Don’t You Boys Know Any Nice Songs?
(Part III of a Weird and Terrible Saga)
If you plan to study motion pictures and television, UCLA is one of the premier schools to attend. Unfortunately, due to the program’s stature, students cannot simply declare MPTV as their major, they must petition at the end of their sophomore year. The first quarter of my second year, I believed I had earned an A, B, and C. I had the order correct, but the grades were a C, D+, and F. This horrendous quarter GPA immediately placed me on the Subject to Dismissal List and doomed any chances of acceptance into the program. (I’d like to pause here and point out that by the end studies at UCLA I was on the Academic Dean’s List.) My goal was to write and direct, so given my desires and proven abilities, English seemed a natural major. I had no back-up plan.
Pat and Joe went to Cal, Jay went to school in Sacramento and Dave in Yuba City. I alone went 500 miles away to LA. On a whim I went to the parties on fraternity row during rush and ended up pledging Theta Delta Chi. It was a fortunate decision. Literally overnight I went from knowing no one to having 50 brothers.
Very early I made the decision to go to the Five Year Plan. UCLA operated on what they called ten-week “Trimesters,” but what everyone else called quarters. (There was an additional summer quarter.) Three classes per ten weeks over five years (excluding summer quarters, of course) added up to the exact number of units needed to graduate. Since I had the first four years covered, I only needed to come up with the cash for one year. It was much easier to both do well in school and have fun only taking three classes per quarter rather than four, so it was a relative no-brainer. I was totally immersed and totally in my element. After a period of adjustment, I learned how to balance academics and Epicurean excess (c.f. paragraph 1).
At the House I was variously called Greb, Grub, Grubs, Grubsteak, and Steak. (Not Meat, that carries a connotation for which I am unworthy.) I was not blessed with an immortal and immutable nickname like the Bee, the Goat, the Worm, the Latterell Brothers, Bert and Ernie, Swifty, Acid, F2A, and Vic the Stick. (Vic was also skinny.) During my time there I lived in the basement, in two different rooms upstairs, off the kitchen, and in the Wing by the pool. That last room we christened “The Clubhouse,” and it was the culmination of years of experience in debauchery. To increase floor space, our beds were platforms we called lofts attached to the ceiling. There was a flimsy wall separating two of the beds from the main living area. Under Swifty’s loft in the front room we built a bar. It was a grand curved structure. At one end the top hinged and flipped up to allow access behind it. There was a glass rack for stemware on the bottom of the loft, a refrigerator, a hotplate, a TV on a corner shelf, and a sink attached to the plumbing in the bathroom next door. Most mornings it was difficult to leave for class.
Story 1
The furniture is starting to get ragged in the House living room. Jack decides to do a good deed and acquire a fresh couch. He enlists a number of us, and we pile into his Toyota pickup and trek across town to USC. We cruise up and down fraternity row, finally stopping in front of the Sigma Kappa house. All is quiet, so we walk in the front door, pick up their couch, walk back outside, and slide it into the pickup. We believe we have gotten away clean, but someone must have raised an alarm because suddenly we are being pursued by patrol cars. Fortunately, they do not belong to LAPD; rather, they are SC’s private security, and we do not recognize their authority. We make it off campus and onto Santa Barbara. The SC cops are tenacious and continue the pursuit onto the city streets. As we race through stoplights, we realize LAPD must be en route by now, and escape is becoming imperative. The SC squad car maneuvers to our left, and the officers order Jack to pull over. He replies with a string of invective obscenities. The cops are focused more on us than the road, and they realize too late we have swerved onto the eastbound onramp for the Santa Monica Freeway. We get away, but the police come to the House later to investigate. We feign ignorance, claiming we have an activity planned with the UCLA Kappa Sigma sorority, went to SC to play a prank on their KΣs, and must have gotten confused and entered the ΣKs by mistake. We have to return the couch.
Story 2
We are on a roadtrip to Cal to watch UCLA play them in football. A group of us have rented a small RV, a Mini Winnie, for the trip. It is Sunday. Yesterday UCLA beat Cal 45-0, and we are still euphoric. Before beginning the all-day trip back, we park the RV on a street near a breakfast restaurant, and everyone prepares to disembark for a meal that will need to last the journey. Geoff and I look at each other aware that we are both low on funds. When the others depart, we pool our resources and realize we cannot both eat and buy more beer. We make the critical decision and walk to a liquor store. They have a beer called Buckhorn for $1.76 a six-pack. We spend every cent we have. When the others return, Tim’s girlfriend looks as if she is about to cry when she sees us enjoying a malted beverage. She turns to Tim and begs, “Tim, make them stop!” Tim asks, “What do you mean?” as he pops open a can. Somewhere on I-5, we begin to play “Fourth and Goal.” The game goes something like this: A group of us stand at the front end of the RV with our backs to the driving cabin. This is the defense. The offense charges from the other direction. The objective is for the ball carrier to launch himself into the endzone, which is the bed over the driving cabin. Swifty manages to maintain control of the vehicle in spite of the pitch and roll as the teams clash, and he ignores the sagging ceiling over his head whenever someone scores.
Besides a fine education, this period is significant for two reasons. First, it is when I made my closest friends for life: Art, Geoff, Matt, Armand, and Thom (in order of appearance). Wijambu began its own weird and terrible saga during this time, but that story is covered in detail in the Wijambu Who? pages. Suffice it to say I forever had a new family.
Second, I fell in love, and we got married immediately after college. This would prove to be a regrettable mistake primarily because things long bubbling beneath the surface were soon to begin bursting forth.
A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
(Part III of a Weird and Terrible Saga)
If you plan to study motion pictures and television, UCLA is one of the premier schools to attend. Unfortunately, due to the program’s stature, students cannot simply declare MPTV as their major, they must petition at the end of their sophomore year. The first quarter of my second year, I believed I had earned an A, B, and C. I had the order correct, but the grades were a C, D+, and F. This horrendous quarter GPA immediately placed me on the Subject to Dismissal List and doomed any chances of acceptance into the program. (I’d like to pause here and point out that by the end studies at UCLA I was on the Academic Dean’s List.) My goal was to write and direct, so given my desires and proven abilities, English seemed a natural major. I had no back-up plan.
Pat and Joe went to Cal, Jay went to school in Sacramento and Dave in Yuba City. I alone went 500 miles away to LA. On a whim I went to the parties on fraternity row during rush and ended up pledging Theta Delta Chi. It was a fortunate decision. Literally overnight I went from knowing no one to having 50 brothers.
Very early I made the decision to go to the Five Year Plan. UCLA operated on what they called ten-week “Trimesters,” but what everyone else called quarters. (There was an additional summer quarter.) Three classes per ten weeks over five years (excluding summer quarters, of course) added up to the exact number of units needed to graduate. Since I had the first four years covered, I only needed to come up with the cash for one year. It was much easier to both do well in school and have fun only taking three classes per quarter rather than four, so it was a relative no-brainer. I was totally immersed and totally in my element. After a period of adjustment, I learned how to balance academics and Epicurean excess (c.f. paragraph 1).
At the House I was variously called Greb, Grub, Grubs, Grubsteak, and Steak. (Not Meat, that carries a connotation for which I am unworthy.) I was not blessed with an immortal and immutable nickname like the Bee, the Goat, the Worm, the Latterell Brothers, Bert and Ernie, Swifty, Acid, F2A, and Vic the Stick. (Vic was also skinny.) During my time there I lived in the basement, in two different rooms upstairs, off the kitchen, and in the Wing by the pool. That last room we christened “The Clubhouse,” and it was the culmination of years of experience in debauchery. To increase floor space, our beds were platforms we called lofts attached to the ceiling. There was a flimsy wall separating two of the beds from the main living area. Under Swifty’s loft in the front room we built a bar. It was a grand curved structure. At one end the top hinged and flipped up to allow access behind it. There was a glass rack for stemware on the bottom of the loft, a refrigerator, a hotplate, a TV on a corner shelf, and a sink attached to the plumbing in the bathroom next door. Most mornings it was difficult to leave for class.
Story 1
The furniture is starting to get ragged in the House living room. Jack decides to do a good deed and acquire a fresh couch. He enlists a number of us, and we pile into his Toyota pickup and trek across town to USC. We cruise up and down fraternity row, finally stopping in front of the Sigma Kappa house. All is quiet, so we walk in the front door, pick up their couch, walk back outside, and slide it into the pickup. We believe we have gotten away clean, but someone must have raised an alarm because suddenly we are being pursued by patrol cars. Fortunately, they do not belong to LAPD; rather, they are SC’s private security, and we do not recognize their authority. We make it off campus and onto Santa Barbara. The SC cops are tenacious and continue the pursuit onto the city streets. As we race through stoplights, we realize LAPD must be en route by now, and escape is becoming imperative. The SC squad car maneuvers to our left, and the officers order Jack to pull over. He replies with a string of invective obscenities. The cops are focused more on us than the road, and they realize too late we have swerved onto the eastbound onramp for the Santa Monica Freeway. We get away, but the police come to the House later to investigate. We feign ignorance, claiming we have an activity planned with the UCLA Kappa Sigma sorority, went to SC to play a prank on their KΣs, and must have gotten confused and entered the ΣKs by mistake. We have to return the couch.
Story 2
We are on a roadtrip to Cal to watch UCLA play them in football. A group of us have rented a small RV, a Mini Winnie, for the trip. It is Sunday. Yesterday UCLA beat Cal 45-0, and we are still euphoric. Before beginning the all-day trip back, we park the RV on a street near a breakfast restaurant, and everyone prepares to disembark for a meal that will need to last the journey. Geoff and I look at each other aware that we are both low on funds. When the others depart, we pool our resources and realize we cannot both eat and buy more beer. We make the critical decision and walk to a liquor store. They have a beer called Buckhorn for $1.76 a six-pack. We spend every cent we have. When the others return, Tim’s girlfriend looks as if she is about to cry when she sees us enjoying a malted beverage. She turns to Tim and begs, “Tim, make them stop!” Tim asks, “What do you mean?” as he pops open a can. Somewhere on I-5, we begin to play “Fourth and Goal.” The game goes something like this: A group of us stand at the front end of the RV with our backs to the driving cabin. This is the defense. The offense charges from the other direction. The objective is for the ball carrier to launch himself into the endzone, which is the bed over the driving cabin. Swifty manages to maintain control of the vehicle in spite of the pitch and roll as the teams clash, and he ignores the sagging ceiling over his head whenever someone scores.
Besides a fine education, this period is significant for two reasons. First, it is when I made my closest friends for life: Art, Geoff, Matt, Armand, and Thom (in order of appearance). Wijambu began its own weird and terrible saga during this time, but that story is covered in detail in the Wijambu Who? pages. Suffice it to say I forever had a new family.
Second, I fell in love, and we got married immediately after college. This would prove to be a regrettable mistake primarily because things long bubbling beneath the surface were soon to begin bursting forth.
A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?