Act one
Rebel without a sauce......
The Hungry Cow was a hamburger joint in the mire and muck that was Kenmore Square in the early seventies. Clinging onto the ambivalence between Fenway Park (home of the ever-hopeful Bosox baseball team) and the gaunt stone dormitories of BU, the square held a camera shop, a liquor store, several small boutique type shops, a convenience store or two and some places that were loosely called "clubs". I served as assistant to a rising young corporate executive within the chain of record retail outlets called "Discount Records". His name was Zack Stein. Beautifully bewildered by the realities of everday life, he had risen within this White Plains upper class company and had been given this store to whet his management skills on. Against every judgement he had, better or worse, he hired me virtually sight unseen on the recommendation of my old friend Jeep (the manager of the Harvard Square store in nearby Cambridge) Harvard Square was the Ritz, the pool of intellectualism that poured daily from the gates of haaaaarvaaaard yaaaard. Kenmore Square, on the other hand was simply the opposite.. a pretense at academia overshadowed by a fear of the kind of reality generated in Boston's Combat Zone..
I should have known from the fact that I was literally hired out of the blue that dear Zack wasn't too intent on the actual details of the day to day running of a retail outlet, and particularly not one that catered to the tastes of deviants, weirdos, street freaks and the likes of me and the Reet.
I was put in charge of personnel...
Alan was the son of rich jewish parents from somewhere in Connecticut I think. His tastes ran along popfolk lines but he cared little for the intricasies of particular songs, artists or styles... it all just sorta mixed together in a hybrid. He wasn't an expert on anything in particular but floated well and cheerfully through life. He was the exact sort of amiable glue that we were to need to try to find a common ground.
Mitch.. mitchell diamond was our authority on all things authentically US folk trad. He made his own dulcimers and was on first names with the folks at Rounder and Alligator. He was a superb judge of style and content within his chosen bailiwick. Tall. long stringy hair and thin as a rail.. he added a scholarly air to the "ethnic" folk section.
Marcia was also a traditionalist. Short, fiery and giggly she studied clog dancing and bluegrass and was the only one who could accurately file every record in the store without an audible review as she slid it into place.
Over the course of the few months that I spent in the square there were several other members of staff, some more permanent and memorable than others. We interracted well with the other two boston stores and I acquired a radio show on the BU college station. It enabled me to expand the market for imported albums by a wide range of artists.
I needed help in the mainstream pop/rock world..... someone to gently help and advise customers that if they liked Cat Stevens they would also like Nick Drake... I trawled through the student body and, thus occupied and distracted, I was a sitting target for the Reet. he didn't really want to work, but he didn't really want to pay full price for Zappa discs from Germany either. I hated Beefheart, fell asleep to the Dead, liked the comedy of Zappa and never really understood the attraction in the Allmans. The Fugs were filed away with Kerouac and Ginsberg as influences from my past. Somehow, the Reet moved from the front of the counter to the back... actually, I know clearly why I hired him.
We had an almost daily visitor to the store who had, to be kind, severe mental and emotional challenges that he frequently failed to meet. We found his requests and nonsensical repitition of inane questions to be frustrating to the extreme. He was harmless but irritating and we all, even Marcia, found occasion to make fun of him. But not the Reet. He treated him, not with distain or deference, but with normality. And he showed us all how people should be treated.. all people, without exception.
And he shamed me - in the kindest of ways.
I managed to convince Zack that the store desperately needed a Zappa/dead authority.
I just had no idea, at the time, how right I was. - tony
After that summer Reet went to college in Boston and the frequency of our personal contact diminished, yet we always stayed in touch. During those school years there were visits to Boston for Grateful Dead/Mothers or down to Stony Brook for the same purpose. Of course when the summer came we were back to one floor apart in Northridge, picking up where we left off.- E.Q
I found a 2 year school in Boston, Mass. called Graham Jr. College. It was a school focused on media, tv. radio, film etc. During my year there I bought lots of records at the local record store. I made friends with the people there especially a guy named Tony Reay! And so the next phase of my life began. I was on my own and decisions were mine to make. Eventually i began to work part time at the store! My friendship with Tony grew. At the end of the first year, i had moved out of the dorm to move in with T. Reay in a small flat. During one of the last nites in the dorm something happened. A friend and I were looking out our sixth floor window cus we heard noises. It appeared that some guys were throwing firecrackers onto the highway from an overpass...we yelled at them..they got into a car and then we heard a small crack..then my friend Pete turns to me and sez "i think i been shot" as we see a small trickle of blood come from a hole in his chest. They had shot at us with a highpower rifle! He collapsed into my arms and i dragged him into the elevator and down to the lobby where i told the attendent to call an ambulance. I run upstairs to hide the dope and as i head back down the stairs I see the police get out of the elevator! I get downstairs and they are puttin Pete in the ambulance. As i get in a guy with a camera takes our picture so i kick him in the stomach and the amblance guy closes the door and drives off. It took five hours to save his life. It was a 22 caliber bullet that richoched all over his chest slicin open part of his heart! But he lived and i knew i hadda get out of Boston. I had to do 2 gruelin hours of police interrogation. They let me go when they realized i had nothin to do with it. They never found the culprits.So Tony somehow found out that Discount Records needed someone to run a Denver, Colorado store. We packed it all up and headed west. I lost touch with Pete, dont even remember his last name! anyway thats enuff 4 now. Next time. the move west! I hope petes stll alive today tho. - Reet
Reet was the first one I knew well enough to visit in another city, after he moved to Boston. Boston is home to over a hundred colleges and Kenmore Square, where Reet lived, was the especially overrun with young students. There was reputed to be at least one party occurring somewhere on every block in Boston every weekend night. Quite a sensation for kids like us who were growing up fast. I traveled to Boston to see the Reet and also to see shows by Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa and The Kinks, among others. There was often a ritual of going out to an all-night eatery after these shows, I remember following another friend of Reet's to locate one of these places, and running numerous red traffic lights to keep up with our guide who was doing the same. I remember being told after we arrived safely that late at night "the cops don't care". From when I first met Reet, I was recorded his record albums whenever I could. His record collection multiplied rapidly after the Discount Records connection was made. Tony and Reet suggested compilations of music that I was not as familiar with at the time. These tapes took on a stronger significance as I grew used to them. - da jeff