Job #17: News Monitoring Services Era (1993 - 2000), Part 2

My job with News Monitoring Services was running fairly smoothly in the early part of 1994. I came in every morning, did my monitoring and any other odd jobs that needed done and went home. I rarely had to interact with anyone, especially the owner, Mr. N. But this didn't mean that I didn't see him go on rampages. He would frequently get mad about something and start yelling. Even though I was never on the receiving end of these tirades, I knew it wasn't long before I would be. (And I'll have a separate article about Mr. N tomorrow.)

In the meantime, we had to move from our space in the Kearny Mesa area to a building close to Downtown San Diego. We had to transport all the VCRs, tapes, monitors, editing equipment and office furniture. It was a pain to coordinate because we still needed to be recording and monitoring the news while we were doing this.

Things were going okay for awhile at the new location, but he decided to start paying us by the hour instead of the point system. And then he started delaying our paychecks. This was irritating because he stated our paydays were on specific days and then he found out what the law allowed and wouldn't pay us any earlier than that. He would even wait until the end of the day to release the checks. And then, when we did get paid, we practically had to race two blocks to the bank to make sure the checks would clear. Sometimes, they didn't and it was very reminiscent of the follies that took place when I worked at KZZO-FM.

One day, I was at work and some official looking people came in. One man told us he was from the IRS and that the assets on the premises were being seized. All the employees would have to leave immediately. Employees were not the only people Mr. N owed money to. I left not knowing if I still had a job. I wondered if I would be available to apply for unemployment. Even though I was working 40 hours a week, I wasn't really considered full time. Afterward, Mr. N was able to contact his attorney to start bankruptcy proceedings. When that happened, the IRS people left and we were able to return to work. Thank goodness!

Very soon after that, we had to move again, about four blocks down the street. The big problem this time was that Mr. N decided to use it as an excuse to go two whole days beyond the legal deadline to give us our paychecks. One of the employees who had been hired the same time as me yelled at Mr. N about the check situation and Mr. N kept yelling back. That guy wound up quitting. That move got on everyone's last nerve. But the good news was that we never needed to move again for as long as I worked for the company.

During this time, my responsibilities increased. I was in charge of programming the VCRs, doing the schedules for the monitors, editing videotape and audiotape, writing transcripts. And for a period of time, I was in charge of hiring new monitors. I had very little downtime at work. And it seemed that every time I was able to arrange some breathing room, Mr. N would come up with a new duty for me to perform. And he did this without raising my pay.

On top of all this, I would have to show up at work at odd hours on the weekend when we didn't have staff so that I could load the VCRs. And to be honest, I did this without getting paid. (I was just glad to be able to keep working.) My social and event life revolved around making certain that we were recording the programs that we needed for our inventory.

One of the benefits of being in charge of the recording was that I could borrow the videotapes of the major network primetime programs that I enjoyed watching. I watched way more TV than I needed to. But then again, I didn't have a girlfriend. I had all that time to burn.

In yesterday's post, I didn't go into much detail about our monitoring software. It was designed by Mr. N's brother and was in beta phase the whole time I was there. They had come up with a couple of different versions and it clearly was not completed, but it was functional for our purposes. After all the monitoring for the day had been done, the sales staff would search on specific terms for our regular clients. This would bring up a list of the hits that we got on each newscast and the list would then be faxed to the clients. Afterward, the sales staff would scan the summaries to see if there were any businesses we could cold call and see if they wanted copies of the news reports. The only inconvenience about the report was that we couldn't edit it, so our clients would get several stories with the same search terms that didn't have anything to do with them.

Ultimately, Mr. N's goal was to sell this software to other video monitoring services, including AVR. But while his brother knew all about programming and coding, he had some mental health issues that kept him from completing the software. If you clicked on "help" for some topic, something would come up that said "Content to be added later." It was a long way from being completed.

Enough time had passed that someone else came up with monitoring software that was completed. And while it wasn't as user-friendly as ours, it did allow for editing of search results. But by this point, I had gotten fed up with Mr N and the direction the company was heading. I tried to figure out a good way to leave before the new software was to be implemented.

That opportunity presented itself in the middle of December 1999 when Mr. N had posted a message on our intranet that asked me to record something on CNBC. For whatever reason, it didn't show up on my computer desktop. One of the other co-workers saw the message and pointed it out to me. I knew this wasn't good.

When Mr. N came in and found out I didn't record the program, he started yelling at me. I started yelling back that he could have called me at home or left a note on the VCRs or something because it wasn't my fault that the message didn't appear on my station. He said, "You don't talk that way to me! I sign your paychecks!" I said, "Okay, you can sign my last paycheck, then!" I went over to the time clock, punched out and went home.

I knew of someplace that I could get work right away, but I wouldn't be able to apply for it until the next day. Mr. N called me at home and talked me into working the last two weeks of the year. I agreed, but took the next day off so I could go apply at a call center, where I would have my next job.

After I finished the year, I never went back. The only time I had contact with the company was when I had moved and had to make certain they knew where to send my W-2. However, I still had to drive by the place on a regular basis because it was on the way to Downtown San Diego.

Since then, TV news monitoring companies have become practically obsolete. A lot of TV news operations now post almost all of their stories on YouTube, where anyone can watch and download for free. New Monitoring Services ceased to exist sometime in the last 12 years. However, I see that one of our competitors is still up and running and provides content digitally. I guess that's for those times that the news stations don't post a certain story. I can't imagine they make a lot of money.

But there would still be a need for radio monitoring. No one records radio programming and puts it on YouTube.

I'm glad I got out while the getting was good. And as it would turn out, this wouldn't be the last job at a company that would become obsolete. That would apply to my next job as well, but it's going to be a while before I get to that one.

Job #17: News Monitoring Services Era (1993 - 2000), Part 1

In my search for a job in 1993, I came across a help wanted listing for a company called Video Monitoring Services, known as VMS. They were looking for news monitors. I didn't know what that was, but I figured it was another telemarketing scam. I showed up at their office in Downtown San Diego. They told me they had filled up all their available positions, but asked me to do an application for their waitlist. I filled one out and left.

Soon after, I found another ad for news monitoring. This company was News Monitoring Services and they were located in the Kearny Mesa area. I went up and met with the office manager, Mr. D. He told me they had two types of positions available: TV News Monitor and Radio News Monitor. The TV News Monitor would watch local TV news programs and use specially-designed software to summarize the stories, take notes of people who get interviewed and any products or services that receive air-time. The company had a sales staff that would contact the companies mentioned in the stories and try to get them to purchase videotape copies of the news reports. The TV News Monitor position did not do sales. The Radio News Monitor was required to try to get the companies to purchase cassette tapes of the programs, but that person would get a commission off of the sales. Of course, I wanted the TV News Monitor position. (For as long as I worked there, they never had someone in the Radio News Monitor position.)

Because of my degree in Radio/TV Communications, I was pretty much hired on the spot. At the time, the company was expanding to monitor news programs from Los Angeles so that they could compete with Audio Video Reporting in Los Angeles. They hired about 20 people to monitor the news in a round-the-clock operation. We did not receive an hourly rate. Every broadcast was assigned a certain number of points. Those points were worth about 10 cents each. The one newscast that had the most points was 100, so that meant someone would get $10 for monitoring that newscast. And if they were able to complete it in an hour, they would get $10 for that hour. However, the point system also applied to when we were learning the monitoring, so if it took three hours to complete that same newscast, it would come out to about $3.33 an hour, which was below minimum wage at the time. I'm pretty certain that was illegal, but the person who owned the company, Mr. N, was trying to get around that by not having us use timecards.

I had trouble at first trying to figure out how to properly monitor. It took me three hours to do a 30-minute newscast, which was worth only 45 points. (Yes, I got $1.50 an hour for that.) Mr. D kept coming up and saying, "Fayd, this isn't working out. You need to get these done because other people are coming in and we're running out of stations!" Yes, my first day on the job was seeing me getting threatened with being let go because I didn't receive proper training. It was a lot more complex than the way he initially described and I had a lot of questions to ask. A LOT!

But I did improve my speed and was able to monitor on a 1:1 time ratio. Since a lot of broadcast time is taken up by commercials, zipping through those allowed me to spend a little time properly monitoring the stories. I was actually close to making that $10 an hour.

They started assigning me specific newscasts. I would come in around 4am to do the 3 1/2 hours' worth of news programming that KCAL had every night. After monitoring the first 1 1/2 hours, the last two pretty much repeated the same stories and I could get through them a lot faster. At the time, I wasn't really needing for hours because I had another job and I still had unemployment coming in, albeit on a limited basis because I still wasn't working a full 40 hours every week. But it was more dependable than the other job.

One night, I overslept and didn't make the early morning time for my other job (which required a three hour transport), so I called Mr. D and asked if they had anything they needed monitoring. He said they still had KCAL that needed to be done. It was nice to be able to make up for those hours I was going to lose from the other job.

Monitoring KCAL increased my enjoyment of a certain movie. I went to see "Short Cuts," which takes place in Los Angeles. I was with my brother Loyd. In the film, Bruce Davison's character is a commentator at KCAL. At one point, they show him sitting in the studio at the news desk. Sitting at the desk with him was Jerry Dunphy, the anchor for KCAL's newscast. When I saw him on the screen, I excitedly turned to Loyd and said, "Oh, my gosh! That's Jerry Dunphy! This is so LA!"

I was at work at 4:30am on 01/17/94. We felt an earthquake. The walls rattled somewhat, but there was no damage. About a minute later, Mr. N called and told Mr. D to start rolling tape on all the stations. Mr. N happened to be at the recording apartment and he started rolling on all the VCRs there. We didn't realize it at the time, but we were 100 miles away from the epicenter of the Northridge quake. There was all kinds of chaos for the next several weeks and I saw a lot of it unfold in the news coverage.

Through the next few months, we lost a lot of the monitors that were hired around the time I came into the company. A lot of them left because of the behavior of Mr. N. (I will go into more detail about him in a later post, but it should be noted that the majority of the problems with News Monitoring Service were directly related to him.) In addition, we were being so competitive with AVR-LA that they made an offer to buy us out. Because of that, the company went back to focusing on San Diego broadcasts. We even had a specific date that we would be considered an AVR affiliate. However, something happened that I don't have the full details to. Mr. N continued to own the company, although he made it clear that he was angry the AVR deal never went through.

During the LA monitoring era, we tended to ignore the local morning newscasts, which mostly consisted of repeating the same stories and reporter packages from the afternoon and evening newscasts the day before. When we were supposed to be taken over by AVR, Mr. D asked me to come in and monitor the morning newscasts as one of the local independent stations. KUSI, had just started a morning news program. Mr D noticed they were doing a lot of in-studio interviews on topics that we would be able to sell to our clients so he wanted us to be able to increase our inventory that way.

This meant I no longer had to be in at 4am every morning. I would come in around 7am and spend my time monitoring all the morning and midday news programs. I was usually done by around 1pm and had the rest of the day to myself.

Up to this point, this was the best job I'd ever had. I made a living watching TV. But like any relationship, it had its highs and lows. As usual, the lows would get very low.

More on that tomorrow.

When you've got nothing better to post...

I needed to put something up today, so I just slapped this together.



We decided to remodel our bathtub. The company we hired, Bath Fitter, was supposed to put an acrylic shell over our existing bathtub. However, when they started the work, they found a lot of dry rot in the floor underneath the existing cast iron tub. They told us we needed to get rid of the tub and have the floor repaired before they could complete the remodeling. So, we had to hire someone else to come in, remove the tub and stabilize the floor. Then they came back and installed a free-standing tub. We had to go a few weeks without our bathtub. Fortunately, there's another bathtub in our house that we could use.

Bedmate #1: Joz

(What's a Bedmate? Click here!)

I found Joz through the personal ads. I don't recall exactly what hers said. But she did call me back.

She was 21 years old. She told me she had already been married and divorced. Her husband was an older man who owned a ranch and was rather wealthy. She had gotten pregnant. At one point, her husband got mad at her and punched her in the stomach. This caused her to have a miscarriage, and it turned out to be twins. He swore he'd never let that happen again and started treating her like a princess. But she didn't like this either because it didn't feel genuine. She filed for the divorce and I don't think she got any money out of it. (But also, she could have been making all this up as I was somehow prone to finding women who liked to do that.)

She told me that she sort of had an actual boyfriend at the time, but wanted to make friends and that's why she posted the ad. She still wanted to meet me and gave me directions to her house. I came up. She was pretty much how she described herself. She had long blond hair and light blue eyes. She was also a little overweight, but it didn't bother me. She had a rather flirtatious personality. Her "boyfriend" was also there at the time.

She lived in a standalone building with one room behind a house. She was technically the roommate of the woman who lived in the house, but the building didn't have a bathroom. She had a waterbed, dresser, TV, VCR and phone in there.

With her "boyfriend," she was the first real girlfriend he'd ever been with, so he didn't start getting all jealous because she kept having guys coming up to meet her from the personal ad. She told me that she had arranged to have one guy come over, but when he saw the "boyfriend," he got upset and left.

We started making inroads to becoming friends. I would go up every once in a while to hang out with her. Sometimes, the boyfriend would be there. Sometimes, he wouldn't be. Sometimes, other guys would show up. It was a strange friendship, but I didn't have anywhere else I could go where I could hang out with someone, so I would spend a lot of time there.

The woman who lived in the main house had a child. She had divorced the father, but he would come around at least once a month to drop off the child support money. And when he did, he would demand sex from her before he would hand the money over. She would always oblige. I was never around when this happened. The woman had a boyfriend who was around most of the time. Once he saw me and asked what the deal was with me coming up all the time to see Joz. He was kind of being intimidating about it. I told him all I was doing was hanging out. Joz had to yell at him to back off. I have no idea what was going on.

During our initial conversations, Joz told me that she preferred not to be in bed alone at night. One evening, we were spending time together and I was the only one there. She asked me to spend the night and sleep in the bed with her. I had actually been hoping that this was going to happen sometime, and it did. I didn't have any expectations about what was going to happen. We both fell asleep on the bed and never once touched each other the entire night.

However, I did wake up in the middle of the night and needed to go to the bathroom. I knew I couldn't go in the house and I knew I couldn't hold it in until morning, so I peed in the backyard and hoped no one saw me. When we woke up in the morning, I simply went home. Nothing happened.

And that was the extent of her being a bedmate. I never got to spend the night there again. But we did get to go on an actual date. We went out to eat at the Corvette Diner in Hillcrest. It was across the street from the Hillcrest Cinemas, where I used to work. I was rather familiar with the management there because I would provide them with passes that they could give to their customers.

When we went, I saw one of the managers and called to her. She remembered me. Joz and I sat down to order. I didn't tell her to do this, but she ordered one of the cheapest things on the menu. I did, too. The total came up to about what I had in my pocket. Then the manager came over and told me that because of everything I had done in giving them passes from the theatre, the meal was on the house. It was great news! But I regretted not ordering something more expensive. (But that's probably why they decided to treat me.) I did leave a tip for the servers.

I was supposed to take Joz and drop her off at this guy's house. We got there later than she told him she would be there. This guy was in the military and Joz was being very flirty with him. This meant that I provided her meal and she probably slept with that guy. But at least I had the satisfaction of making him wait for it.

When I left Joz, I realized that I was only five minutes away from the Barona Casino. I took the money I saved from the dinner and played 21. I wound up losing it. Such is the life of a gambling addict.

I never saw Joz or spoke to her again after that night. It wouldn't surprise me if she got married to that guy. I don't recall her last name, so I can't find out where she is right now.

But I never saw her as a great loss. I never really had her to start with.

I acquire an actual addiction

By the time I was 29 years old, I felt I'd made the right decisions on a lot of stuff throughoit my life. I never started smoking, drinking alcohol or taking drugs. However, I had done all three of these things. I was tricked into taking a puff off a cigarette. (A boy told me that if I held the cigarette an inch from my mouth and inhaled, I wouldn't breathe in any smoke. He lied to me.) My Mom and Dad let me take some sips of beer and wine. (I didn't like the taste of either.) And I got a contact high when I was in college. (But I didn't feel particularly inclined to smoke weed, even though I could have continued doing it just by freeloading.)

So, it was a shock to me that at the lowest point of my life that I would become addicted to gambling. I should point out that it never got so bad that I bet the rent, but I did blow money that could have been put to better use. The thing is, if I was winning, I didn't feel like I had a gambling problem. If I was losing, then it was an issue.

I really enjoyed playing Blackjack in Las Vegas and thought I was pretty good at it. In San Diego County in 1993, there were three Indian casinos within a 30 - 40 minute drive away: Barona, Viejas and Sycuan. I mostly went to Barona because it was the closest and they had the nicest facilities at that time. It was no hassle to play Blackjack there. (Actually, due to legal reasons, they referred to it as "Jokers Wild 21" instead of "Blackjack." The others referred to it as "21," but make no mistake, it was Blackjack.) The casinos did not bank the 21 tables. Outside businesses set up people to sit at the tables and control the banks. Individuals could also come up and bank the tables. In the long run, those businesses made quite a score off the tables. Personally, I didn't want to bank, because I never had enough money. But knowing my luck, I would get one of those times that the dealer goes bust every hand.

I went to Viejas once. At the time, it was just this single building with a dirt parking lot. I sat down at a table with a sign that said the minimum bet was $5. An individual was banking the table and there was one older woman playing. I put a $5 chip on the table and the banker said, "No, the minimum bet is $10!" "The sign says $5." "I don't care what the sign says. I say it's $10!" "The sign says $5." The dealer called over the pit boss and he told the banker that he had to comply with what the sign said. He picked up his chips and left. The dealer gave me my $5 chip back. I guess that guy had been bullying the older woman into playing $10 a hand.

There was one other 21 table open. There was an available seat, so I took it and started playing. Then the banker from the other table sat down. And it appeared that almost everyone at this table were trying to be bankers. The way it worked, a person could bank for the entire duration of a shoe of cards as long as they were able to back up the bets. Once the shoe was over or the banker ran out of money, the ability to bank would be offered to the next player. However, in order to bank the next shoe, you have to be playing a few hands before the banker changes. This guy didn't play. He just sat there and waited for his turn to bank. He was telling another banker about what had happened at the other table in which the casino wouldn't allow him to set the table limit (which he was doing because there was only one other person playing). The other banker said, "That's not right!" I decided to never set foot at that casino again. But Viejas managed to expand into a large shopping center within the next five years.

As for Sycuan, I couldn't figure out how I could play the table games. I guess there was a waiting list I was supposed to sign up for. I wasted a lot of time trying to find it, so I never went back there again.

Typically on payday, I would take care of my bills first. Then, I would get my groceries. If I had about $40 left over, I would try to turn that into more money so I could do stuff like go to the movies. I would drive up to Barona and try my luck. If I won, great! If not, that 30 minute drive back home felt like an hour.

Gambling hit something in my brain that sparked so many levels of experience. There's the strategizing, figuring out the odds, the rush when you win a risky bet and the short-term depression that sets in when you weren't expecting to lose. So many highs and lows. I know that if I had taken up any of the other bad habits, I could have become just as addicted to those. When I had the gambling problem, I could at least say that it was better to blow the money gambling than to use it on cigarettes, alcohol or drugs.

Once I got back on my feet about a year later, I didn't go to the casino so much. But I would probably go about once a month and lose money that I didn't need to. This routine pretty much continued until I moved from San Diego in 2003. The place I moved to, San Jose, didn't have any Indian casinos close by. The nearest one is an hour's drive away and the nearest really nice one is two hours away.

I thought my gambling problem was behind me, but I was wrong. Ms. Ogolon wanted to go to the nice casino and it wasn't long before she wanted to go up more often. During the period of time in which she was wrestling with her demons, she would call in sick and we'd drive the two hours to get the casino. If I didn't have a gambling problem myself, I probably could have kept that from happening.

We stopped going after our son was born. Sometimes, it takes a major life change like that to help avoid returning to an addiction, but that doesn't always work with everyone.

Loyd comes for a visit

Late in 1993, my brother Loyd was driving a truck from the refinery in Artesia, NM to Los Angeles. He wanted to take the opportunity to come spend some time with me and asked me to come pick him where he had to drop off the truck. He said he would be getting a great deal of money, so he would be able to afford to pay his way.

While I was in LA, I wanted to see "Short Cuts" in 70mm. It was showing at a movie theater in Westwood. After I picked up Loyd, I drove him to the bank so he could cash the check he received. We went to where the film was showing and bought tickets. However, we still had more than an hour to kill before the movie started. Loyd suggested we pop by and see a couple of our cousins who he said lived nearby. I asked him where. "San Bernardino." "Oh, Loyd, you have no idea how large the LA area is. That's an hour and a half away. You don't just 'pop in' to San Bernardino." We got something to eat and then went into the movie. Loyd was really tired from driving, but managed to stay awake during the 3-plus-hour film.

We drove back to San Diego. Loyd slept most of the way there. We got to the apartment and he just crashed.

There was a day that I wasn't working and Loyd wanted to drive up to San Bernardino to see our cousins. We went up and spent the day there. Mostly all we did was hang out, visit, play games and listen to music. It was nice because it meant I didn't need to spend any money. We came back home that night.

While I had to be at work one day, Loyd decided he wanted to go see "Addams Family Values." I drove him to the same movie theater where I'd see it with Criz. He would just have to walk back home, which included having to hike up a 15% grade for about a half-mile. When he got to the top, he had forgotten how to get home, but he found a nearby market he had been to before and was able to navigate from there. I asked him how he liked the movie. He said it was really short and hard to follow. I immediately realized he had walked into the wrong auditorium that started the movie at an earlier time. I offered to drive him back so he could see the first half hour, but he declined.

Loyd was also expecting to receive a check at the place he used to live with some friends in San Marcos, TX. He called his friends. Yes, they had received the check. And they had already cashed it. And spent the money. WHAT? (I guess they thought he didn't know he was going to be getting a check so they decided to help themselves.) Loyd got one of them to send him a check for the amount he was supposed to receive. Somehow, he managed to talk my roommate Hudd into depositing that check and cashing it out. Hudd obliged and Loyd treated us all to lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

Loyd's plan was to buy a used car for real cheap and drive it back to New Mexico. He was able to find a car he could buy about a block away from the apartment. It didn't run, but he was certain he could fix it. So that's how he spent most of the next two weeks. He would enlist my help from time to time. At one point, he had me turn the key for the ignition. Loyd would signal me when to let go of the key. The starter would keep turning over, but the car wouldn't start. This went on for about five minutes. I asked, "Loyd, are we TRYING to start the car?" "Yes." "Well, I need to step on the gas pedal." "NO! Gas is coming through the line. You DO NOT need to step on the gas pedal." "I can tell that the engine will start if I step on the gas." "NO! YOU'LL FLOOD THE ENGINE!" "If I step on it just one time, IT WILL NOT FLOOD THE ENGINE!" Loyd relented and allowed me to briefly step on the gas pedal ONE TIME. I did that and the car started right away. Loyd looked at me and then made a "We're not worthy" gesture with his arms.

But starting the car was half the battle. The other half was getting it to continuously run. Loyd was able to get it to run enough that we could drive it to a mechanic in Pacific Beach, whom he hoped could diagnose the problem so that he would know what to fix. But on the way back, the car stopped running while we were on I-5. I saw Loyd pull over to the shoulder behind me. I also pulled over next to a call box. I was able to get AAA to come out and tow the car back. We were just a little outside the 7 mile range for the free towing, but the tow truck driver was cool and brought it back to our original location on Texas St.

Now that Loyd knew what he needed to fix, he had to get the parts. But he didn't have much money left over and still needed to get back to New Mexico. He had to ask the woman he bought the car from if she would loan him some money. She wouldn't do it. This meant we had to turn to Mom to get some money so that he could come home.

In the meantime, we got to spend Thanksgiving together. We ate at Furr's Cafeteria and saw the film "A Perfect World."

Loyd finally got the car fixed enough so that he could drive it home. We got the money from Mom and Loyd went back, and just in time. He had been staying with me for three weeks. We were starting to get on each others' nerves.

After he left, Hudd's father found out that the check Loyd gave him had bounced AND HE WAS ANGRY! He was so angry, he was threatening legal action against me and Loyd. I had to get a hold of Loyd's friend and tell him that he needed to send a cashier's check. Not a regular check and not a money order. It had to be a cashier's check made out to Hudd, or he was also going to face legal action as well. He actually sent the cashier's check and then everything was alright with the world after that.

On a sad note, one of the cousins Loyd and I had seen in San Bernardino passed away in the last couple of weeks. His life came to a rather dramatic end and I'm sorry I was never that close with him.

Personal Ad Tease #6: Criz

(What's a Personal Ad Tease? Click here!)

When I finally felt like I had gotten my financial footing, I decided to restart my pursuit for a girlfriend. I went to the personal ads in the San Diego Reader again. I called a few ads and I got one woman to actually call me back. Her name was Criz.

She was probably a couple of years younger than me. She had an unusual home situation. Her mother died soon after she was born, so she was adopted by her grandmother. This made her Criz' mother and her aunts and uncles were Criz' brothers and sisters. When referring to them in conversation, she always said, "Mom" or "my sister/brother." Even though she told me this at the very beginning, it was still rather confusing for me.

She was a big fan of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." She had cable and every day, she would watch an episode at 6pm on a San Diego channel and then a different episode at 7pm on a Los Angeles channel. I didn't have cable, so I could only watch one episode.

Criz lived in Lemon Grove. I asked her what there was to do in Lemon Grove. She said, "Go look at the giant lemon." I'd driven past it several times. I never saw the need to get out of the car and stare at it. But this would later to me frequently saying to other people when we were trying to figure out something to do, "Hey! Let's go to Lemon Grove and look at the giant lemon!"

Normally, I try to meet a personal ad date for the first time to get something non-alcoholic to drink, like at a coffee shop. However, I'd gotten a free pair of tickets to a preview screening of "Addams Family Values." On a second phone conversation, I asked her if she wanted to go on an actual date for our first meeting and she agreed.

We planned to meet at the Hazard Center where the screening was taking place. She told me she would be wearing a green sweater. I found her fairly quickly. She looked exactly as she described herself. She was short, had dark hair that was short and curly and some freckles on her face. I found her very cute.

We got in the line and waited to be let inside the theater. We stood still for about a half hour and were able to keep a constant conversation. We went inside and I bought some popcorn and soda. (It was nice not to have to pay for the movie.)

We enjoyed the film and I walked her out to her car. I asked if I could hug her goodbye and she agreed. It seemed like we both had a good time and I looked forward to calling her again.

And I did call her a couple of days later. Again and again. There was no answer when I called. I tried calling when I knew she would be at home between 6pm and 8pm, when "STTNG" was on. Still no answer. I tried calling a few minutes before 6pm and a little after 8pm. Still no answer.

After a couple of weeks, someone answered the phone. It was her Mom. I gave her my name and phone number and asked her to give Criz the message that I called. She said she would do that. But I never got a call. I stopped trying to call her after that.

I couldn't help but wonder what happened. I mean, if I'd gotten the idea that she didn't like me during the date, it wouldn't have been a problem. But we got along so well, I thought we were right for each other.

But here's the thing: In order to avoid talking to me when I called, she would have to not pick up the phone any time it rang, every time. How were her friends supposed to contact her? I suppose it's possible she had a private line and just gave me her Mom's phone number at the house. However, she gave me that number after our first conversation and answered it when I called. And when I talked to her Mom, she made no indication that Criz had a separate number.

In today's vernacular, this would be considered "ghosting" someone. But she managed to do it with a lack of technology.

This, however, is not the end of the story. A year and a half later, Abed and I went to a midnight showing of "Batman Forever." Going into the theater, I thought I saw her there with a female friend. After we'd gotten our seats, I looked around and saw her. The friend had gotten up and gone to the concession stand. I went up to her and asked, "Is your name Criz?" "Yes." "I don't know if you remember me. My name is Fayd." "Yes, I remember you. I saw you when you came in." "How are you doing?" "I'm doing okay." Then she just smiled at me and didn't say anything else. It started getting awkward, so I said, "Okay, I'll see you later." She just kind of smiled and said, "Okay."

And that was it. I know I was hoping that she was going to offer some sort of explanation as to why she wouldn't pick up the phone or even bother to call me back, but I was hoping for way too much. I started thinking along the lines that her female friend was a little on the butchy side and maybe that's why she didn't call me back. The bad thing about thinking that was that she probably saw Abed and may have thought the same thing about me.

I never saw her again after that. I don't think she ever told me her last name, so I definitely cannot find her on the Internet. I'm not even going to try with as little information as I have.

I know I'm better off not becoming closer to her, but it still hurts that she did that to me. I know I didn't do anything to deserve being treated like that.

Trump Card

I have to put in my two cents on the current Presidential race, focusing on someone I've tried to ignore.



One of the good things about living in California is that it's such a deep blue state that the Democrat nominee will still get the electoral votes, no matter who I decide to vote for.

Real Life Roommate #3: Hudd

I first met Hudd after I had responded to his ad for a roommate. We set up a time for me to come over, meet him and see the apartment. He said he was about 21 years old. When I first got to the apartment, I saw him through the screen door. He actually appeared to be around 40 with some gray in his hair. However, when he stood up and answered the door, I saw that it was an optical illusion created by the screen door. He had blond hair He was much younger than me, but he was also a lot taller.

Hudd did not have an actual job. His father sent him money to exist on. He worked, but it was always part time and I never really knew what he did. (Or I did know and I forgot after 23 years.) The two activities he concentrated most on were bodybuilding and drumming.

He seemed like a nice enough guy, so I was able to pay the deposit and made plans to move in at the beginning of October 1993. He helped me move some of the larger items, like the dresser. But when we went back to the old apartment, I realized I had left my keys locked inside and the light on. Fortunately, I was able to rattle the sliding glass door open (because it never locked properly). We went inside and got the remainder of the items I wanted to take and left the sleeper sofa behind for Goodwill to have to worry about.

Hudd and I got along okay. We were probably a little more friendlier with each other than I was with Jadd. We still didn't really chum around outside the apartment. We'd occasionally watch TV together. He had his TV in the living room. I had mine in my bedroom.

With his bodybuilding, he was adamant about not using steroids. However, he was disturbed seeing other people use steroids and get the results he wanted much faster. But he still wanted to achieve those results naturally. He worked out at Gold's Gym in Pacific Beach every night around 10pm. This was the best time for him as there weren't many people that late at night. He also ate plenty of meat and carbs throughout the day. He really stuck to that diet. When I moved in, he weighed 237 pounds, but looked much lighter because it was all muscle. (The bad thing is that I now weigh about 225 pounds and I just look FAT!)

As for the drumming, he rehearsed regularly with a band. They had a couple of performances at this coffee shop in Lemon Grove. The first time they played, I brought Baz. The second time, I brought Abed. I later felt bad because I didn't have any money to buy anything at the coffee bar. The band played okay, but they clearly did not know how set up their sound system. You could tell the lead vocalist was singing, but he was completely lost in the mix. The good thing about them was that they only played original material. Personally, I can't stand bands who can expertly play covers, but are unable to play their own songs as competently.

My brother Loyd came and stayed with us for about three weeks. (That's a story for another post.) He noticed in our medicine cabinet that Hudd took Prozac. I didn't know what Prozac was at the time. Loyd had to educate me that it was a treatment for people with depression. I didn't really see Hudd as having depression. Later, I would hear him get mad about stuff and he would pound his dresser. One time, he pounded it so hard it broke.

He never expressed any anger toward me. But once, his clothes were stolen from the laundromat. It was ALL of his clothes. (I had some t-shirts Loyd had given me that I hadn't worn yet. I didn't know how they would fit him, but he accepted him and actually wore them. They surprisingly fit him well.) I heard him talking to the laundromat owner on the phone and he got to the point where he was threatening to kill him! I yelled from my room, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Don't do that!" I don't know if he heard me. He didn't make the threat again during that conversation.

During the time that I lived there, I'd met his father, mother and younger sister. They all lived in Los Angeles and seemed nice. His sister was rather attractive, but she was six feet tall and WAY out of my league. I never tried to get Hudd to hook me up with her. She never had any interest in me beyond saying hi when she saw me. He also had an older brother, but I never met him.

Sometimes, his mother and his sister would call him to discuss his behavioral issues. He didn't like them getting on his case and he was often angrier after talking to them.

In the end, he decided to move back in with his parents in LA. I was making enough money at the time to live on my own so I didn't go looking for another roommate.

After we moved out, he called me once because a certain celebrity I had a crush on got into some major legal trouble. He said he was watching the news and thought that person's name sounded familiar. I confirmed that it was indeed her. I got his address at the time so I could send him my cassette release that was coming out. I also sent him my CD release when it came out, but I never heard from him again.

On the Internet, he appears to currently live in Santa Clarita, CA. I found a phone number, but it's disconnected. I was able to locate his sister, brother and mother on Facebook. His brother is an attorney in Foster City. His sister works at the Colorado Athletic Club in Boulder. However, Hudd doesn't seem to have a Facebook account because he isn't friends with any of them. I honestly don't know if he is still alive. It wouldn't surprise me to find out something happened some time ago. But I don't know his family well enough to try to contact them after more than 20 years.

Some things just have to remain a mystery.

Apartment #7: 4457 1/2 Louisiana St., San Diego, CA, 1993 - 1994

This turned out to be my fourth apartment in the space of one year. But I would live at this address for about 11 months, longer than I spent at any other apartment I had in San Diego up to this point.

This was a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment on the upstairs floor. It was considerably smaller than my previous apartment. Both bedrooms were about the same size. It was about a block away from the apartment where I lived on Texas St., so I had access to the same amenities as before. There was also only one parking space for the apartment. My roommate had staked his claim on the space and I always had to park on the street.

The roommate I had here (about whom I will go into detail in tomorrow's post) already had a lot of furniture in the living room, so there was no more need for me to have that sleeper sofa with the missing leg. I had tried to sell it, but couldn't find anyone to buy it. My old roommate Jadd had left out a bunch for stuff for Goodwill to come by and pick up, so we just left the sofa out there.

(A side note: Jadd had asked me if there was any of his stuff I wanted, since he was donating it. I told him I could use the typewriter. He let me have it. It came in very useful in the years that I didn't have a computer.)

We lived next door to the apartment manager. It made it easy to drop off the rent payments that way but we knew he could always hear us when we were making noise. The manager had a REALLY large apartment. His wife and child lived there with him. They were pretty easy to get along with.

The only unusual thing was that my roommate and his mother were once cleaning up the kitchen and she could feel that the stove was really hot. They looked behind it and found that the gas line had broken and there were flames shooting out of it. The apartment manager was able to get someone to come and fix it.

However, the manager had seen that we weren't keeping the apartment very clean, so he gave us a warning that we needed to clean it up or face eviction. We were able to get everything back to normal, but this was the only time I'd ever received a warning like that at an apartment. (At later apartments, I would receive eviction notices. But those weren't real. I'll give more details about those much later on.)

Once, I saw the manager waiting for a bus at the corner of 5th and University in the Hillcrest area. About a half-hour later, he saw me walking up the stairs. "Did you walk all the way from Hillcrest? That's crazy!" I was still receiving unemployment. I couldn't afford luxuries like bus rides.

Otherwise, there wasn't anything that really stood out about this apartment. When I moved out, I was finally able to get my own place.

I can't always compose 1,000-word essays on all my topics.

Lights! Camera! Keep Your Mouth Shut!

This is my final entry into my attempts to try to do something in the artistic performance field. After this, I pretty much gave up.

While I wasn't able to get into the live theatre scene when I lived in San Diego, I found that I was capable of getting cast in student films and independent projects beginning in 1993. I still didn't get paid, but it was nice to have people wanting me for their films.

I auditioned for a lot of student films at San Diego State University. Everyone had their projects all due at the same time, so they all held auditions over successive weekends. The auditions were typically held by production teams. There was nobody attempting to do the film all by himself. When I auditioned, I had to do it in front of the entire team. Normally, they would videotape the audition. They mostly consisted of me cold reading the material. Under most circumstances, I got to read the entire script. I have to say that I wasn't too impressed with the writing. It was like the school focused on the aesthetic aspects of filmmaking, without that much emphasis on writing good dialogue.

But I just wanted to do stuff since I had a lot of free time. A couple of the teams I auditioned for called me back to appear in non-speaking roles. I couldn't complain. It was better than being completely rejected (and I got paid the same amount of money as the lead actors).

I think the title of one of the films was "4 Minutes in November." It involved some stuff happening on a film set. I played a member of the set crew. At one point, they had us standing in front of a fan that was cooling us down. Another shot we did involved moving the camera back to reveal a tornado scene featuring a model house turning around and someone swinging in a cow costume. The interesting thing was that the film professor instructed the crews to not have cameos in their own films, but the director somehow wound up in that last shot anyway.

I can't remember the name of the other film, but it involved a man being haunted by his past. It is revealed that had seen his mother get attacked. I got to play the attacker, but I was only seen from the back. I showed up for the filming and rehearsed a little with the actress. She started getting mad at me because I wasn't being rough enough with her. I started flashing back to this acting incident in college. I was getting mad, but I knew I had to keep it under control. I didn't see the point in possibly injuring her before the actually filming took place. We shot the scene a couple of times. The actress put up such a struggle while we were shooting that my arms ached afterward.

There was another film that I remember auditioning for. It was called "Route 260." It was about two college women going to Las Vegas and their car breaks down. I read for the part of a Vietnam War veteran. The two female students producing the film laughed during my audition, so I thought I got the role, but they never called me. I'd gotten to read the full script. I didn't think much of it, but it didn't appear to be any better or worse than the two films I appeared in.

The next semester, those two students held auditions for their next project. I auditioned for that film as well, and this was before the Film Department held a public showing of all the student films from the previous semester. I had been told by the crews of those films that the screening was going on and I was welcome to come and pay $3 to get in. I wanted to see how the films turned out.

The first part of the student film festival showed projects that involved shooting on black and white film with only music featured on the soundtrack. The second half showcased the advanced productions, including the two films I was in. They warned ahead of time that some of the films were still works in progress. This helped to explain why some featured out-of-sync dialogue soundtracks, poor exposure and rough edits. The two films I was in weren't anything special compared to the other entries.

Then they showed "Route 260." The film began with the sound of an engine starting and the title flickered in sync with the sound effect. Already, this film had my attention! They shot the entire film outside, so it was constantly well lit and the dialogue track was in perfect sync. It was seriously the best film in the festival and the audience cheered at the end. I actually wished that I'd been in that film. After the festival, I found the two students who had produced it and told them it turned out great. I had hoped that my compliment would lead to me being cast in their next film, but they never called me.

I appeared in one more student film that semester. It was a parody of "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." It featured two explorers studying the species known as college students. At one point in the film, they put tracking devices on the students' ears. In the scene I was in, the woman sitting next to me in a classroom had one of these devices on her ear. About ten years ago, when bluetooth was all the rage, they reminded me of those tracking devices and everyone looked like they were under observation.

The scene I was in featured several students at a lecture. During the scene, I had to pick up a bag of chips, dump it out on my desk and start cramming them into my mouth. But I actually did this like a real professional. After each take, I would immediately run to the nearest garbage can and spit out the chips. I had put them in my mouth in such a way that I couldn't possibly eat them. It was a good thing, too, because we did at least five takes. I don't think I could have eaten that many chips. Besides, I had to make room for the pizza they provided to the cast and crew that day.

I never saw that film because I couldn't make it to the festival that semester. A few months later, I ran into one of the crew members. He wanted to send me a videotape copy, but I lost the guy's phone number after he gave it to me.

I also appeared in a hobbyist's video project. It was done by a man around 50 years old. He was casting for a crowd scene and needed a few bodies to fill it out. The scene we shot featured him moving out of his apartment and telling us what he was going to do next.

I was supposed to have a line in this one. He didn't give out any scripts, but he assigned lines to a few of us and gave us the cues. We got to rehearse it once before he started shooting. The only problem was that there was this twerp among the extras. If the director spoke the cue to your line and you didn't respond within a half-second, the twerp would say your line for you. So what you saw was the twerp saying the line and the person assigned the line saying the exact same thing about a half second later. AND the director didn't even seem to notice. I know I threw my hands up in the air on one of the takes when the twerp did it to me again. It would have been worth making my arms ache to wrestle that guy to the ground while the camera was rolling.

I never did get to see how that project turned out, either. The odd thing is that you would think that these student films would be all over the place on YouTube. I mean, we all signed releases that permitted the creators to do whatever they wanted and make as much money as they wanted with no obligation to us. But I guess that all the crew members had equal ownership in the films and someone would have to get permission from the other members before posting on YouTube. This means I'll probably never ever see those projects. I guess you know you're a real actor when you wind up doing so much stuff that you never get to see everything you're in.

The Independent Theatrical Organization Cycle

I had always hoped that with my degree in Theatre from Eastern New Mexico University that I would be able to come back one day and tell the students about my experiences trying to do something useful with my education, even if I didn't get paid for it. It's never happened, and I don't think it's ever going to happen. What follows is what I would share about the realities of the world they are about to enter.

You probably came to ENMU to study theatre so that you can have a career in the arts. And you're probably hoping that you're going to be very successful at it. But none of you are probably going to hear what I have to say today. I know this because we were told the same thing, and it seemed like no one else was willing to listen then, either. You may feel like there's too much emphasis on designing and building sets, installing lighting, sewing costumes and applying makeup and not enough on performance. There's a reason for this. This program is preparing you to become a valuable asset to an independent theatrical organization. When you go out trying to find work, it's probably going to be a long time before you actually start getting paid doing what you want to do, and you'll have to find a job completely unrelated to the arts to make this possible.

When you graduate from college, you may try your luck at acting in a large metropolitan area. After exhausting that route, you're likely going to come across the theatrical organizations and you're probably going to want to align with one of them. But what you need to know is that they kind of operate like pyramid schemes. It seems like the people who got in on the ground floor get to experience all the benefits of getting cast in major roles, directing and having their own plays produced. Anybody who comes in after that may get cast, may get to direct and may have their plays considered, but only at the discretion of the founders and only after they've put in some time paying their dues.

This means that if you want to be considered favorably by them, you're going to have to do a lot of free work behind the scenes. And you may have to do this for a couple of years before the people in charge start taking notice of you. Now, you may get cast in a minor role if they have no one else who's willing to go on stage with a chicken mask over their head or some other thankless role in which you may be lucky to get a one-word line out of your mouth. But you'll find out later there's a reason for this. And who knows? You may even get asked to understudy for an actor who's just never going to get so sick that they can't make it to the stage.

But you're also going to notice that some new people don't have to do all the hard work before getting cast, directing or having their plays produced. You'll probably find out that these would be the new love interests of the people higher up the chain. At this point, you may start wondering how this organization got this way. Aren't they interested in helping you develop as an artist? Don't they want you to feel like you're making a contribution to their productions? Aren't we all in this boat together? The answer to all these questions is "No."

So, how does this happen? I am about to describe the theatrical cycle to you: Basically, you have a few members who don't like how the people in charge are running the organization. This comes after promises have been made to them that weren't followed through. This small group figures they've learned enough from this company to start their own. But they're going to be different. They're going to be an open organization. They're going to give artists a chance to develop without making them do slave labor for free for years before getting to set foot on the stage. They're going to strongly consider all new plays that are brought to their attention. Above all else, they are going to be fair in the way they treat the talent that is interested in being a part of their projects.

And they are able to maintain this code for a little while. But something will inevitably happen early in the new company's existence. A casting director will come to one of the performances and an actor in the play with no prior ties to the organization will get cast in a notable role in a prestigious production, whether it be a stage play or film. Since this actor didn't spend much time bonding with the company, he appears to feel no need to try to get other people from the organization involved in the project. All of a sudden, the founders are upset that they put someone in a position to just blow them off later.

This changes the way they view every new person who comes in wanting to be part of their productions. They feel like, if you're not going to repay them later, they'll just give you a reason for doing that. This is why it's so hard to become part of the more established theatre groups.

But of course, what the founders normally don't realize is that when those casting directors come to check out new talent, the first thing they look at is the program. They'll study the names of the cast members. If they see their names elsewhere in the program, like as company founder, or artistic director or even set and lighting designer, they know to ignore that person as the production just appears to be a vanity project. They also look at the biographies of the other cast members. If they list several plays with this same company, the casting directors know to look past these people as well. They want to focus on the actors who got cast because of their talent, and not their ties to the company.

And then, a few people from this company will get fed up with how things are being run and THEY'LL start their own company. And the process just goes on repeat.

This is not to say that these companies are not worth being a part of. In fact, some of them go on to do major productions that can reach the New York theatre scene. Sometimes, waiting it out can be a risk worth taking. The only problem is that you don't know until its too late if you were just spinning your wheels dedicating time to one organization when you could have found more success with another.

I'll bet that up until now, very few of you realized there would be so much politics involved in theatre. There's actually politics involved in every aspect of the real world. Maybe everyone should just major in Political Science so they don't have to find that out the hard way.

I also know that none of you will heed this advice and will completely forget about it when you graduate. All I can say is "I hope you like rocky road, and I'm not talking about the ice cream."

My Top 20 Albums

A recent trend on Facebook had people listing their Top 20 Albums. I wound up doing this on a lark. I came up with this list in about 20 minutes. I decided to not put a lot of thought into it. I just picked the first 20 artists that came to mind.

When I started out, I knew what was going to be at #1 and who was going to be at #20. Everything else in between was whatever happened to pop into my head at the moment. I quickly came up with a few guidelines for picking my Top 20 Albums:

I had to have either owned or listened to the album in its entirety.
Try to steer clear of debuts and greatest hits compilations.
List only one album per artist. Do not pick solo projects from members of groups you have already chosen.
Avoid choosing "overhyped" albums. (I'll get more into this concept in the article.)

This was not meant to be anything definitive. If it was, I would have put a lot more thought into it. I had a lot of fun slapping this together and I'm certain everyone else who posted this did, too.

1. The Who - Quadrophenia
I became a Who fan late in 1979 after seeing the movie "Tommy" on HBO. I couldn't buy the soundtrack, but I was able to find the original album. That led me to buy "Quadrophenia" in 1980. I was completely blown away by the ambitious scope and production of this album, which far surpassed everything Pete Townshend was trying to accomplish on "Tommy." The material hit me on countless emotional levels that I was experiencing at the time. Even now, anytime I listen to this album, I feel like a 15-year-old boy trying to figure out the world.

2. The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
This is where we get into the concept of "overhyped." Many people consider "Exile on Main Street" to be the Stones' best album. I listened to it and thought it showed a very raw side of the group. However, after I listened to "Let It Bleed," I found a lot of that same rawness mixed in with their familiar 1960s sound, which made for a better album overall. On a side note: Just as I was getting into music, I was aware that the Stones were considered the "anti-Beatles." When I saw the title of this album, I thought they were doing a parody of "Let It Be." (And maybe they were.)

3. The Beach Boys - Today!
It wasn't when it first came out, but "Pet Sounds" is now overhyped. Too many people are now trying to compensate for years of neglect by naming "Pet Sounds" the greatest album ever. By doing this, they overlook "Today!" which shares a lot of the same qualities as "Pet Sounds" in terms of its production and adult-themed lyrics on many of the songs. Separating the songs into upbeat hits on one side and slower, more contemplative pieces on the other was genius. The first side of this album ROCKS! I don't know about you, but I sure the heck can't dance to "Sloop John B."

4. Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels
I've been a big fan of Laurie Anderson since 1982, when "Big Science" came out. (I could have chosen that. It wasn't her debut.) The main reason I picked this release was because it was the one that came out before the tour in which I got to see her live for the first time. As it would turn out, Laurie Anderson has been the only major artist I have paid to see twice. (And I've seen her perform two other times without having to pay!) This album may have more of a "pop" feel than her other releases, but it has always been a joy to listen to.

5. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
This, simply, is the standard by which I judge all other albums. I was 10 years old when I started getting into the artistry of rock music and was haunted by the song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." The album had so many stunning compositions that all other pop and rock music I had heard up to that point seemed insignificant in comparison. The only bad thing was that this marked the beginning of the end of Elton John's popularity (due to word getting out about him being gay). I later felt like I had jumped on the bandwagon way too late and wasn't able to truly be "in the moment" with him as an artist.

6. Kate Bush - Never Forever
I got into Kate Bush during a period in which I was buying CDs like crazy and purchased "Hounds of Love." After that, I found a CD of "The Kick Inside" in a bargain bin. None of her three other releases were put on CD until after "The Whole Story" came out. "Never Forever" was the last one I was able to get, because I had to special order it. It turned out to be worth the wait. I saw it as a great comeback after the truly cruddy "Lionheart." I felt like she was hitting all the marks on her material. Even though "The Dreaming" was more to my taste, I always kept coming back to this one.

7. Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage, Acts I, II & III
I lucked out on this. I was afraid that the website was going to force me to choose either "Act I" or "Acts II & III," but they offered it as one complete work. This came as a breath of fresh air in the middle of the period in which I was collecting concept albums. This took the storytelling to a truly ridiculous level and had some pretty memorable songs to go with it. If I hadn't gotten to pick all three acts, I probably would have had to settle for "Hot Rats." (That actually would have been cool because Captain Beefheart was prominently featured on that.)

8. Various Artists - Until the End of the World (soundtrack)
Yeah, this is a compilation, but almost all of the songs were created specifically for the soundtrack, so it's a complete album all on its own. This marked a kind of farewell for a lot of major alternative acts from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Grunge had taken hold of the music scene when this came out and it almost seemed out of time and place. But you can't put a date on good music. If the film had lived up to the potential of the soundtrack, it would have been one of the greatest works of all time.

9. The Beatles - Revolver
I noticed that every person I saw who did one of these listed "Revolver" as their one Beatles album. I think this is due to the overhyping of "Sgt. Pepper," "Rubber Soul," "The White Album" and "Abbey Road." While "Revolver" has been recognized for its innovation and powerful songs, it rarely reaches the noted heights of the other albums. In fact, it appears to have made the #1 spot on the general list. But I'm pretty certain that after this starts getting all the accolades, people will start calling "Magical Mystery Tour" their top album.

10. The Art of Noise - (Who's Afraid of) The Art of Noise!
I wanted to recognize Trevor Horn on this list. But the Buggles' "The Age of Plastic" is a debut and Geoff Downes didn't play on half of "Adventures in Modern Recording," so I didn't feel right listing that, either. This was the best solution as it wasn't a debut. (The Art of Noise had previously released an EP titled, "Into Battle with the Art of Noise.") I'm not a fan of sampling, but at least The Art of Noise does it with panache. A lot of my experimental music friends would take me to task for listing this over more deserving artists, but they don't pay attention to me anyway.

11. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Yeah, this is a debut. It was an album I always wanted to own, but it was out of print when I wanted to get it. Time goes by and technology manages to catch up with your desires. I was able to listen to this album after someone posted it on YouTube. (This is also how I listened to "Let It Bleed" and many other albums I never got to check out.) The interesting thing about the version I heard was that it included both the mono and stereo versions of the first side, and they are markedly different.

12. Lou Reed - Berlin
Oh, I would have loved to have put "Metal Machine Music" on here. But I haven't been able to listen to it all the way through on YouTube. But I owned this album during my days collecting concept albums and I really wanted Lou Reed on this list, so here it is. This probably contains the scariest songs I've ever heard. I never wanted to do drugs, and this album pretty much justified that decision. It's too bad it couldn't have that kind of effect on most of Lou Reed's other fans. And I didn't notice this until later, but I subconsciously put Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson on the same list.

13. The Kinks - Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
I have to admit: Before I heard this album, I didn't think much of Ray Davies as a songwriter. But this album demonstrates the level at which he was capable of composing, even when dealing with a concept. I never got into the Kinks as much as I did the Who, but I could see myself becoming a larger fan if I had discovered this album earlier in my teens. (But that would have meant spending more money on albums.) One of the things that this album manages to accomplish is make me feel like it's the late 1960s when I'm listening to it.

14. Cindy Lee Berryhill - Garage Orchestra
I have to admit something here: I personally know Cindy Lee Berryhill. For the longest time, I avoided seeing her shows in San Diego because of something someone wrote on the chalkboard at Java Joe's: "Cindy Lee Berryhill met Brian W. last night." I knew that was a reference to Brian Wilson and I got jealous because I hadn't gotten to meet him. But after I did meet him, I wasn't jealous anymore and I could enjoy her music. I then realized that the note at Java Joe's was a reference to a song on this album, which pretty much serves as a tribute to his production style.

15. Prince - Controversy
Interestingly enough, this was the only Prince album I ever owned on CD. The period in which I was into his music saw me buying cassettes and vinyl versions of his albums. (This actually had a lot to do with "DMSR" not being on the CD release of "1999.") But this makes for a great transition of the material from "Dirty Mind" to lead into "1999" (which would be considered overhyped like "Purple Rain" and "Sign O' the Times"). It's also interesting to hear Prince relay questions people had about his persona before he became wildly popular.

16. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
After I listed Prince, I thought to myself, "Who's that other person who died recently? Oh, yeah! David Bowie!" Yeah, this is probably considered overhyped, but it's the only David Bowie album I've ever owned. Believe it or not, David Bowie could make me psychic. I recall going to a concert by another band. For whatever reason, the song "Suffragette City" entered my brain and I couldn't figure out why. A few minutes later, the band I was watching started playing that song.

17. U2 - War
Well, this is embarassing. I meant to choose U2's second album. But I couldn't, for the life of me, remember the title. An unofficial rule was that I couldn't go into my browser to look up the name of an album. I tried using the website's search function, but it listed a large number of compilations and wouldn't show the album I wanted to pick. Yes, "War" is somewhat overhyped, but I picked it anyway because it came out before they started having any real hits. It was only after I posted the list that remembered the name of that album was "October."

18. The Jacksons - Triumph
The Jackson 5 was one of the first groups I became aware of when I was a child. It helped that they had their own cartoon show. For Christmas one year, my parents bought me "Third Album." I listened to it a lot, and it was cool because they used a couple of songs from it for the TV show. I would have chosen that, but I prefer the later version of The Jacksons in which they exercised more control over their music. The contributions by the other members on this album stood up to anything Michael Jackson composed up to that point. But that all changed after "Thriller."

19. Donna Summer - Bad Girls
Yeah, I was into disco music for a time. And Donna Summer was the first black woman I had a celebrity crush on. I never owned any of her other albums, but I did have the "MacArthur Park" 45. "Bad Girls" was three sides of upbeat dance music and one side of slow tunes. And I LOVED extended versions of the singles. It felt like they could make my favorite songs go on forever so I wouldn't have to put the needle back on the turntable every three minutes. And the funny thing is that I never owned the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack.

20. Apink - UNE ANNEE
What can I say? When I listen to Apink, I feel like a 15-year-old girl.

Actually, I had hoped to choose their "Snow" release, but because it's an EP, that's probably why it didn't show up on the website's list when I searched for it. I hadn't planned this, but Apink turned out to be the only thing on here that came out in the last 20 years. Has my taste in music really been that narrow since I turned 30? Probably.

After completing and posting this list, I was surprised at the albums that didn't wind up on it. 20 albums really doesn't represent the scope of my musical experience. I would like to take this opportunity to name a few albums that easily could have made the Top 20, including a few that break my guidelines. They are, in no particular order (and with no comments or photos):

Bangles - All Over the Place
The Moody Blues - On the Threshold of a Dream
Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star
Napoleon XIV - They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Ripley Caine - Lover
Richard Lloyd - Black & White
Andrew Lloyd Webber - Requiem
Vanessa Carlton - Heroes & Thieves
Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express
The Animals - Best of The Animals
R.E.M - Tales of the Reconstruction
Blondie - Eat to the Beat
Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
The Clash - Sandinista!
Neil Young - Harvest
Steve Winwood - Back in the High Life
Genesis - Nursery Cryme
Paul Simon - Graceland
The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
The Cure - Pornography
Suzanne Vega - Days of Open Hand
Split Enz - Waiata

This is by no means a complete list. I may have to re-visit this in about ten years. Things will likely change if I ever feel like something here has become overhyped or find something isn't getting enough attention.

More attempts to get back into theatre

During the period of time in which I had nothing better to do during the summer of 1993, I decided to give the local theatre scene a crack. As you'll see here, I really couldn't get it to open.

While looking for jobs in the classifieds, I saw that the Fritz Theatre was looking for volunteers. I gave them a call and they asked me to show up on a specific day and time. They'd have some work for me to do. I met this guy about my age. The work involved some cleaning up, rearranging and putting some stuff in place for their current production. We also had to drive out to another location to get some wood and bring it back. We loaded it inside the theatre. Not long after that, the founder of the Fritz came in and started yelling at the guy for bringing that wood in and leaving it on the floor. He tried to explain that we had just brought it in and were about to properly put it away.

During this time, I met several other people associated with the Fritz Theatre, including the company's artistic director. They also had their set designer there. He demonstrated how he made a wooden staircase look like it was made of marble by putting wallpaper with a marble design on it. It reminded me of the creative solutions we would come up with in college and with the Rocky Mountain Theatre Guild in Denver.

After we had finished everything we could do, the person I was working with said that while they couldn't pay me, I was welcome to come see one of their productions for free. They were doing two productions. One was David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," which they performed at midnight on Fridays and Saturday. The other was some independent play. He said that while "Sexual Perversity" was their bread and butter, the other play was more in line with what the theatre was trying to do artistically and encouraged me to come see it. He said he would have my name at the box office.

I arrived the night of a performance. There was a young woman at the box office. I introduced myself and said my name was supposed to be on the list. She said it wasn't there, but trusted that I had done some volunteer work for them. She was actually an in-house playwright for the Fritz Theatre and had a few of her plays produced there. (She did not write the play I was attending.) Her husband was in the cast. I told her I had gotten a degree in Theatre at Eastern New Mexico University. She told me she and her husband had attended New Mexico State University before coming to San Diego. If I'd gone to NMSU instead of ENMU, I still probably wouldn't have known them because she looked about four years younger than me. I felt even more like the ENMU Theatre Department was simply not capable of pointing me in the right direction.

About three other people came in to see the performance. I took a seat next to the aisle. I saw the name of the guy I worked with in the cast. There were three other people in the cast. It's a good show when the number of people in the audience match the number of people onstage. I don't remember the name of the play, but it involved all four of the actors playing dual roles. Sometimes, they were on videotape as their secondary characters, which meant that quite frequently, they were acting with themselves. An actress I met during my volunteer session was also in the play. At one point in the performance, she came into the audience and sat right next to me in the aisle. She looked at me as she said one of her lines.

It was a good performance despite the low attendance. It made me want to get involved in theatre again, even if it didn't pay. A few days later, I called the Fritz Theatre to see when they wanted me to volunteer again. I spoke to the guy I worked with earlier. He said I was pretty good and they would call me if they ever needed me. They never called me again.

A few months later, I got a call from the artistic director trying to get a hold of Jadd. They were holding auditions for "Sexual Perversity" in which they were going to cast women in the men's roles and men in the women's roles. I asked if it was an open audition or if they were specifically seeking Jadd. He said it was open and invited me to come down. When I arrived, I saw the husband and wife and the artistic director. None of them acted like they'd met me before. It was kind of irritating. (Actually, the husband hadn't met me. I only sat in the audience that one time.)

I had arrived a little late and they were already auditioning people with cold readings. I was filling out their paperwork and watching the others audition. I then noticed this attractive young woman doing a reading. I realized I recognized her. She was a high school student in Portales when I went to Eastern. She had gotten to take part in the Theatre Department productions and when we were in "HMS Pinafore," I had been paired to dance with her in a couple of performances. When she was finished reading, I went up to her to say hi. I asked her if she remembered me. She did, but they were calling me up to read at the time. When I was done, we tried to talk, but we had to keep quiet until the audition was over.

We went outside and got to actually talk. She told me she had seen me come in the door. She had turned to the actor next to her and asked, "I know that guy! Do you know that guy? His name is Fayd! He went to Eastern!" She said she would call me and we'd hang out or something. However, she never called me. I wasn't expecting a relationship to start (because she was WAY out of my league), but it was still disappointing because I thought I would finally have a friend, someone I had things in common with.

I then found another theatrical troupe called Buffalo Chip Productions. They were holding auditions for a western comedy style of show. The director had me come down to Old Town to audition. It turned out not to be an actual audition. He'd already cast the show and was rehearsing it, but was trying to get more people involved in the event that actors dropped out due to other commitments and so forth. He told me he didn't really care much for the audition process and just wanted everyone to learn the show so they could step in if needed. As far as compensation, if we sold tickets to the performances, we would get a commission off of those. However, he didn't have any set date for the opening or even a location lined up. For now, we were just practicing in the part at Old Town.

I came to a few rehearsals. The play was kind of funny and the cast appeared to be having a good time, but I preferred the style of theatre that was being done at the Fritz. Since the director said he was going to use me, I kept coming. He allowed me to read and start learning one of the roles. Things were looking up. One day, he came to me and said that we were going to have to find another place to rehearse. He told me where to come to and what time to show up. I arrived at the new location and there was no one there. I asked around, but no one knew anything about Buffalo Chip Productions. Since the new location was about a half-block away from the old location, I went over, but no rehearsal was taking place there, either.

A few months later, I ran into one of the actors while auditioning for a student film at San Diego State University. He remembered me. He told me that they did one performance and had a good time, but there was almost no audience because they couldn't sell any tickets. He said the director really didn't know what he was doing. I told him about the change in the rehearsal space and that's why he never saw me again. He said that the director had a tendency to change the location and would send actors he didn't like on a wild goose chase, but those who remained in the cast didn't figure out until later what was going on.

Buffalo Chip Productions has no presence whatsoever on the Internet now. The Fritz Theatre appears to have closed in 2007. That meant that they had a run of at least 15 years. That's pretty good for a small theatre company.

My experience with these and other independent theatrical companies led me to a lot of speculation about how they work and how they thrive. I'll have an article about that on Monday.