From: IMRud@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 3:26 PM To: Clark, Wes Subject: Answers to questions Hello again, Here are the answers to your different questions. <> 1966 probably sounds about right. My guess would be Kathy was at the Hullabaloo. It's on Sunset -- a block or so east of Vine. The Hullabaloo started out as the place where Queen for a Day was filmed. Quick aside: Do you remember this show? I did in a vague kind of way, but a few years ago, I ran an episode of this for the Broadcast class at UCLA. The thing was surreal to say the least. Three women contestants, and the one with the most pathetic story is the winner -- a refrigerator or something. And during the show there were these bizarre little musical segments. The one I saw had some kind of carnival theme. A very odd mix of real life misery and TV "happy" entertainment. And this thing played five afternoons a week! Back to Hullabaloo. Another one of its incarnations was as the Aquarius theater where Hair played. My mother actually took me there to see it (I still have the program). I remember at intermission, the audience was addressed by one of the cast members who asked what parts we enjoyed most -- the peace and love sections or the strobe lit, violent parts. I remember feeling vaguely guilty and intimidated because the love portions were boring me to tears, but the violent parts (the scenes we as an audience were expected to condemn), I actually found the most entertaining. Finally, the Hullabaloo was where the short lived (but for those of us who watched it -- still way, way too long) Chevy Chase Show was shot. Watching this each night was like standing at an intersection where you knew the same cars were going to crash and collide. The show was so horrible, it held its audience in a morbid kind of grip: can it be as awful and horrible as it was the night before? And each night, it would rise to the challenge -- until mercifully, it was canceled after about a month. Easily one of the worst things to ever air on TV. Final Hullabaloo thought. I do remember going there to see Kathy dance. I don't really remember your being there, however, but since you were, I'm figuring it was probably my mom who would have taken us (which seems a little strange when you think of it) or maybe both our moms took us. I have a memory of being at a McDonald's on Sunset Strip, the two of us munching away on burgers as our moms talk, and my mom says something like, "One day we'll probably be out here looking for Jim and Wes." I've got to tell you, nothing every ticked me off more than when an adult tried to predict what I'd do in the future, especially when they'd stick me in some pigeon hole activity that all the other kids were involved in. Anyway, if the four of us were on Sunset Strip, we might very well have been there because we went to see Kathy dance. <> To be perfectly honest, Kipper never seemed to like anyone all that much. He was one of those small, hyper dogs -- always yapping and nipping. Although not usually given to animal torture, I do remember something I used to do to Kipper. I'd wrap him up in a blanket, swing him around and around, and then let him loose. He would stagger around for a moment or two, so disoriented he didn't immediately break out into his standard staccato machine gun-like yapping. I performed this act of minor animal cruelty for the entertainment of most of my friends, so my guess is, you probably got to see it at some point also. It was the one "trick" Kipper could do. << Some questions: 1.) My experience with you always contained some mysteries, namely, was your mom on the run from your father or something like that? I seem to recall conversations from you that suggested that he was trying to find you. Was this the case?>> We weren't really "on the run," but I think the fear that my dad might turn up was still a concern. By the time I met you, we had probably not seen my father for a couple of years. Here's how we came to leave him: One day I came home from the park (I'm probably six) and my mother and grandmother are packing and getting things together and so is my sister. I remember my mom asking me if it was OK if we left my father, and without hesitating, I said, sure. If I could take my Texaco tanker, it wasn't a problem. So we loaded up the Mercury, and we left. I remember that night, while riding in the car, commenting to my mom, "There's no Santa Claus, is there." If I saw this in a movie, I'd say the symbolism was pretty heavy-handed. The thing is, the only reason I sill believed in Santa Claus was that I didn't believe my father would even buy me a present (he never did, my mom did), and so I had to account for where presents from him really came from. Since we were leaving dad, it seemed like a good time to get this all cleared up. << 2.) Kathy's father wasn't your father, right? Was she a Rutherford? West? I don't recall if she was Kathy Rutherford or Kathy West. >> She probably went with West, but you know, I'm not sure. No, she wasn't a Rutherford, and actually, West was the last name of my mom's Dad. I'd have to check with Kathy to find out what her father's last name was, but whatever it was, I don't think she every used it. << 3. ) Why did you move so often? Was it financial, or due to #1?>> I think our moving around usually had to do with finances. Initially, there might have been a fear of my father finding us, but later, I don't think so. Once we moved to the apartment in Hollywood (and we must have moved at least six times before we moved in there) the pattern was this: My mother would get a job managing an apartment house, something would happen, she'd loose that job, and we'd move temporarily into another apartment until my mother got another job managing another apartment house, and something happened so that she lost that job and we moved into a different apartment until she could find another job managing a new apartment house and... well you get the idea. By the time I knew you, I'd made sense of all this moving by figuring it was our job to move in, fix up a place, and once we'd accomplished that, move onto the next place and fix it up. << 4.) Where were you born? I recall your telling me that you and your mom were from Indio - which seemed like a foreign country or something! Was your mom a native Californian?>> I was born in Indio (it's in the desert, kind of near Palm Springs), California, and it's the home of the Date Festival! But even when I lived with my dad, we did a certain amount of moving around, so I didn't spend all that much time growing up in Indio. All I remember is a pony and a pool. Actually, I think it was there that I thought jumping in the deep end of the pool was a cool idea (even though I couldn't swim), and my father, seeing me sink underneath the water, jumped in and saved me. I certainly thank him for that. Put this together with a couple of other memories (one of us eating black-eyed peas together on a porch) and you pretty much have the only good memories I have of him. As for my mom, I'm pretty sure she was born here in California. Probably in LA. She lived in Watts way back before it became a black neighborhood. To hear my mother tell it, the time during the depression when she was a little girl (before her mom and father divorced) were the happiest days of her life. Being a grown-up, in her opinion, was not a good thing. I think my mom was always looking for some outside force to set things right -- for her dad to come back in the form of Kennedy, or Che or much later in life, Pat Bucannon and make things be the way they used to be. The big down side of this kind of thinking is, you deny all your own power to make things better -- although I have to admit, for me, she did her very best -- and that's about all you can ask. I might have wanted some things to be different, or maybe a more stable life, but I know my mother did everything within her power to make my life as good as she could. <> Not a problem, Wes. Glad to be able to fill in some of the blanks. If you have any other questions, just ask away. I see some more scans have arrived of comic book covers, so I'm going to go check them out. Talk to you soon, Jim