and refused to be another Northern Suburb Highlands Park fan.

My mother told me this story about my first vacation in Cape Town when I was 2. On the second morning she found me in the bathroom filling every bucket and glass I could find with water. I told her that I saw everyone taking water out of the ocean the day before so I was going to put some of it back. I?ve been tilting at windmills ever since then.

Memories have been flooding back. Eric?s mother and my mother played bridge together as partners and represented South Africa in the bridge Olympics in NY in 1964. On the way back to SA they hooked up with Ashley?s parents and traveled Europe together. Eric and I spent much time together and went to an Afrikaans farm in Natal in our early teens. He remembered the farm but not the incident I recently reminded him about. It involved vodka, hypnosis and a rich naïve kid from Rhodesia. It ended with the kid lying butt naked on the icy cold concrete floor pissing into the air when the head of the camp walked into the room and turned on the light. It was the last night in the camp so were weren?t sent home early. I never did learn much Afrikaans. Most of the Afrikaans I learned there should not be repeated in mixed company.

I did learn that ?Cramer jou fokkin kommunis? generally meant I would be doing push-ups soon thereafter.

Much more to follow ? keep it coming.

Claim to Fame

My claim to fame. Way back in the early 80?s a friend of mine who worked at Warner Brothers Records asked me to compile a tape of South African music for Paul Simon. I duly did and the rest is history. Another friend of mine claims credit for making the tape for Paul Simon but as i turned him on to the music in the first place I can still claim credit.
NPR (public TV) did a series on great albums. One of them was Graceland ? in the show Paul Simon talks about listening to a tape passed on to him by someone at Warner Bros of SA music.
Bob Johnston, the producer I have been working with also produced Sounds of Silence, Parsley Sage etc and Bookends. He told me about spending 5 days in the studio testing the sound made by different empty soda bottles to satisfy Paul Simon?s perfectionism. Bob Dylan was just the opposite ? he would pick up a guitar and start playing a tune and the rest of the musicians would have to jump in and figure it out as they went along.

Mom ?

I have a similar story when my mother passed away about 7 years ago. My parents had been out visiting friends. My mother went downstairs to get a nosh. As she started climbing the stairs a massive pulmonary embolism hit her. She tumbled down the stairs and was probably gone within a minute. My father found her at 6 in the morning. He called me and my sister and we rushed up to the house. We were there much of the day and returned later that evening as family and friends gathered.

We took our dog with us. We sat in the living room. From the far end of the sofa you could see where her body had lain. The dog stood on the arm of the sofa and for at least three hours sat with her eyes glued to the spot. Nothing would move her.

She passed way on December 6. She was 82 and had lost most of her sight by then from a condition known as macular degeneration. We found out later from her doctor that she had stopped taking her medication and told him that she would be gone before the end of the year. She smoked from the age of 15 to the day she passed away 67 years later proving that smoking cigarettes is not good for your health.