[Previous entry: "Depression: The Artist's Malaise"] [Next entry: "Espace A.R.T."]
03/22/2007: "LEAVING TULSA (part one): Lies or Dreams?" by Walter King
I rode my purple stingray out of the driveway and up the street to the house on the corner where the two new kids just moved in. The garage door was down but I could hear someone playing drums behind the large gray door. I rode up, braked and fishtailed to a stop parallel to the big overhead door. I cocked my cigarette into the corner of my mouth so I would look cool. I took a drag, balanced my body holding the gooseneck handle bars with my left hand while leaning forward to bang my knuckles on the door. The drums stopped. A tall wirey guy in a tee-shirt, faded floral jams with dark short cropped hair and dark eyes raised the door about half way and looked out from just under. He seemed much older than me in my 14 year old mentality. “Hey man. What’s happnin?” he said in a deeper voice than mine. He slightly lifted his head on the "Hey man"-- a kind of a nod. I told the guy that I dug his drums and that I had a set and had a band. He asked “What kind ya got?”
“Pink Champaign Ludwigs with a Speed King pedal.” I said proudly aware that they were about as a good a set of drums as you could buy at the time. “But I only have cheap Sears cymbals. I wish I had Zildjans like yours.” I think I remember his drums were Pearls.
“Wow. Man! Can I see um?” Said the older guy. I figured he must be in high school and probably about 2 or 3 years older than me. I was pleased because he was noticeably impressed. I took him the four houses down the block to see my drums. “Cool set” he said. "This Speed King pedal is great. Can I try it out?" He sat down and did a couple of rolls and said he had a Slingerland pedal but Speed King was the best.Then he asked if I wanted to take my set to his garage so we could practice together. We carried the drums down to his place and were setting them up when his younger brother came out of the house drinking a bottle of coke. That’s how I met the Boyle brothers. Chris, the drummer was the older brother, and Kevin, the artist and the younger were half Cherokee and Welsh. I know that now but we never discussed such things then. Our ancestries just didn’t ever come up. They were 3 and 2 years older than me respectively. Kevin began stitching up some loose loops on an old oval braided rug for the drum kits to sit on so they wouldn’t slide around on the smooth concrete garage floor. I spent the rest of the summer hangin out in their garage. In fact I spent a large part of the next few years hanging around their house, playing pranks and the drums, learning to tell stories-- they were really lies... but great, creative lies. We made psychedelic black light posters, and discovered the best music the 60’s had to deliver. It was also the beginning of my commitment to my art although I didn‘t know it at the time.
Chris was the more outgoing of the two. He was one of the most encouraging people I’d ever met. “Wow man! You were really wailin’ on "Break on Through" dude. I could hear you in the kitchen.” he might say coming out of the house with a bottle of coke in his hand. Kevin would usually add something intelligent about the piece I’d just played and then go back to painting his skateboard or stringing beads or painting a poster. “Peace Baby” said one of the posters in big letters at the top made of small multi colored flourescent dots that he painstakingly touched into place one by one in a variety of patterns.
They said they were surfers from California. I didn’t know much about California but I sure wanted to. I later found out that was a lie. You know now that I think of it I don’t think they ever actually said they were FROM California. They just let me think they were. They didn’t sound like they were from Oklahoma anyway. No drawl, no twang. They sounded like they were surfers from L.A. or someplace like that. And they knew so much about surfing and places like Big Bear Lake. I’d heard of Big Bear Lake somewhere before. I vaguely recall that the Hells Angels used to do a ride to Big Bear Lake. And I thought all of California was like Haight-Asbury in San Francisco which was just beginning to make the news and show up in magazines as the cradle of the new music we were all listening to.
Their dad was defensive line coach for the Tulsa University football team. That was the truth. I remember him being a big gentle guy. He didn’t pay too much attention to me. But never seemed to dislike me either. I guess he just wasn’t sure why the two older boys paid me any attention. Chris was exuberant, facetious and sarcastic but in a good natured way. Kevin was quiet and more contemplative and observant. He tended to irony and was one of those guys who, after everyone else had their say on the subject would make a quiet statement that would either sum it all up, interject an alternate ironic view that made everything turn back on itself or hit you in the face with your own wrong headedness. Cryptic comments that made you think a little harder about it all. They were both great talkers. Sometimes we’d just sit for hours telling stories with all sorts of exaggerations and embellishments “Yeah! Right” Chris would say pursing his skeptical lips grinning and krinkling his eyes, you know, cause he knew you were stretching truth well beyond the limit. Yes there were limits I found to the art of lying. You had to keep it believable or you gave the lie away.
Chris had a paper route. Kev and I used to help him fold papers early in the morning which was a great excuse to sneak out of the house at 3 or 4 am and hang out in the neighborhood when everyone else was asleep. Once we were coming back from the U-Tote-em (Tulsa’s version of a 7-11.) We were driving down from the top of the hill in the early morning fog when we saw this eerie shimmering white form, like a ghost moving ahead of us down the road as we came down the hill in Mr. Boyles lemon yellow Buick station wagon. “What the f--k is that?“ Cried Chris. “Looks like a ghost” Kev said in his usual understated way. “Fer sher dude” said Chris who could only do about 5 miles an hour because of the near white out fog. We lived on the eastern edge of Tulsa surrounded by farms and ranches. And it didn’t help that the big Memorial Gardens cemetery was just south of our subdivision along the road we were driving. The mesmerizing dancing vision kept flickering away just in front of us getting slightly closer and larger. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck moving around like I had lice or something. I nearly spilled my Dr. Pepper sitting in the back seat. At that moment I believed in the supernatural. Just as we neared the base of the hill we came out from under the fog and there in front of us, was the ass end of an old sway back white mare loosed from one of the nearby farms clip clopping down the lane. Every so often she would turn her head and look back at uswith her nostrils flaring and her eyes in a near panic causing the strange shape shifting quality. It became of course one of the great stories we would tell again and again with embellishments to anyone who happened by the garage to hang out.
Kevin an installation shot.
One day we got bored talking about and looking at album covers and listening to records. I think it was Kevin's idea to go out to the country and do a photo shoot as if we were a rock band. We’d been looking at a Stones High Tide and Green Grass album with a photo of the band out in a forest looking all juvenile and English with high heel boots, long hair and funky looking coats. I was the youngest and looked it so I decided to make a fake mustache and beard. I cut some of my hair and used Elmer’s glue to place the hair over my upper lip making a mustache and gho-tee for my chin. Thus began a series of collaborations between the three of us. And I think it must have been the beginning of Kevin's photographic work. I don't remember that he had a particularly good camera. Just a little Kodak point and shoot as I recall. We had to take the roll of film to Skaggs drug store to get it developed. It seems like it took about a week before we saw the results.
(photo from Kevin Boyle's Brooklyn Studio notes)We began making prank phone calls one day just for chuckles. Chris or Kev got on one phone and dialed a number. Then Kev or I would pick up the phone in the bedroom and begin a conversation via the extensions. Sometimes I would do sound effects to enhance the storyline. When the person we’d called picked up the phone they heard a conversation already in progress like a party line. Many of you probably don’t know what that is. But they used to call it that when small towns didn’t have enough lines and you could sometimes pick up the phone and there would be someone in the middle of an ongoing conversation. So that was the premise the pranks were based on. We soon figured out all sorts of ways to exploit the premise for more interesting results. We’d start a conversation about some popular girl, usually someone Chris knew cause he was the lover boy of the group. Of course it would begin a series of rumors that would circulate around school. The trick was to see how long it took for the rumor to get back to one of us. Usually about 3 or 4 days. Later when I saw some of Kevin’s video performance pieces I realized how similar the thinking was to those old prank calls. Each would start with a premise that would allow Kevin to spin a story and prey on your sensibilities. Interestingly enough, Kev’s photo below features a phone hanging from the center top of the photo. It suggests that moment when someone leaves you dangling at the end of the line. The photo with phone nitch above was from a contact sheet with notes possibly planning for a shoot or performance.
(Untitled photo by Kevin Boyle, Los Angeles, CA)In a way you could say one of our pranks began Chris's writing career. Chris thought it would be cool to call Dick Gordon, the lead guitar player in Chris's band. We scripted a scenario in which Chris pretended to be the Doors road manager and Kevin the director of the Tulsa Municple Auditorium. Chris dialed Gordon's number, yelled for Kev to pick up and they began the conversation about how the Doors were coming to Tulsa to do a concert. The Roadie was stranded in Oklahoma City with car trouble and wanted the Auditorium Director to know that he'd be late for their meeting to discuss dates and finances for the concert. I was making muffled back ground shop noises in the dining room with Mrs. Boyles blender, banging on pots and pans and yelling like a mechanic about carbuerators and transmissions. Gordon picked up, said "Hello?" and went silent as Chris went into the routine about how the Doors were excited about coming to Tulsa by the end of the summer. I think we got a call from Gordon a little later to tell us what he heard and we all laughed. It was the quickest turnaround we'd ever had...just minutes instead of 3 or 4 days.
Later that school year Chris found himself on the student council prom committee in charge of getting the band. He decided he would bring the Doors to Tulsa for their high school prom. He knew a DJ for the Tulsa University FM alternative rock station. He called him and asked if he could get Chris in touch with the real manager for the Doors. His friend gave him a number and Chris called it. The guy kinda laughed when Chris made his proposal saying they had a lot of money saved for the music. He said "Man you're gonna need bushels of it." Of course they didn't have enough so I think they got the Chessmen or someother local band. Me wearing love beads before long hair, late sixties.
But here is how lies and dreams work. Sometime later we heard the Doors really were coming to Tulsa to perform at the Municiple Auditorium. Chris tore through is stuff and found their managers number and called him again. "Remember me man? I'm the guy who wanted to get the Doors to do our prom here in Tulsa." The Doors manager laughed and said "yeah man, how could I forget. You got balls." Chris then explained that he also wrote for the school newspaper and wanted to interview Morrison. Kev and I were blown away when the guy told Chris he'd set it up. "Far out man!" Kevin said incredulously. Chris got us three free tickets. Kev and I sat just to the left of the stage, about the third row up. Chris had gone backstage. Then we saw him just to the left of the curtain standing right beside Ray Manzarik. They began the intro to "Light My Fire", played through the intro twice before Morrison sauntered onto the stage, grabbed the mike and began "You know that it would be untrue. You know that I would be a liar...". It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. And now I know it wasn't so much the concert but what Chris had done that was so amazing. He took his dream/lie and made it a reality!
(Chris with Bob Marley, I'm guessing early 80's.)The first time I ever heard the word 'gnarly' was Kevin describing a move his brother made on his old banana board on the slanted driveway in Tulsa back in... must have been in 1967. In fact when Chris and Kevin moved to California in the late 60’s they did become surfers. Chris began doing interviews as I mentioned. He eventually got hired as one of the Doors press agents. And even had a small part in Oliver Stone's "Doors" movie playing...who else... a reporter. Kevin began making photographs, doing performance and conceptual videos. So the lie came true…or is it that the lie was really a dream that came true? We do dream our lives into existence in some respects. We often lie about our dreams because to admit its a dream deconstructs it. The lie hides the fact that it is only a dream so you can act and believe as if it is true. So we lie until it becomes true. I think we dream our artistic lives into existance in the same way. You call yourself an artist long before you are one. Is that a lie or a dream?
Kevin Boyle, early 80's.
(Me at about 15 wearing love beads)Watch for Leaving Tulsa ( part two) in a few weeks.
