...this post finds me in Ohio, my point of origin and as i tap away at the keyboard i am at my parent's old house, now owned by my younger brother...more specifically, i am in the basement, sitting in the exact spot where my first band, The Nite Riders used to practice, well, that is when we weren't in Keith's attic or Wes's garage...Wes was ceremoniusly asked to leave the band cuz he was a pain in the ass control freak spoiled doctor's son whose gear was way better than his ability...enter Steve...much better musician and singer...unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Keith's parents made him quit the band because his grades at school weren't up to snuff...Jack becomes new drummer guy and the band changes it's name to Climbfree...i always liked that name...there were all sorts of goofy band names at that time...Strawberry Alarm Clock, Chocolate Watchband, Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, ? and the Mysterians, and many others that slip my mind at the moment, but in the spectrum of things i thought "Climbfree" was a pretty cool name...that band hung together for four years until i graduated and moved away to attend art school...
...i just received an e-mail the other day that the former dean of the college passed away...he was a mean old bastard thirty some years ago...i shudder to think how nasty he may have become...but then again when he stopped teaching, perhaps he became a nicer person...he taught a class called "Color Concept" and it was a required class for all incoming Freshmen...and The Dean was brutal to almost everyone who walked through the door...the class met one day in seven, monday morning, a perfect way to fuck up a good week...we would spend days and days on our weekly assignments, our little artistic experiments in color, and with fear and trepidation we would enter the lecture hall and hand them over to be critiqued...all the pieces would be lined up on easels across the stage and The Dean would pace back and forth madly, always in a charcoal gray suit and powder blue shirt...he would pick up someone's artwork, yell derisively about it, "TOO BLUE!!" ...or too this or not enough that...one day he actually screamed "YOU MUST EAT YOUR ART!!" and bit the piece he was holding...and after his brief and brutal critiques, he would fling our little masterpieces into the air, so by the end of his lecture the stage would be littered with paintings and drawings which would have footprints from being tromped on as he yelled and stomped to and fro...every week, you could see guys in the shadows of the lecture hall, restraining one another from leaping on stage and kicking his crazy ass, thus ending our educational experiences...
...anyway...rest in peace, Dean...maybe now you're a nice guy...