I Remember Fred Warren by Peter Reum

As some of the steady readers of this blog have known, there are a group of friends who have passed away that I have tried to honor through writing a tribute in this space. This is my way of trying to help keep the memory of these people alive and to prevent them from fading into obscurity and being forgotten.

When I was 13, my parents noticed that I was sliding toward being a "junior hood" in the Espanola Valley Schools where our family lived. I wasn't doing anything terribly illegal, but it was apparent to people who knew me that I had lost my drive and focus. My father and mother elected to transfer me to the Los Alamos School System, hoping I would regain my scholastic performance. I attended the summer school in Los Alamos after my seventh grade year finished in Espanola, and rode with my dad up the mountain to Los Alamos to a school called Pueblo Junior High School, where a funny and exotic grey haired teacher named Mr. Hochenwalter was earning a few extra bucks by teaching remedial math to people, including me. That summer passed quickly, and I enrolled in Pueblo Junior High School that fall term in 1967.

I showed up for the first day at Pueblo, and was shocked to see that the Caucasian "gringos" were the predominant group there. Gringos were vastly outnumbered at my old school, with Hispanics and Indigenous people making up roughly 90% of the student body. I had learned to speak Spanish thanks to the visionary attitude of my dad, and Spanish spoken by a Gringo was about as unlikely as could be possible in Espanola. The fact that I was able to speak Spanish probably prevented me from getting into several fights those seven years of school in the Valley, as Espanola was called. The revelation that shocked me was that in Los Alamos Schools, the proportion of Caucasians to Hispanic people and Indigenous tribal kids was completely reversed. 90% of the student body at Pueblo Junior High were Caucasian of one variety or another, and there was no need for my Spanish speaking ability there.

The first group of students I ran into included several guys who I was blessed to become friends with. Some were tall, like myself, some were short. One of the shorter guys was a guy whose adolescence had probably begun when he was 9. He was about two years older than the rest of us. His name was Fred Warren, and he had a full heavy beard whereas the rest of us sported peachfuzz. All of the Pueblo Junior High bad boys were afraid of him, because he reputedly had a brown belt in karate.

Fred fancied himself as Pueblo's official greeter of new meat. Being a slab of bologna, he found me and did his best orient me to the dos and don'ts-social routines at my new school. I committed my first faux pas by asking a guy named Scheinberg if he was Catholic. I heard about that until I graduated from Los Alamos High School. Fred explained to me that there was a large Jewish community in Los Alamos, and if I wanted to get off on a good foot with them. I probably shouldn't ask them if they were Catholic.

Fred then took it upon himself to cover the unspoken dress code at Pueblo Junior High. He explained to me that jeans were verboten. He helped me to buy a few pairs of pants that were sort of like today's khakis. Of course my mom wanted to know why I was wearing khakis that she hadn't bought. White athletic socks were out. colored socks were in. I had to walk about a mile from where my dad dropped me off so he could navigate rush hour traffic in this community of 12,000 people.

I had been given one of my dad's old briefcases to stash my textbooks into so I didn't have to carry those books for two miles a day. Fred looked at me about two weeks into my first semester at Pueblo with the briefcase. "Peter...lose the briefcase!"  said Fred. So, I marched that two mile walk carrying five or six huge textbooks at my side for my next two years at Pueblo. Fred had told me that carrying them the way girls do was completely unacceptable.

At Pueblo, the in crowd among Boys was those who went out for football. I had dominated other kids in Espanola playing football. The Hispanic kids were shorter and lighter than myself. At Pueblo, a huge proportion of guys were taller and heavier than average. Our coach in 8th grade football put me at center on the line. For two years I believed my coaches hated me. Centers get bashed every play of every game. Fred played free safety and showed me  a few judo moves to help me stay alive until high school. Punts were especially painful. I was double teamed to hopefully intimidate me to mess up the long snap to the punter. Most of the time it was academic anyway because the punter kicked the ball straight up and straight down half the time. Fred kept showing me those judo moves and I survived playing center, although it was hard to snap the ball from the  judo crane position.

Fred's family had known my parents from the early days of Los Alamos, around 1944. Fred's and father and mother had adopted Fred and his younger brother in the early to middle Fifties, as both of them were orphans born in what was then the British Colony of Malta. The two boys had been in an orphanage until Fred was three and his brother was one. Although they were brothers by adoption. they did not come from the same birth family in Malta. Sadly, Fred and his brother by adoption lost their mother to breast cancer one year after they came to live in Los Alamos.

The bereaved family carried on for a few years, but Fred's dad never recovered emotionally from his first wife's death. His father remarried less than a year later to his second wife, Fred's stepmother. Fred's new stepmother had a daughter, whose age was precisely between Fred and his younger brother. She was the closest person to Fred emotionally, and their bond was unbreakable. Sadly, his younger brother never got over his mom's death. He began practicing his Cubs Scouts campfire building skills in the family's living room.

What Fred and I had in common was that we were both adopted. That bond was cemented in those Pueblo Junior High years. We shared our thoughts about being adopted unflinchingly.  What was good about our adoptions was being a part of a loving family instead of an orphanage. What was the most painful was trying to figure out why were not good enough to be kept by our birth families. The ambiguity of our birth family's history, our history, remained unresolved. I remember those long discussions clearly and fondly. We were a pair of guys who shared our common pain and gratefulness.

As high-school approached rapidly, I spent more and more time at the Warren home, often being picked up by my dad there. The draw of sports was losing its novelty. I remember hanging out with Fred, discussing how high school would be. We moved to The Hill, as Los Alamos was known, and there were no more rides from Espanola to Los Alamos. The last semester of my 9th grade year, I invited my two best friends, Charles from the Valley, and Fred from The Hill to a sleepover at our small farm in Espanola. We had a grand time. Little did I know that Charles would die later that year, and Fred would die in his twenties from alcohol dependence.

Beginning in 10th grade, I made up my mind that I wanted to find more constructive extracurricular activities than snapping footballs from the judo crane position. I talked with Fred, and we both decided to try to join Key Club, which was at that time an organization for boys. Today, I am thrilled to know that my old Key Club is composed of young men and women. Fred and I enjoyed working with the older guys in Key Club performing service projects around Los Alamos and the Espanola Valley. I got elected sophomore representative on the Key Club Board of Directors. I basked in the warmth of accomplishing  something unrelated to sports. Fred became my most trusted Key Club protégé. Being Sophomore Representative on the Board meant running the huge fund raiser for Key Club--selling fruitcakes.

I roped Fred into selling these beauties with me. Together we canvassed two large areas of our town, Western and Eastern communities. We ended up selling over $2500 worth of these gut bombs between us. My family's living room was inundated with fruitcakes for a few weeks all three years of high school.  Fred and I were the Fruitcake Brothers....sorta like the Blues Brothers, only without the blues music and on bicycles instead of  in cars. The Fruitcake company was delighted,  our customers were content to support Key Club,  and as nice as they were to order, no doubt they regifted those fruitcakes. Fred and I continued to hang out at each other's homes.  One winter night, after Fruitcake delivering, we were frozen to the bone.  We ended up at Fred's house, and his parents weren't home. Fred's parents had an amply stocked liquor cabinet, and Fred asked me if I wanted a drink.

My family were social drinkers, so it wasn't as if I was an alcohol virgin. I told myself "one won't hurt." We began with Captain Morgan spiced rum. After several of those , Fred suggested peppermint schnapps.  I loved the taste.  After a few hours my mind was still willing, but my stomach said f*ck you. I was the new decorator of the Warren's living room. Fred, much less plowed, graciously cleaned up the floor while I described how the room was spinning in great detail.

That was the first of many occasions when Fred provided booze. On a number occasions, intoxication followed fruitcake and other activities. My parents were saints, and let me learn about excessive alcohol  consumption the hard way. The novelty wore off, but not completely until I had a family of my own. I had no clue that Fred already had a high tolerance, even in high school. Fred scoped out the social stratification of Los Alamos High School faster than I did. There were the jocks, the straights, the motorheads, the brains, the horse jocks,  the Chem Lab Weirdos, and the druggies. There were also some folks that floated between groups. Fred and I called them the chameleons.

That sophomore year I became aware of the Other Gender. Fred never took that awareness as seriously as I did. We went over the potential for finding a girlfriend, and decided if she were to emerge,  we would welcome it. If not, there was always Key Club. My parents were happy that I wasn't a horn dog,  and quietly let me be socially inept with girls without comment. My older half-sister had a shotgun wedding after her freshman year of college, and they did not want that scenario repeated. As for Fred....he was cool with girls. He would chat them up, mostly letting them talk about themselves. This apparently worked quite well for him. We went to a few dances sophomore year on a stag basis. Fred had a unique way of dancing that worked for him. It was sort of a mix of the Watusi and freestyle diving. He'd Watusi around for awhile and then do a stationary somersault. His frug with a one and a half twist was his signature dance. As for me, if someone asked me, I'd sort of stand in one place with my right leg forward sort of moving like crushing a cigarette with my big toe, and my left leg stationary. Meanwhile, I'd flap my arms like a bird. I was on the beat every 8 measures. Quite a pair, Fred and I.

When winter turned to spring, Fred and I planned my political campaigns for Key Club Secretary and also for Southwest District Secretary. Fred was taking printing class and produced my campaign literature for District Secretary.  At the Key Club Convention in Albuquerque that year, I lost to a guy named Frank Ng (pronounced Ing). To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Well, Frank turned out to be an excellent District Secretary, and The District Governor appointed me District Editor. Fred had been my campaign manager in the District Secretary race. I didn't blame him for the loss. He, as usual, excelled at whatever task I roped him into. He helped me with the Key Club District newsletter, and was amazing.

As Club Secretary, I helped with board matters and was the Project Chair for our Key Club's main service project, helping an old priest begin what he called Santa Maria El Mirador. The location he chose was a 17th century hacienda called El Mirador. This guy, who was trying to get a home for people with developmental disabilities was eccentric, to put it politely. He was from Austria and was tall and wiry with green teeth and a wild shock of grey hair that wouldn't stay in place. He had a brilliant friend who I only knew as Gary, who had a Ph.D from an Ivy league school.

El Mirador had been a Spanish Colonial hacienda, which had been named to the National Register for Historic Places. It was located in a small village called Alcalde. After falling into disrepair,  it was bought in the mid 1930s by an heiress from Chicago who rebuilt it as best she could. The hacienda once again flourished. When the heiress died, it was occupied by the State of New Mexico for a nursing home. After closing, El Mirador again fell into disrepair until Father Dom Cyrillos came. He saw several strapping young Key Club men, and put us to work clearing the five acre grounds, which were a huge mess. On Saturdays,  we Key Clubbers would drive to Alcalde along the Rio Grande. We cleared irrigation ditches, cleared stumps, cleared fields, and fabricated head gates.

Father Cyrillos made lunch for us every time we went down and worked. His cooking was simple but hearty. He said that he was a member of an ancient monk order called the Knights Templar. He would attempt to recruit Fred and I into this monastic group of men. When we asked him what monks in his order did, he confided in us, saying they were monks who fought for Christ. Being young and naive, we swallowed his story without any doubt. It wasn't until years later while researching a term paper that I found out that the Knights Templar Order had been abolished and members executed in the 14th Century by some pope I had never heard of.

Father Cyrillos was eccentric. He showed us a sword that he said he was given when he joined the order of monks. He had a coffin in his room with a small pillow, and when I got bug eyed and asked him why the coffin was in his room, he told me that Knights Templar members rules required it. Visions of vampires made me shiver, but the fact that he did not have teeth to speak of made me feel safe. Vampires can't bite you without teeth.

As time rolled on, we began using bigger tools to remove cottonwood stumps. Fred advocated for dynamite, but Father Cyrillos's friend vetoed that idea. We were very sad about that. I told Gary that I had been using M-80s to blow up those big rural mailboxes since I was 10 years old. Gary seemed to believe that Fred and I, being underage, were too young to blow up stumps. We helped assemble a green house, and Fred spearheaded that task. We renovated several rooms of the hacienda, and through hard work by the board of directors, of which I was a member, also finished the first eight bed wing for the future residents. All of us worked hard to bring that area up to code.  Some of the members of the plumbers local in Los Alamos did the plumbing at no charge. Fred was the guy who sold the project to them.

Fred and I decided, with Steve, another close friend, that we would volunteer for a production that the high school drama club was putting on. We were on the massive front curtain that needed to go up and down. Fred handled problems with lights and climbed high above the stage with absolutely no fear at all. As things turn out, I was invited to go to a girls invite guys type dance that was happening shortly after our play wrapped up. Fred, who never took these things seriously, took a mutual friend to the dance. I was asked to go by a girl who was lovely, but that I didn't know. To say I was panicking would be a gross understatement. I didn't know how to dance, so Fred and his kind and patient stepsister spent fifteen hours teaching me at their home how to dance.

This was my first real date, and I was beyond nervous. The girl was soft spoken but nice. I rang the doorbell in terror. Meeting her parents was a blur. She presented me with a flower for my lapel, and I tried to pin it on her. Her mother, kindly told me that it was for me to wear. The entire evening was a blur, and I could tell that my Cro-Magnon  Social skills and Frankensteinish dancing really made her sorry she asked me to the dance. I did my best right leg shaking toe planted dance style and was mortified.  Meanwhile, Fred and his date, a good friend of both of ours, danced stylishly, with great ease and panache. Fred took one look at me dancing, and with mock seriousness asked me if I remembered anything he and his sister had taught me. I replied that this evening was the longest night of my life.

Fred once again became my campaign manager in my effort to be elected Key Club President and Southwest District Key Club Governor. His work was flawless, and I successfully was elected for both  offices. Our work together continued in the summer before our senior year. We had a solid local Key Club Board, and an excellent District Board. Fred seemed to feel conflicted about his  last year of high school.  He handled many of the duties I had done during our junior year. When I was on the road as Governor, the guys who I trusted ran the various service projects on that year's plan.

Fred easily handled every task I asked him to run.With a few  other guys, he took over El Mirador, which was very close to opening. Fred and I got together  a few times weekly. Fred and I spoke about life after graduation. He had decided to enlist in the armed forces, and the Navy had caught Fred's attention. We wrapped up Key Club duties shortly before graduation.

After graduation, Fred and I played golf together with him going off to Naval basic training. We would see each other when he was home from the Navy.  Our goals and directions split, and Naval travel took Fred to places I dreamed of visiting. I got married, and studied knowing only what my parents told me about Fred after we went our  separate ways.  Eventually,  reports came to me that Fred was drinking to passing out almost nightly. I invited him to my wedding  in Colorado,  but did not hear from him.

My dad told me he came back to Los Alamos and bought a house when he left the Navy. When my dad died, my thread to Fred snapped. He became a legendary drinker, and he did not make himself available for us to reunify our friendship. When I went to the 25th Reunion of our high  school class, my friend Evelyn Vigil told me Fred had died, with his cause of death being liver failure and advanced brain related deterioration.  But I choose to remember him as the fellow misfit I loved like a brother, adopted boys trying to figure out the big wide world.


Copyright 2016 by Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved 

Step Parenting: Cumulative Little Victories by Peter Reum

My third stepdaughter Jenna, graduated from high school last night. For my wife, it was a day of joy and insight. She had raised three daughters and been a single mom going to college before I met her. In 2001, she came to Billings to attend college, and to raise the girls alone. Their dad was a man who married quite young, and had not gotten through the period nearly all males experience, which is the fear of becoming a responsible husband and father. I say this without criticism, because I had the same feelings in my late teens to my mid twenties too.

My own tumult seemed to explode out of the confinement of marriage, which I had wanted so badly before getting married. My then wife had her B.A. in Education to finish, followed by an M.A. in Library Sciences in order to get a job teaching in the Greeley, Colorado School District. I spent two years completing my alternative service in lieu of serving in the U.S. Armed Forces due to conscientious objection. At the end of those two years, I was somewhat relieved to finish, but the experience had been  good one, as I felt I had contributed to the healing of many people while serving. When my then wife got the job in Greeley Schools, I was not yet mature enough to have children, nor was I in any rush to do so. When things began to level out in our lives, we allowed ourselves the luxury of  a three bedroom apartment.

I was somewhat jealous of my then wife's clarity in deciding her career path, and I was occasionally a jerk, making fun of educators and the institution of education. At 27, I realized that I could not be thirty years old promoting the sales of the new Leif Garrett album and respect myself. I timidly applied to the University of Northern Colorado Graduate School. My self worth was in the toilet, and I honestly was unsure about whether I would be accepted or not. The two years in the Rehabilitation Department at UNC restored my sense of purpose, and the friends I made while in that program are some of my closest friends today, 36 years later. My then wife supported my graduate education as I had supported hers. I will always be grateful to her for that.

My current wife, Christina, had a much rockier experience. By the age of 23 she had brought three lovely daughters into the world. Her then husband, who now is a fine man, had the same experience I did in his early twenties, but he had three kids, whereas I didn't have my two beautiful daughters until I finished Graduate School in my early thirties. Christina, my wife now, rode a wild ride through her first years raising her three daughters, Sabrina, Adriana, and Jenna. In 2001, after many years of trying to make the marriage work, the three girls' parents divorced.  For the next six years, my future wife raised the three girls, attended college full-time, and completed her class papers and presentations. To say that this was difficult would be patronizing. Christina is very well organized, and carried off her parenting and school/work study duties admirably. Unfortunately, due to several factors, the girls' father fell behind in child support, and that money could not be counted on as reliable. This experience is common here in this country due to the structure of how different states enforce child support arrears.

The three girls enjoyed their time in school and were active in the churches my current wife attended. Their resilience was strengthened by the three of them supporting each other. This is a wonderful coping strategy many siblings from single parent homes utilize. They lived in low income housing, which in Montana is not as dire as in more populated states. I met the three girls in 2005 (!) when Sabrina was 11, Ana was 9, and Jenna was 8. They were kind but wary of my entrance into their mother's life.  For the next twenty months, I got to know them as people and children, and was hooked on them and their senses of humor and the support they gave each other and Christina.

After my marriage to Christina in 2007, I spent my time sorting out my job, marriage, and my children. I consider all three girls to be my own, as much as the two older daughters I had with my first wife and the daughter and son Christina and I had together. The complexity of the unified households was a challenge, but no one was folded, spun, or mutilated by the experience. There were the usual bumps and grinds all blended families have, but in my heart, these three girls were as much mine as my other kids. We somehow managed financially to support all of the family, but money was tight. Each of the three girls distinguished herself in her own way. They are all very musically gifted. Sabrina has a wonderful ability to express herself in her writing, and is very outgoing. That she is the alpha of the three girls is clear. That said, she has gone her own way, learning about life through the triumphs and disappointments she has experienced. She was married last year, and the couple are the proud parents of our grandchild JJ. He is a delightfully happy baby who is very clear at expressing his needs to James, his father, and Sabrina.

Adriana, being a middle child, is the diplomat of the three girls. She is insightful, tactful, and supportive of her siblings and friends. She is a loyal person, with people skills that are strong and natural. Her voice is marvelous, and her singing was always an uplifting feeling in the house. She and Jenna moved to Florida to spend their last two years of school with their father. It was hard for Christina to not blame herself for the move. Their move was to try to get to know their father before they moved into being adults. I had the pleasure of attending Ana's graduation from high school in Florida last summer (2015). She has gone on to get a job, complete her first year in junior college, and buy her first car. She continues to be the mediator, negotiator, and unifying influence she excels in doing.

Jenna, my third stepdaughter, just graduated from high school this year. Although we could not all go, as we did the previous year, we were able to have Christina attend. Jenna is perhaps the most artistically talented of the three girls. She has exceptional visual arts talent, and also, like her other two sisters, has a singing voice that is beautiful. Jenna goes after what she wants enthusiastically, having a personal drive that is exceptional. As my wife has stated many times, Jenna always wanted to keep up with whatever her sisters were doing, and took pains to ensure that she was included. Jenna has an incredible eye for interior design and decorating, and hopes to enter that profession eventually. Her willingness to challenge phoniness in people and in organizations is a blessing and possibly a curse. She states her mind succinctly and clearly, and her assertiveness is a real asset for her.

Rights of passage in society are usually a welcome experience. They at once recognize the efforts of an individual and their family and bring change that alters the dynamics of everyone involved.  Birth, Baptism (for Christians), entering school, school graduation, entering adult life, getting jobs, and marriage are powerful agents of change,  both in childhood and early adulthood. While often discounted, they provide a special occasion for families to congratulate themselves and their children for the milestone at which they all have arrived. The one lesson I have taken away from these occasions is that they are special. So, to my three stepchildren, now adults, I say...you have been challenging and exceptionally rewarding in my life. I am a better man for being with all of you. I love you and wish you every happiness in adulthood.

Sagacity's Folly by Peter Reum

There is no comfort in wisdom
Said the mother to her sons
Selecting a path true to follow
Losing too many friends hard-won

What wisdom brings to friendship
Turns over the status quo
Leaving relationships long treasured
Laying tarnished in soot tinged snow

When a treasured friend
Elects to stealthily be gone
Wisdom gained is questioned
Regrets emerged  hang on

Did all that questioning become
Harmful to my soul
Knowledge stored away for comfort
No longer helps to feel whole

Intelligence is a curse and never is a gift
When it becomes causation for a rift
Solomon always said sagacity begun
Makes nothing really new under the sun

Divinity given made wisdom trump warmth
Bringing sad feelings painfully coming forth
The gift given and once thought unique
Gone I from humanity to sitting on a peak

The Beach Boys Love Me ???? by Peter Reum

Recently, I had the chance to purchase the Japanese SHM cd edition of The Beach Boys Love You. Before you ask, I am not a person who has dog ears and can perceive major differences between certain high fidelity cds. But, on headphones, it is clearly obvious that this is an extraordinarily clear edition of this Beach Boys album. I recommend it to the folks who are buying the Acoustic Sounds cds solely because that company is not issuing certain cds in their fine collection of Beach Boys shm/sacd cds issued this year and last.

Brian reads the late lamented Pet Sounds Magazine at the Love You Debut Press Party June 20, 1977

That said, part of what I really want to write about is the pleasure that I had in giving this much maligned and/or strongly loved album a listen after many years of not hearing it. I remember hanging out at the old Capitol Records Parking Lot record meet sitting and talking with folks from all over the USA, and some foreign countries as well. What became obvious after 5 or 6 of these types of conversations about the Beach Boys' latest album was that people did not know what to think of it.

Several Beach Boys friends of mine, most prominently my friend Don Spears from Northern California, hated the album so much that they sold their collections. Brian had, in their estimation,  cut this album quickly and carelessly with little regard for the past perfection he had approached records that he had produced. These folks had known the Brian that took pains to ensure that the records he produced sounded the best they could when he shared his art with the world. Other folks simply did not know whether to like the Love You lp or to call it a "practice (therapeutic) record." Thanks to Dr. Landy, the world had been made unnecessarily and acutely aware of Brian's mental health issues, and after 15 Big Ones were expecting a return to Brian's old production style. Reviews of Beach Boys Love You were generally positive, with Robert Christgau raving about it, and Rolling Stone giving it 4 stars after the 2.5 stars they had given 15 Big Ones.

Brian and Dr. Landy 1976

Sadly, the Beach Boys themselves poisoned the relationship with Reprise Records by signing a contract with CBS shortly after Love You was released. Reprise, who were somewhat inclined to offer Brother Records another contract, wrote off the Beach Boy Love You album, thereby causing it to die on the vine. Complicating the whole scene were internal struggles for control of the band, with both sides courting Brian Wilson's vote as to the direction Brother Records would take in the future. The whole mess exploded on the pages of Rolling Stone Magazine, when a writer witnessed a loud shouting match backstage between members of the band after  a 1977 free concert in New York City. Dennis Wilson turned to the writer and said "well, you've just witnessed the break up of The Beach Boys." Dennis and Carl were going through divorces, and Brian was somewhat estranged from his then wife and their children.

Out of all of this pain and all of this conflict emerged The Beach Boys Love You. The 14 songs on the album were all written or co-written by Brian, and he played many of the instruments himself while cutting basic tracks. Like the unreleased Adult Child album, the Love You album was a strong reflection of the things that caught Brian's attention in that era. Sadly, It's Over Now, Its Trying to Say (Baseball), and Still I Dream of It were not included on Beach Boys Love You. Cut at Brother Studio with Earle Mankey engineering, Love You offers a window into Brian's interests and mindset at that time. Despite his mental health being acutely compromised, Brian stepped up and tried to record an album like the "old days." A famous quote from Brian at the time of recording Love You was "Earle, where's the fire? I don't feel the fire I had when I was making those records that were hits."

The flavor of Love You is that it is a personal album statement from Brian, perhaps the most forthright statement in sound he ever cut. Let Us Go On This Way is a prayer from Brian, hoping that the slowly building rift between him and his first wife, Marilyn Wilson, could be mended. Roller Skating Child is his idea of what a young child would do for fun. Mona is a Phil Spector flavored picture of how Brian might approach a woman if he were single again.  The farting synthesizers are charming because they are used in such an unusual style, more sophisticated than before Love You...

Brian Wilson 1976 15th Anniversary Concert

The album's best songs favorably compare with any of Brian's ballads from the Sixties. Brian was feeling isolated and lonely while writing Beach Boys Love You. There is a theme of separateness and alienation which runs through several of the songs therein. That people didn't know about Brian's state of mind while recording Love You was quite understandable. Although Brian's struggle with his mental health was well known inside the record business, the public at large did not pick up on his struggles until Eugene Landy made several public disclosures, supposedly with Brian's written consent, during his first period of working with Brian and his family. Whether this is true or not is immaterial.  Any physician, psychologist, social worker, counselor, or

psychiatrist will tell families of patients and patients themselves that violation of confidentiality is forbidden, whether the family or patient signs a release or not. That Brian's illness was a matter of public knowledge as part of a promotional campaign for two Beach Boys albums was an unpardonable action by Dr. Landy.

It took Paul Kastner, the editor of Crawdaddy Magazine in an excellent editorial in 1977, to tell the truth and sort out the shuck and jive, and to remind everyone around Brian, especially people like Dr. Landy, that treating Brian as a carnival sideshow freak was  unethical, exploititive, disingenuous, and plainly speaking, CRUEL. 

That Brian would be angry about how he was "managed" during the 15 Big Ones album and Love You was as plain and logical as the nose on his face. Remember the interviews where he asked interviewers if they "had any uppers?" Brian's ability to express his reactions to overly controlling personalities. Brian has always had a strong survival instinct which always emerges when he feels cornered, as does any person who was physically and emotionally abused. If one listens to the feelings Brian expressed in what most people thought were "childishly innocent and wacky" lyrics, his anger, grief, and guilt over his life circumstances is plainly evident. 

Brian's mixed feelings about his own behavior led to songs which were snapshots in time.  Songs like Roller Skating Child, I Wanna Pick You Up, and Solar System have almost a conversational tone with Carnie and Wendy, with instrumental  arrangements that sound similar to childrens' records. If one listens carefully, there are subtle lyrical efforts to reach out to Marilyn Wilson in a variety of ways throughout Beach Boys Love You. Subsequent songs from late 1976 and early 1977 also had strong emotional statements from the Love You period, turning up on  the MIU Album, or remaining unreleased until boxed sets included them. Brian's "if Mars had life on it, you might find my wife on it" from Solar System sounds funny and wacky,  but it also sounds like a passive aggressive jab at Marilyn as well. Probable feelings of fear of abandonment surface on Let's Put Our Hearts Together ("let's leave each other never"). Fear of being abandoned for another man show up in I'll Bet He's Nice. Airplane is somewhat of a nostalgic memory of coming off the road and feeling safe in his home and being with his significant other. His dialogues with the women in his life surface in his unreleased Marilyn Rovell, his versions of the Spector-produced songs Just Once In My Life and You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, and his grief centered demo for My Diane. The lead vocal on that song was passed to Dennis Wilson, thus deflecting the spotlight from Brian himself. Another song written during the Love You period, It's Like Heaven, has a couplet with feelings of frustration and fear  of being abandoned ("but you're afraid to walk with me through  the storm") again coming out.

Brian also expressed guilt about his feelings for trysts outside his marital relationship in I'll Bet He's Nice. His feelings in The Night Was So Young are apparently about a woman who provided love, safety, and support when things at home were turbulent. From Adult Child, loneliness emerges in Still I Dream of It. It's Over Now is a song that expresses Brian's feelings about his marriage ending. If Brian ever hoped he could turn around the feelings he and his wife then had, this song clearly lays out his feelings about his marriage ending . Love Is a Woman is a reminder by Brian to his future  self about what is the proper 
method to treat women can be.

It seems to me that Brian clearly and capably showed his friends what his world felt like in this much misunderstood and criticized album. The people who provided the support for Brian for so many years were going or gone. Beach Boys Love You is a highly personal picture of how Brian Wilson felt during the years when his mental illness  brought hopelessness, grief and profound loneliness in a bleak period of his life. The only uptempo tune that sounded fun was Honkin' Down the Highway. Brian allowed himself to imagine how having "a little date with an angel" would be.

There is an old adage that awakening the mother bear inside your wife about the safety of your children with her is the quickest way to harden her heart and lose her love. The years following his divorce and loss of daily contact with his two daughters put Brian in a tailspin that exacerbated the severity of his mental health. His behavior  during the period from 1978 to 1983 when Landy came back showed a man whose heart was broken and internal rudder was missing. In this sense, perhaps Beach Boys Love You could be considered an album whose creator was headed into a profoundly seriously dangerous direction. Love You was the canary in Brian's coal mine, and can be viewed as such.

There are periods in my own life where I felt like a boat captain in a storm of self-created trouble, headed for a reef  that I could not avoid. This is also the impression that I had from Brian's albums as the late Seventies turned into the early Eighties. Friends of mine who were close to Brian  kept me in the loop regarding his health and well-being. The worst was yet to come. 

But The Beach Boys Love You remains the last album that Brian wrote, produced, and that gave listeners a peek into Brian's world until his first solo album. Huge unanticipated changes were yet to come which gave Brian his Second Life and the stability, fatherhood, and complete control of his music without interference from  record companies, various svengalis, and others who "watered" his creativity with the goal of exploitation. The fable of the goose that laid golden eggs comes to mind...selfish people who wanted more and more golden eggs eventually killed that goose, thinking they would find a bevy off eggs. All they had left was a dead goose.

The Beach Boys Love You is an album at once innocent but also immensely personally reflective as well.  As a dear friend of mine once said "Peter, in 100 years only Brian"s music will matter. No one will care about the drama of Brian's personal life." It is in that spirit that I celebrate The Beach Boys Love You.



Copyright 2016 by Peter Reum- All rights reserved

Where the Rez Is Dry and Border Towns Are Wet by Peter Reum

Throughout the world, Indigenous Tribes  have had the challenge of maintaining their critically important oral history, language, and spiritual beliefs that comprise the cultural essence of their traditions that, if lost, may completely erode the quality of life of the tribe. 

As time has gone on, these concerns have been coupled with a feeling of rootlessness that is generated by the obvious loss of  many of the various components of tribal culture. Young tribal members need tribal traditional anchors that bring forth their pride and that encourage them to feel proud of who they are. Without them, they are rootless.

Alcohol, for too many decades, has been the mood altering chemical that has led to tribal members drinking to erase the abuse,  racism, poverty, unemployment, illness, and disrespect of traditional tribal spirituality by non Indigenous groups and governmental agencies. The US policy of assimilation from 1890 through most of the Twentieth Century robbed tribes of their very identities. The Indian Schools on and off the reservations traumatized at least five generations of Indigenous people--enough to give many tribal members the equivalent of wartime post traumatic stress disorder. 

As reservations for various tribes were established, many tribal members were penalized for keeping their languages, oral histories, and lifestyles with corresponding ridicule and punishment becoming a daily experience. The disappearance of several tribes was accomplished by the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture. Despair,  impoverishment, and suicides on Indigenous reservations became tragically regular. The traditional tribal members often had to battle "progressive" factions of tribes,  as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, missionaries, and conniving entities like corporations just to simply live as their ancestors had.

The various USA and Canadian tribes were introduced to alcohol very early in the history of interaction between Europeans and Indigenous tribes. Unethical traders and reservation overseers, such as federal tribal agents, had instilled the goal of assimilation of various tribes' traditional cultures, robbing members of the very qualities that they believed were sacred and traditional. In turn, this led to loss of the meaning of life, with the result that many reservations were sold as parcels of land to dubious buyers.

Assimilation...ethnic cleansing...It was as if someone you didn't know came along and told you you could no longer speak your native language, express your traditions of spirituality, and lead the daily life activities you had always known.Then they told you to forget everything you ever knew to be true and told you that you had to try to be like them. You would have to worship their god/s, learn their language, and try to learn how to farm on a tiny, unsuitable plot of land when your tribe had always either farmed using your own traditional methods or you roamed and hunted by the seasons, following the prey you had hunted for thousands of generations. Finally, these people put you in these invisibly "fenced" lands that were far from the traditionally sacred places that your tribe had lived on for centuries. Every promise or treaty made to your tribe through or with governmental agencies was eventually broken....the result being that those negotiating with you and your tribe weren't reliable...as an Indigenous person, you knew that when a European/American's lips moved, he or she was lying.

Acculturation, the unspoken goal of these tactics, had always worked with the various immigrants from Europe. Why were they not working with Indigenous peoples?  The answer, at least partially, is that Indigenous tribes considered this land, called "America" by the Europeans/Americans, was a land that had already been named by various tribes. They were humans who had their own creation stories, ate foods they caught or raised themselves, and honored the agreements they kept. The United States used the model forged by the Iriqouois Confederated Tribes to help structure the union of the 13 original states. To consider that the various tribes were simply humans who lived their lives differently than the Europeans did was unthinkable to these so called "civilized, Christian kingdoms."

The idea that women sometimes controlled land, decision-making, and spiritual rites was unthinkable to Europeans/Americans. The idea that group decisions, made only after everyone's ideas had been spoken, scared them. The concept of property, that is, land set aside and paid for by a person or a family was not a part of Indigenous culture. Wealth in  Indigenous tribes was measured by how each member treated other members and their families, or how many horses they had. In certain Northwestern tribes, the giving of a bounty of anything to the whole tribe was not only good manners, but a measure of esteem held by the tribe for a member or family within the tribe.

During the European Colonial Period in North America:

"Cultural clashes between European settlers and Natives lasted for over four hundred years – small battles, large scale wars and forced labor systems on large estates, also known as encomiendas – took a large toll on the Native population.

Throughout the Northeast, proclamations to create ‘redskins’, or scalps of Native Americans, were common during war and peace times. According to the 1775 Phipps Proclamation in Massachusetts, King George II of Britain called for “subjects to embrace all opportunities of pursuing, captivating, killing and destroying all and every of the aforesaid Indians.”

Colonists were paid for each Penobscot Native they killed – fifty pounds for adult male scalps, twenty-five for adult female scalps, and twenty for scalps of boys and girls under age twelve. These proclamations explicitly display the settlers’ “intent to kill”, a major indicator of genocidal acts."

(From United to End Genocide: Atrocities Committed Against Native Americans-endgenocide.org)

Reservation boundaries were set by the various European/American nations, only to be ignored when a tribe had gold, silver, or some other valuable commodity that was unknown to Europeans when reservation boundaries were established. In the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, corrupt American state governments, men, and corporations often stole from food and supplies intended for the tribal members. Various denominations of Christianity simultaneously and consciously eradicated Indigenous culture, including oral traditions, language, and spirituality. Some tribes hid their traditional rites from missionaries, others were systematically "reprogrammed" with the intention of making whole tribes "Imitation Caucasians."  Indigenous people were not allowed to vote nationally in U.S. elections until 1924. Meanwhile, these people, once identified by the U.S. Constitution as 50% human in U.S. Censuses, were drafted for service as 100% human in the never ending cycles or war the United States undertook, beginning with the Spanish-American War.

To quote again from endgenocide.org regarding the USA's interactions with Indigenous tribes after American Independence:

"After the American Revolution, many Native American lives were already lost to disease and displacement. In 1830, the federal Indian Removal Act called for the removal of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ – the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials working on behalf of white cotton growers forced nearly 100,000 Indians out of their homeland. The dangerous journey from the southern states to “Indian Territory” in current Oklahoma is referred to as the Trail of Tears in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease.

As the United States expanded westward, violent conflicts over territory multiplied. In 1784, one British traveler noted:

“White Americans have the most rancorous antipathy to the whole race of Indians; and nothing is more common than to hear them talk of extirpating them totally from the face of the earth, men, women, and children.”

In particular, the 1848 California gold rush caused 300,000 people to migrate to San Francisco from the East Coast and South America. Historians believe that California was once the most densely and diversely populated area for Native Americans in U.S. territory; however, the gold rush had massive implications for Native American livelihoods. Toxic chemicals and gravel ruined traditional Native hunting and agricultural practices, resulting in starvation for many Natives.

Further, in 1850, the California state government passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians that addressed the punishment and protection of Native Americans, and helped to facilitate the removal of their culture and land. It also legalized slavery and was referenced for the buying and selling of Native children.

“A war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct.”
– California Governor Peter H. Burnett, 1851 

In 1890, Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, government officials believed chief Sitting Bull was a Ghost Dancer, someone who rejects “the ways of the white man” and believes that the gods will create a new world without non-believers. In the process of arresting Sitting Bull, federal officials actually ended up killing him, causing a massive rebellion that led to the deaths of over 150 Natives in Pine Ridge." (From United to End Genocide: Atrocities Committed Against Native Americans-endgenocide.org)

The Original Codetalkers-Choctaw Nation World War 1-Despite Their Distinguished Service, They Could Not Vote After They Came Home

Liquor made it's debut in Indigenous Culture shortly after Europeans set foot on what became the United States and Canada. Combined with the numerous outbreaks of smallpox and other European diseases that tribes had no natural resistance to fight off, human genocide occurred on an unprecedented scale. Historian Howard Zinn estimated the number of Indigenous persons who died in war fighting European/Americans after 1492, and due to deliberate and accidental exposure to smallpox and other European diseases as 100 million people from 1492 to 1900 in North and South America and the Carribean. It is no wonder that Adolf Hitler patterned the Holocaust after the manner in which European-Americans handled "their Indian Problem." The population of Indigenous people fell below 250,000 people in the 1900 United States Census. This is down from an estimated 12 million in 1491.

Liquor, in many forms such as whiskey, rum, and other types of mood altering drink became a tool to manipulate Indigenous peoples to achieve the subjugation of tribes by the various governments as needed. The reasons for the tremendous explosion of intoxication in various tribes were varied, but there were some common threads. The patterns of crushing a tribe's unity were classically Machiavellian. When a goal arose in respect to some level of USA hegemony, the Whites would approach some "chief" of the tribe, as perceived by White trappers, hunters, soldiers, and other politicians or businessmen. The approach would be to at first offer friendship, to provide certain desired goods, then gradually encroach on tribal lands looking for whatever of value that was found. This could be precious metals (e.g gold, silver, etc.), land for traveling, fertile farmland, water, grazing land, and so forth. The US government negotiators would get together with "chiefs" and offer promises of provision of food, blankets, weapons, and metal tools. 

What made the exchange so one sided was that token efforts would be made to keep out US citizens, until Americans chasing gold and silver found whatever would or could be exploited. Before the Americans, there came British, Dutch, French, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese determined to establish empires. Indigenous people were given many forms of alcohol. While some tribes had developed mild "beer" types of intoxicants before Europeans, the potency of European liquor brought a new way for tribal members to mood alter. Along with blankets exposed to smallpox, being overcome by guns, alcohol, and seizing tribal lands became prime methods in "watering" the cultural disintegration of entire tribes trying to hold on to their spiritual beliefs. As the Europeans ceded what they thought were their lands to the USA and Canada, Indigenous tribes were driven out by former colonists with the United States government's tacit approval.

The gradual confinement of Indigenous tribes to lands the Americans thought were "useless"-led to an a patronizing approach to communication, which the tribes found ill-mannered and disrespectful. The Indigenous tribes were labelled as primitive (noble) savages, and several stereotypes emerged. One was "The Drunken Indian." The idea was that as a race, Indigenous People were genetically susceptible to alcohol. The simple truth is that while Indigenous People as a population do have the highest rate of alcohol consumption, there are as many people from other races who carry the genetic trait to alcohol dependence proportionately as Indigenous people. 


Dr. Susan Bomalaski, in an essay called "The Drunk Indian Stereotype” notes:

It is true that Native Americans have the highest rate of alcohol abuse among any “race-ethnicity”; alcohol dependence is higher than national averages and alcoholism deaths are the highest in the nation among both make and female Native Americans. (Welty) However, it is important to realize that when we see differences in a medical outcomes that appears to be based on race and ethnicity, we should not assume that the differences are genetic. As stated by Morrissey, "In any given study, the answers you get may depend on which people you are studying. Are these new immigrants or people who are deeply acculturated to mainstream U.S. lifestyles? Are these white people in the United States or in France, or Chinese people in China or the United States? The answer may also depend on whether you are studying people who are a majority or a minority. And whether you are studying people who are wealthy or poor. All of these features can make a difference in medical outcome, including drug metabolism. The problem is that these environmental features often co-vary with race, making it difficult to determine the exact explanation for observed differences between racial groups.Studies from the 1990's have led to the common idea among both non-Native American and Native American people still prevalent today that Native Americans have both a genetic metabolism and cultural heritage, which pre-disposes them to substance-use-disorders (Levy). Subsequent research has proven that Native Americans react to alcohol much like other people. The ethnic differences between people are not as significant as the differences of individual metabolism, diet, body weight, drinking history, state of health, speed of consumption, intention, context, and history of head trauma. In the case of alcohol use and Native Americans; the concept of alcoholism serves to dehumanize individuals; if they are biologically different and suffering from a disease, Native Americans are not seen as rational struggling individuals but as victim of their own inferiority (Oswald). Healthy use of alcohol is something that many individuals struggle with; developing the racist concept that alcoholism in an inherent feature of being Native American dismisses this group of people from that struggle. This stereotype founded on historically culturally constructed concepts of race led to the misuse of research through scientific racism of heritable alcoholism. Research relying on these “not human" stereotypes, act to dehumanize Native American peoples in today’s society even by people who motivation is to empathize with the “Drunk Indian.” (Italics are mine, not Dr. Bomalaski's)

The simplest hypothesis about  Indigenous Tribes and alcohol is fairly complicated. The  co-variance of other factors influencing alcohol consumption could include unemployment, isolation, economic devastation, rates of illness accompanying alcohol consumption (e,g, diabetes) and many more. The reservations which are "dry" by tribal or Bureau of Indian Affairs decree seem to have developed what could be called a  "look the other way" approach to tribal members' drinking. In some tribes, although a "dry" reservation is tribal law, tribal members end up going off the reservation into communities near the borders of the reservation to get alcohol. 

One way Indigenous people who are alcohol dependent develop such dependence is to leave their dry reservations to either live in or travel back and forth between their reservations to what Alysa Landry calls "Drunk Towns." Her article, entitled "Drunk Towns U.S.A. - Fighting Native Intoxication with the Ditch Patrol" discusses the migration of tribal members back and forth between their reservations and towns which abut such reservations just outside of reservation boundaries. The town discussed as an example in Ms. Landry's article, which appeared in the excellent weekly digital newspaper This Week From Indian Country.

Ms. Landry uses Gallup, New Mexico as the example of a city near a reservation which has a large problem with public intoxication. As with numerous towns near Indigenous reservations, Gallup has a large Indigenous population,  44 percent, according to Ms. Landry. Due to a high rate of unemployment, alcoholism is rampant.

As alcohol use has been an issue in Gallup for decades, the proximity of many tribes' reservations to Gallup has led to aggressive panhandling by homeless Indigenous and other people who have turned Gallup into "the most dangerous town in New Mexico" according to the FBI as quoted by Ms. Landry. The problem of vagrants who are intoxicated has led to Gallup having a detoxification facility with 180 beds, a huge facility for a town of 15,000 people. Detoxification is simply the equivalent of a timeout room for intoxicated adults. As with numerous towns and cities in the West, winter temperatures go below freezing, causing potentially lethal conditions for anyone who is intoxicated and out overnight. What makes this situation more desperate is that the detoxification center is nearly broke, and will not survive this calendar year if a significant infusion of cash is not found. Figures from 2015 indicate 18 people nearly all Indigenous Tribal members, froze to death in or near Gallup (Landry, 2016).

Here in Montana, rural towns and cities which are near reservations encounter the same problems as Gallup.  In Billings, Montana, the community which abuts one reservation and has several tribes' members who mirror Gallup's problem with potentially freezing to death in Montana's bitterly cold winters, Indigenous people struggle with mood altering chemicals as well as alcohol.

Ms. Landry closes her essay by making the point that cities near reservations need funding which is substantial enough to not just place a bandaid on a gaping wound, but to have the needed funding in services which treat the border towns as partners in addressing this problem as the multi-headed hydra that it is. Until such an approach is taken, communities that are now suffering from rampant alcohol dependence will face more decades of being labeled "drunk towns."

I would like to acknowledge the sources that I found helpful in putting together this article: endgenocide.org, This Week in Indian Country and Alysa Landry, and Dr. Susan Bomalaski.

Copyright 2016 by Peter Reum - All Rights Reserved

Uncut Magazine's Ultimate Music Guide-The Beach Boys by Peter Reum

This special edition covering The Beach Boys is the latest in a series of guides issued by Uncut, with an emphasis upon a critical assessment of each song on every album. Personally, I have enjoyed previous publications in this series on The Who and The Byrds.

That The Beach Boys deserve such an analysis of their music is no surprise to fans of the group.  To those not as familiar with Beach Boys music, this booklet may help with sifting through the numerous albums and compilations.

The booklet runs roughly 110 pages, and can be read in a long evening. The illustrations are carefully selected to fit the time each album was new. Most of the photos are in color.

What makes this booklet special for most Beach Boys fans is that there are interviews and coverage of the group that date from the time of various LPs or tours. Many of these interviews are written by veterans in the British music press whose contacts with the group were built over many years.

As an example, the encounter that Richard Williams has with Brian Wilson is a classically insightful description of Brian's world circa early Seventies. Another interview by John Mulvey from 1995 brings some insight into Brian's frustration with his fellow Beach Boys after the group's lp with Country Music artists and Brian and Andy Paley's attempt to do an album of new material written by the two of them in the early Nineties.

There are numerous past interviews with all members of the group except Blondie Chaplin and Ricci Fataar. The roles that various members played in group history are made clearer. One interesting aspect of these interviews is the rapport that Bruce Johnston built with several rock music journalists in the Sixties.

Rough spots in the Beach Boys career are made understandable, especially during the late Sixties, the period between the Holland and 15 Big Ones albums, and the post Beach Boys Love You period through Dennis Wilson's death. The friction between the group and Landy during Brian's Eighties and early Nineties period of being cloistered and then set free from Landy's clutches is clearly covered.

Music criticism is highly personalized and subjective to whatever music writer is evaluating the song or album. If you are a listener who believes that a certain song/album has been given a bad time by music writers, you may find the articles covering certain Beach Boys' recordings maddening.

There are clearly some evaluations that stand out as exceptional reviews, at least in my mind. Andy Gill's coverage of Summer Days accords this album the respect it deserves as a production which highlights Brian's growth as a producer at a time when family issues were disruptive to group recording.  Gill makes clear the horrible impact Murry Wilson was having on his sons, especially Brian, whose confidence was shaken by his father's petty and jealous outbursts.

The Smiley Smile overview by John Dale shows the innovative minimalism that Brian used to convey some of his ideas from Smile in a manner less dramatic than Smile.  The way Dale amplifies the intimate feelings that Smiley Smile often engenders in listeners who allow the album to stand on its own without a comparison to Smile.

Mark Bentley's piece on Carl and the Passions - So Tough captures the strengths of this album, offset by the haphazard sequencing of the songs on the album. The group's reactions to the album itself  clearly explains why the relocation to Holland was needed.

There are songs that are rated higher or lower than I would rate them. That music criticism is such a subjective form of writing is apparent throughout this booklet. The strength of the package is the use of interviews from the music press to place the albums in their temporal context.

If you are thinking about buying this booklet, do it soon. Copies flew off the shelves of local retailers here in my community, and similar reports are coming to me from fellow Beach Boys fans elsewhere.

The Garden by Peter Reum

From shattering times gone
The present is shaded
We, Reborn, hope flowing
Our fragile souls mending
While we sleep under the Dream Catcher

Trying to forgive, striving to forget
We grow tall hedgerows 'round secrets
Neglecting to mark the path
We took into the garden-
The garden of secrets

Trapped in our maze,
We wandered deeper and deeper
Searching for that Someone...
Who can release us from
The memories driving us
Further into the garden of secrets

Reaching for roses, winter coming
Stung by thorns, afraid to believe
Autumn can be sweet
When Spring's promise and Summer's storms
Flew on while we rested
Under the Dream Catcher

Copyright 2016 by Peter Reum-All Rights Reeserved