Lou and Me

So funny but true story. I had a friend who worked at LaMamma that legendary NYC avant garde theater in downtown manhattan. Through this friend I was able to see a lot of out there theatre which was pretty cool. I look back on it as my fun acting education where I saw what I liked and didn't like. Well she asked if I wanted to see the new Cheryl Churchill play "A Number". I wasn't that interested until she mentioned that Sam Shepard would be staring in it. I had first discovered Sam Shepard the same way many a boy of my generation had, as an actor playing that ultra badass Chuck Yeager in the Right Stuff. Then when I discovered he was an Awsome playwright I was like this guys a badass. Plus he's doing Jessica Lange ? Hell yes! The fact that he too had crooked teeth like myself made me love him even more cause I was like " if he can do it, so can I". So I was pumped. 

The play was being performed at New York Theater Workshop, which always had out there shows. We got there and grabbed our seats. I am sitting there and I look over to my left and sitting six seats over was Lou Reed with Laurie Anderson. Now my first introduction to Lou Reed was the song "Perfect Day" in the film Trainspoting at age 13, which I loved. But I didn't really listen to him until my final summer I lived at home. During that time my friends started showing me different music which opened me up, bands like early Modust Mouse, Fugazi, Wu-Tang, Iggy Pop, the Stooges, Mum, David Bowie and Lou Reed. Now I wasn't living under a rock, far from it. It's just I had been raised on old school rock n roll by my parents. I had grown up listening to the Beatles,Hendrix, old school Elvis and the like. Though my jam was Sinatra,Soul music and R and B like Sly and the Family Stone, Jackson 5,  Curtis Mayfield and the like. But it was part of my education if that doesn't sound too pretentious. I had already gotten into Johnny Cash who was the voice of that summer where I worked long hours in the local paper mill and drank cheap beer with my friends and contemplated my new life in NYC that was about to begin. 

So when I saw Lou Reed in the haggard flesh I was like fuck yeah! I thought of everyone back in Washington state and how much I had changed in the year and a half since I had left. How wow man, Iam here in NYC, fucking crazy. I turned and told my friend. I said" look it's Lou Reed!"

She responded" Who's that?"

Oye I thought. 

Then the show began. 

To put it mildly the show sucked. That was I think the first time I realized the difference between film acting and theater acting. Sam Shepard who is brilliant on film was kind of lackluster on stage while Dallas Roberts who everyone was touting as this hot upcoming actor was so bad I wanted to gag. Too much symbolism, it just sucked. I was more interested in the fact that the seating in the theater looked like the Senate in Star Wars. 

Of course the whole audience seemed enraptured by the show. I was wondering am I missing something? Am I dumb? Do I have bad taste? I mean I do love Stallone films, but this was bad. I turned and looked over towards Lou Reed . Would he be liking this? Lou Reed was asleep. 

Don James you stoic bastard

In the the late 80s early 90s the biggest sport show in Washington state was the UW Huskies football team. Sure we had the Seahawks who where crap half the time and we had the Sonics( godbless them) but that was in the winter. We didn't talk about the mariners cause they where so bad that my mom said I was better off rooting for someone else. But we had the Huskies and the Huskies always won. It was all about the purple and gold beating the crap out of everyone. We owned the PAC10. We were in the same sentence as Miami,Notre Dame,Michigan, Nebraska and Penn State. We were a powerhouse and the star of that powerhouse was Don James.

Even as five year old I knew who Don James was, hell name someone who didn't in Washington State back in the 80s and early 90s? You didn't always know the players but you knew him. He was the tough looking old guy with the killer squint wearing a purple huskies hat and wearing your grandpas glass's. His was an iconic image that we all knew. 

Both my parents didn't go to UW, but it didn't matter because everyone was a Huskie. Of course you would have the occasional Coug fan, but they where looked at back then as our slacker loser younger brother who lived in our basement and stole our food. But that was of course if you lived west of the cascades, if you lived in Eastern Washington, well you would of been shot for wearing Huskie gear. But Don James could of murderd six people in broad daylight and would of been found not guilty. The man was that beloved.

We knew every year that we where going to the Rose Bowl, hell it was our God given right back then! USC,Oregon,UCLA those guys where impostors when it came to the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl was ours and everyone knew it. And Don James would be on the sidelines looking on stoically like Washington crossing the Delaware. We had faith that some how ,someway he would lead us to victory. 

1991 was probably the greatest year for the Huskies under Don James. That year we won the National Championship. This was before the BCS and all of that. When you had to win three different pols. We had been considered the national champions the previous year buy two of the three pols and had unofficialy won the national championship in 84. So the man had won a total of three between 1984-1991( beat that Oregon, though I may root for Oregon in the National Championship game). But in 1991 we were unstoppable. Led by quarterbacks Mark Brunnell and Billy Joe Hobbart the huskies averaged 41 points per game and the defense led by Lincoln Kennedy held opponents on average to less then 10 points per game. We bitch slapped Nebraska 36-21 in a stunning late third quarter comback after being down 21-9,we made USC smell the glove by beating the Trojans at memorial Colosium for the first time since 1980 and we did unspeakable things to Oregon by beating them 58-6. After beating WSU in the Apple Cup( screw you iron bowl) we faced our dreaded rival,those bastards The Michigan Wolverines. 

Even now I have trouble rooting for Michigan.I remember watching the men's basketball national championship game in 93 and rooting for UNC against Michigan because I was still angry at Michigan for beating  the Huskies. When UW would face Michigan it was war. So on January 1st 1992 in Pasadena a war was about to begin. Michigan led by Desmond Howard, Michigan with there stupid gold and blue uniforms,Michigan 10-2 facing the undefeated Huskies at the Rose Bowl. There would be blood.

But only the blood of the wolverines would be spilled that day. In an ass kicking that still lives on in many a Washingtonians memory the Huskies were triumphant 34-14. 

We were National Champs with Miami and if we had played them we would of kicked their ass too. We where on our way to dominance. The National Championship was going to be ours every year. Don James would share the title of greatest coach with Bear Bryant. Hell he was going to be bigger then Bear Bryant! Then it all came crashing down.

A series of investigations showed things where not kosher in Huskieville. Billy Joe Hobart that wonder boy from Puyullup, our Rose Bowl MVP had fucked up big time. He had fucked up to the tune of 50,000 that he had spent on golf, guns and wild party's , all thanks to a loan from an Idaho businessman. Within days young Billy Joe quit school and became the face of a growing scandal that included players and recruits being given benifits, meals, and partying money by boosters( boosters and alumni usually the cause of all bad things in college and high school sports). What the fuck had happened? Don James what the hell? This wasn't SMU or MIAMI we weren't corrupt! Or maybe  the Huskies did what everyone did in college sports and ole Billy Joe was just dumb enough to get caught( remind anyone of Johnny Manzeal ?).

Then shit got even better. 

Going into the 92 season we where ranked #1, but then we lost . First was our loss to Arizona which wasn't bad. I mean back then a team would have a loss then go on to be National Champs. It happens all the time. But then the Apple Cup happened. For those of you who don't know, the Apple Cup is the yearly game between UW and WSU. We may not win a national title but outside winning the Rose Bowl you MUST win the Apple Cup. It hasn't been as violent as Bama-Auburn but it's been close. WSU was ranked #15 and was led by  future NFL QB and badass Drew Bledsoe. The Cougs had been bitch slapped by us for years. They had taken many a bitch slapping. They where mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore. Mother Nature seemed to agree. In what is remembered as the snow bowl, the Cougs beat the Huskies 42-23 in a freak snowstorm. To say we got bitch slapped is an understatement. It was more like the gang rape scene in American Me. Yeah there's a visual for you. The loss was bad, but somehow we still won our third straight PAC10 title and headed to our Third straight Rose Bowl against Michigan. We thought " hey man at least beat Michigan!"

We didn't beat Michigan. We lost 31-38 in an epic heartbreaker. Fucking Michigan. But then things blew up on us big time. 

The PAC10 decided to hit us with some sanctions. It could of been worse, it could of been really bad. I mean hey a two year bowl ban okay that sucks and a scholarship reduction and wait no money from the tv deals? But we where the biggest draw in the PAC10. You think Oregon could pull in money like we could?

As it turned out later, originally the PAC10 had only given a one year bowl ban and two years of no tv. But the UW administrators being the genius's they are tried to appeal the charges. The PAC10 said ok no tv for one year and a two year ban from bowl games. This angered Don James. He figured one year of no bowl games fine but two? "What the fuck  " all for tv money? He had already dismissed the four players involved in the scandal. So in a dark day remembered by many Don James the face of Husky football quit in protest.

This began the Huskie football programs decent into chaos. Sure the team was still pretty good, but something was missing. They had Jim Lambright an assistant of James running the show but it still wasn't the same. There was a brief hope of a revival in the late 90s early 00s with the hiring of Rick Nuehisal, but he turned out to be the stereotype of the slick corrupt college coach and was fired for betting in a neighborhood betting pool( what is everyone a moron when it comes to their illegal activities?).Even though he led us to a PAC10 title and a Rose Bowl win it came at a price. Under slick Rick star players where routinely in trouble with the law for all sorts of crimes including rape, assault  and spousal abuse amongst others.

College sports is funny in that it's unbelievably hypocritical. Name a program with a "clean record" and ill name the dead hooker the star QB killed. Every program has done something wrong. If you think Notre Dame has not had corruption your a moron. Hell I bet you when Coach K retires at Duke all sorts of shit will come out. If you think he's clean just remember Joe Paterno. Here was a legend who had done it right. He had run a clean program, clean if you don't count the fact that he was protecting a child molester. So what's worse, a coach who's players might of taken gifts to party or a coach who let's players get away with everything but murder? We all know the answer.

After Don James retired he never took another coaching job, he didn't become an analyst or commentator. Instead he lived a quiet existence. He would do the occasional interview or charity appearance. He would show up at certain Huskie games and at the beginning of every season he would give a speech to the players about what it meant to play  football at UW. Yesterday Don James died at age 80. For me a love for college football faded long ago. I'll still watch certain games and follow how the Huskies are doing. Maybe I got annoyed with the BS and just preferred the honest corruption of pro sports( at least they're upfront that it's about money). But I will still hold onto the memories of being 6 years old and watching Don James that intense stoic man on the sidelines leading the Huskies to victory and glory.