Mile Swim

It's hard not to be distracted these days by all of the hype and hoopla surrounding the election. It's a historic event. It's an important decision. And it's interesting as hell. But, meanwhile, life goes on.

One of the best ways I have found to clear my head of external distractions is to go swimming. Spending forty-five minutes with my face submerged in water is a great way to block out the world. My main focus when swimming is on my breathing. That and counting. It's pretty basic. When you pare down your conscious processes to just breathing and counting, you are pretty close to a state of pure being. Plus it's great exercise.

I have always loved the water. When I was a kid my family lived in a neighborhood with a swimming pool just down the road. We could easily walk there and on summer days we practically lived there. Back then, swimming consisted mainly of 'horseplay'. Jumping, diving, splashing, inventing games, anything to spend more time in the water. But the real fun was jumping off the diving board. And in order to do that I had to pass a test. One of the first real tests of my childhood: to swim the length of the pool.

Swimming The Length was a major rite of passage in my neighborhood. I still remember the day I did it. It was during one of the fifteen minute breaks each hour when the adults were permitted to swim and the kids had to cool their jets. It was a major event, because during 'break' all the other kids were sidelined with nothing else to do but watch you.

Gordy, the redheaded lifeguard, walked slowly along the edge of the pool as I made my way out of familiar shallow territory and into the exciting and dangerous realm of the Deep End. My Mom walked just behind Gordy, offering words of encouragement and a confident smile. I can still see the tiled wall at the far end drawing slowly closer. Below me, nine feet of water. There was no turning back. I was determined not to fail. Finally, I made it. I had swum The Length. Friends and neighbors applauded. Gordy congratulated me. Mom hugged me with a warm towel.

The next summer, I was persuaded to try out for our neighborhood swim team. I'll never forget that day either. My older sister Cindy was on the team. She was a great swimmer. My Dad had been on the swim team at Wesleyan. I felt like I had a legacy to uphold. Only I didn't want to be on the swim team. I liked swimming for fun, not for competition. I was a pretty scrawny kid and lacked the upper body strength for real swimming. I just liked goofing around in the water.

The first day of practice we swam a twenty lap warm up. It was a huge struggle for me. I barely finished. I felt like I was going to puke. I tried to get excused from the rest of the practise, but was pressured to continue. Things got a little better when we started racing. I was actually pretty fast in the short sprints. I even did O.K. in a couple of meets. But I never forgot the shame of that first practice. I just wasn't cut out to be on the swim team.

I never stopped loving the water, though. I spent as much time in the pool as possible during the summer. And on our family trips to Florida, I enjoyed swimming in the ocean just as much. At summer camp as a Boy Scout I even learned some lifesaving techniques. But there was one thing I was always afraid to try, even though I secretly wanted to. And that was the Mile Swim.

The Mile Swim is a merit badge awarded by the Boy Scouts, or "Scouts" as they now like to be called, for (you guessed it) swimming a mile. There are a few other requirements as well, but it's pretty much the swimming the mile part that gets you the badge. I remember passing by the pool at Camp Covered Bridge one day when they were holding the qualifying swim for the Mile Swim merit badge. I stood and watched as about a dozen boys swam lap after lap, still haunted my own humiliating performance at that first swim team warm up. I thought about how cool it would be to earn that merit badge with the little red seahorse on it. That would be some real vindication.

I never did try to swim the mile, though. It seemed impossible. A mile! Who could swim that far? I couldn't even swim twenty laps.

But all that was a long time ago and it's all water under the bridge, so to speak.

Several years ago, after injuring my Achilles tendon, I started swimming laps at a local pool as an alternative to running. I started off easy, swimming for about twenty minutes at a stretch, which was enough to leave me dizzy and gasping for breath. Over time I have gradually increased my workouts to the point where, earlier this summer, I was doing 1500 yards three times a week. It occurred to me that I was only 260 yards shy of the coveted Mile Swim. So, I decided to go for it.

It being summer, I was swimming on the early morning schedule Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. So one Sunday morning, I got up at seven a.m. to arrive at the pool by seven-thirty. The pool was nearly deserted, which is just the way I like it. I swam my usual 1500 yard workout and was feeling pretty good. I decide to keep going. Technically, I needed four more laps, plus another sixty yards, so call it six. Surprisingly, the additional six laps went by pretty quickly. It was over before I knew it. I had done it. I had completed the Mile Swim. This time there was no applause. No congratulations from Gordy the lifeguard. No warm hug from Mom. But there was a deep feeling of satisfaction. One of those little shadows from the past that had been lurking about for all these years had been turned into a halo. It felt good.

I decide to reward myself for my achievement, so I went on eBay and bought a vintage 1970's BSA Mile Swim merit badge. The one with the little red seahorse on it. The one I've always wanted.

Now that I have conquered the mile, what next? For a while I rested on my laurels, thinking a mile was plenty long enough for a workout. But after a couple of weeks, I decided to bump it up a little more. Now I'm up to two thousand yards. I still make a mental note when I pass the mile mark. It is no longer the unattainable goal of my childhood, rather simply another 'milestone' along my path. But it will always be a special one. It took me a long time to get there. And each time I pass it by, I will remember the journey.

Echoes of the Mekong

There's been a lot of talk about heroes lately. I recently lost one of mine. He wasn't famous or anything. But he was someone I really admired. He was a writer and a historian and a Captain in the U.S. Navy. His name was Peter Huchthausen.

I first met Peter during a visit to my parent's house on Frye Island in Maine. Peter had a house there too. He had just written a book called Echoes of the Mekong. My parents had read it and they both loved it. They sent me a copy because they thought it would make a great movie. I was living in New York at the time and had recently begun to concentrate on writing screenplays. I read the book and I loved it too. I decided to meet Peter and ask him if I could adapt it into a screenplay.

I'll never forget our first encounter. Peter arrived in a small motorboat, which he moored at a small dock at the end of the road near my parent's house. He wore a black fishing cap and a windbreaker and had the ruddy face of a seafaring man. I greeted him and we walked up the road to my parent's house. By the time we got to the driveway we had already reached an agreement about the screenplay. We shook hands and that was that. In all the years I knew him we never needed a more formal agreement than that handshake. I knew right away that this was a man I could always rely on.

I went back to New York and banged out a first draft of the script. It was an amazing story of courage and hope in the face of the horrors of war. Peter had served as captain of a river patrol boat on the Mekong River during the Vietnam War. One afternoon, he and his crew rescued a badly wounded young girl named Lung. She had lost her leg in a 'friendly fire' incident -- meaning she'd been shot by an American gunship. Peter brought her back to his base where he and some of the other sailors arranged for her treatment and rehabilitation. When she was well enough, they sent her to school. During the Tet offensive, however, the school was bombed and Lung was forced to flee for safety. Peter tried to find her, but she was lost in a sea of refugees. Peter left Vietnam without knowing her fate.

Lung's life after the war was filled with hardship and danger. Due to her association with the Americans, she was considered a traitor by the Communists who were in power. She had to live as a fugitive to avoid being sent to a concentration camp for "re-education." She fell in love with another fugitive and became pregnant, but he disappeared before their daughter was born. Lung vowed that her daughter would have a better life and hoped for a way to make it possible. One of the few possessions she had kept with her since childhood was a photograph of her and Peter. She managed to get a copy of the photo into the hands of an American journalist, who got it published in Stars and Stripes, the armed forces newspaper. When Peter saw the picture and accompanying story, he was overjoyed. He contacted the journalist and the two of them arranged for Lung and her daughter to come to the United States.

I wanted the screenplay to remain as true to the book as possible, because I felt that the plain facts carried tremendous impact. There were numerous instances where both Peter and Lung showed great strength and faith and I wanted to honor their story. I had never done an adaptation before, and certainly not one where the story was true and the author was someone I knew. I sent Peter the script and made arrangements to meet with him back up on Frye Island.

When I met with Peter for our first 'script conference' I was prepared to be told that I had gotten everything wrong and completely screwed up the story. What did I know about being in the middle of a firefight in the Mekong River? Or having my leg shot off? Or watching a comrade die right before my eyes? Or fleeing from my town as artillery shells exploded all around me?

To my surprise, Peter was very pleased with the script and had very few criticisms. I remember one in particular, when I had referred to the sound of the "waves" lapping against the side of Peter's river patrol boat. He corrected me, "there aren't waves in a river, there's current." He made a couple other such corrections, mostly technical things, then he started showing me some of the photographs from his time in Vietnam. Including the one of him and Lung that served as Lung's passport to freedom.

Many of the photos were of Peter and his buddies, some of the naval base and some were just pictures of the extremely beautiful country where so many terrible things had taken place. Every once in a while, Peter would look at a picture and point to one of the people in it. His voice would grow hoarse and his eyes glassy as he told me how and where that particular man had given his life. As I watched him describe the battles he had fought, I realized that a part of him will never return from that place. And even though he survived the war, he lost something very precious that people like me tend to take for granted. He lost a part of his soul.

Maybe that was why it was so important for him to try and help at least one young girl get through the war without being destroyed by it.

Peter left Vietnam after questioning the ethics of a covert operation his crew was involved in. Captured North Vietnamese soldiers were being rearmed and sent back into the field as paid assassins in the service of the CIA. They received a certain amount of money for each human ear they turned in, indicating the number of 'kills' they'd scored. The trouble was, you couldn't really tell one ear from another, and sometimes the assassins would just kill whoever they found, including civilians and South Vietnamese soldiers. When Peter reported this information to his superiors, he was told to 'walk away' -- the project was an overall success, so don't rock the boat. Soon after that, he was transferred.

For a time, Peter served on an aircraft carrier patrolling the South China Sea. Periodically, the ship would encounter boats filled with refugees trying to escape the war. One of Peter's duties was to investigate the boats and offer them what little assistance he was allowed. He scanned the faces of the refugees, wondering if he would ever find Lung among them. He never stopped thinking about her, despite the gulf of time and distance between them. In just a few months, they had forged a bond that crossed the boundaries of age and language and culture. They had made a real human connection in a time and place where humanity was in very short supply. That connection also kept Lung going during her years as a fugitive.

When they were reunited, one of the first places they went was the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. Lung wanted to say thank you to the people who had given their lives for her freedom.

I met Lung and her beautiful daughter Trang at Peter's house on Frye Island. Knowing what she had been through to get there, it was almost unbelievable to see her in person. When I saw Trang, who was born on the dirt floor of a thatched hut while mortar shells exploded a few hundred yards away, it was like witnessing a miracle. The two of them looked at Peter with adoration. He was their saviour. But in a way, they were his saviours, too. Because despite all of the brutality and violence and terror he had witnessed, knowing that he was able to help give Lung and Trang a better life gave Peter something truly meaningful to hang in the balance.

When he said goodbye to his men before leaving Vietnam, Peter told them, "Don't lose sight of your humanity, because that's the only thing that's going to get you through this." I think that's what makes Peter a hero to me. It's not just bravery in the face of fear that counts, but also bravery in the face of doubt. Sometimes we are asked to put aside our basic values in order to serve a 'greater good'. We are told that the end justifies the means. That our enemies do not deserve our understanding or compassion, or humanity. It is at those times, more than ever, that we need to hold on to our values. Because it is at those times that our values will serve us best.

That is what a hero should do. That's what Peter did. And I miss him.

The Alley

It's so easy to slip ,
It's so easy to fall ,
And let your memory drift ,
And do nothin' at all .
All the love that you missed ,
All the people that you can't recall ,
Do they really exist at all ?

I got a call the other day from my good friend Jim Beus. Some of you may recall that Jim was the lead singer of The Buzzards. I say 'was' because for all intents and purposes, The Buzzards are no longer a going concern. Or should that be 'The Buzzards is no longer...'? I always get that mixed up. Anyway, about a year ago I found out that Jim had re-formed The Buzzards with a new lineup which didn't include me. He was under the impression that I had left the band. I was under the impression that the band was taking a break. But, Jim wanted me to play a solo opening set at the new band's first gig. And that actually sounded like a pretty cool idea to me, so I agreed.

And that's how I left the band.

The "new" Buzzards didn't really have much momentum, though, and currently the whole project has been tabled. Or as I like to put it, The Buzzards have transcended into legendary status.

But that's not why Jim called me. See, Jim's new job is in commercial real estate, which means he spends most days driving around looking at empty lots, eating fast food, and talking on his iPhone. He was calling (on said iPhone) to tell me about a rumor he'd heard that The Buzzards old rehearsal studio, The Alley, is being sold. This came as somewhat disturbing news, because The Alley is more than just a rehearsal space, it's an important part of music history.

My introduction to The Alley came by way of another important part of music history, founding member of The Buzzards and celebrated guitar-wizard Will Ray. When we first started putting the band together, we were meeting at one of those run-of-the-mill warehouse-style rehearsal studios in North Hollywood where the hyperactive squawking of the mariachi band on one side and the sickening drone of the death metal band on the other would bleed through the cheap drywall to form a horrifying melange I liked to call "Satan's Pinata Party." Will decided we needed a more harmonious atmosphere in which to craft our sound. So he decided to book us a session at The Alley.

From the moment we first wheeled our equipment into the studio, we knew we had found a home. The place was like a time capsule from the 70's, with overstuffed couches, a driftwood coffee table, hanging plants, patchwork-quilt sound buffers and rough-hewn beams. We had booked the smaller of two studios which is known as 'The Basement' even though it is on the ground floor. Two of the walls of The Basement are covered with graffiti. But not just random graffiti, the names of nearly every band who has ever played there are written on the dull yellow brick walls. Bands you've heard of, bands no one has ever heard of, famous bands, legendary bands, long forgotten bands -- thousands of bands.

The list of artists who have played at the Alley is far too long for anyone to ever remember, but it includes people like Jackson Brown, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Dwight Yoakum, Ozzy Ozbourne, The Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers and my personal least favorite, System of a Down. One of Dwight's gold records hangs on the wall by the mixing board in The Basement. I often used to gaze at it when we were playing. Kind of my own version of Jay Gatsby's green light.

Playing in that environment gave us the sense that we were part of a great musical tradition. Surrounded by it. Inspired by it. We did some fine jamming in that room. Probably some of our best performances ever. Hell, we even managed to impress the Red Hot Chili Peppers one night. And of course when I say "we", I mean "Will Ray."

The Chili Peppers used to play across the hall in the larger of the two studios, which known as 'The Loft' because it has a loft at one end where groupies and other special guests can hang out during rehearsal. Once, when we were poking around the studio, our drummer Tom and I climbed up into the loft to get a first-hand look. Nothing amazing, just a few couches, coffee tables and plenty of ash trays. Tom took a look around and quipped, "imagine the DNA in this place."

Tom and I were in the habit of arriving early to rehearsal and having a quick bite to eat at the picnic table just outside the entrance. The Alley is literally located in an alley off Lankershim Blvd. It shares a parking lot with a burrito place that blocks the view of the entrance from the street. To the uninitiated, it can be quite a challenge to find the place.

One evening, as I was munching my free-range turkey sandwich, I noticed some particularly amazing sounds coming from inside The Loft. Really funky bass and drums. Tom soon joined me and also remarked on the quality of the music. Whoever they were, they were damn good. Just a few minutes later, the music stopped and three guys came out of the studio. The first guy was instantly recognizable due to his short-cropped haircut and bare chest covered in tattoos. It was Flea, the Chili Peppers inimitable bassist. He sat down across from me and started digging into a huge organic salad from Whole Foods. He was joined by drummer Chad Smith and guitarist John Fruscianti. We chatted for a while about band stuff like guitars and amps. Then Fruscianti asked us if we were the same band who was there the week before.

We nodded.

"You guys were really sounding good, especially that guy on pedal steel."

I grinned. "That's Will," I explained, "only he doesn't play pedal steel, it's slide guitar."

Fruscianti looked doubtful. "No, I'm pretty sure I heard a pedal steel."

"It's the way he plays -- he wears a slide on his right hand as well as his left to get that sound. It's his own invention. He calls it a 'stealth slide.'"

At this point Fruscianti was looking at me like I was full of shit. But then Flea looked up from his salad and chimed in, "it sounded good."

Anthony Kiedis, also shirtless, stepped out of the studio and looked around. He remained in the doorway for a few minutes, looking like he desperately needed attention, but trying hard not to show it.

Tom and I finished up our dinners and started hauling our equipment into The Basement. I told Fruscianti to come by and check out Will's setup, but he never did. We saw them a few more times at the picnic table. It felt pretty cool to be treated as peers by a band as cool as the Chili Peppers. Except for Kiedis, that is. He never said a word to us and avoided eye contact as much as possible. But Flea was always there, shirt off, wolfing down his organic salad. At The Alley we were all the same, just a bunch of musicians hanging around the picnic table.

After Will left L.A. for greener pastures, I took over the task of booking rehearsals and began learning more about the history and charm of The Alley. This was mainly due to the fact that I was dealing with Shiloh, who along with her husband Bill, owns and runs The Alley. Climbing the spiral staircase to Shiloh and Bill's apartment above the studio became a ritual for me at the end of each rehearsal. While the rest of the band loaded their equipment, I stood in the enclosed front porch that served as the business office and looked at the literally hundreds of photos, posters, framed articles, artifacts and memorabilia that cluttered the room. Here a poster from a Don Henley show, there a picture of Linda Ronstadt, underneath it, a teetering pile of old Rolling Stone magazines next to a dusty old guitar case. Shiloh would drag out the big appointment book and page through to the next week to book our next rehearsal. Then she'd hand me a handwritten receipt for the current week. I never saw a computer or even an adding machine.

I would sometimes question Shiloh about various bands that had been at The Alley at one time or another. After my trip to Joshua Tree, I was warming up in the studio with a Gram Parsons song and Shiloh started talking about when Gram was still around. She said they still had one of his old pianos in storage. When they filmed the movie Grand Theft Parsons, Bill let them use one of his many vintage bikes, a three-wheeler, for Johnny Knoxville to ride. Shiloh tended to get a little wistful when talking about Gram. I think he had that effect on people. Especially women.


The band I wanted to know the most about, though, was Little Feat. One evening, we were supposed to be booked into The Basement, but due to a mix-up we ended up in The Loft. It was the first time we'd played in there, and it felt like going from the minors to the majors. On the wall behind the low stage was a giant banner depicting a woman with a tomato for a head lounging in a hammock. I recognized it right off as the banner that had hung behind Little Feat during their Waiting For Columbus tour. I had seen them on that tour, playing at the Wesleyan hockey rink, and have never seen a hotter live band. Unfortunately, lead singer and songwriter Lowell George only lived a few more years after that. He was one of the true greats of all time.

Little Feat continues perform and record, but without Lowell it's just not the same band. I saw the reconstituted version of the band once in New York, and even though they were very good, there was still something missing. They had added three guys to take Lowell's place -- one to write, one to sing and one to play guitar -- but it still didn't come close.

Shiloh told me the band wants her to give them back the banner, but she won't do it. These days it covers the ceiling above the stage in The Loft. When I heard that The Alley was for sale, I decided I really needed to get back there at least one more time to see that banner, and to read the names of some of the bands on the brick wall, and to ask Shiloh more questions about Gram Parsons and Lowell George.

I called her up to find out if the rumor was true -- was The Alley really being sold? She said that it wasn't "being sold" but it is "for sale." She and Bill are in no hurry to let go of it. What they really want to do is find someone who will take it over and keep running it just like it always has been. I hope they do. It would be a shame to see such an amazing chunk of history disappear.

On the other hand, I once had a friend who said that music wasn't meant to be preserved, it was meant to be played and enjoyed and released into the wild. Music is a live event that exists in the moment. Instead of bottling it up and listening to it over and over again, we should be playing some new music. Even an old song played again can be new. Why keep living in the past?

I guess I agree with some of that notion. But I sure think we'd be missing out on something great without those original 29 Robert Johnson recordings. Or Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Or Vladimir Horowitz. Or Coltrane. Woody Guthrie. Ray Charles!

So I think it's good to try and hang onto a little bit of history. And it's cool to think that in my own insignificant way, I am part of that history. And if I had a couple million dollars, I just might buy The Alley for myself.