Mount St. Helens

 

It was an idyllic Sunday morning not unlike this one 34 years ago today.

I put a shredded wheat biscuit in my cereal bowl and reached for the milk and heard what sounded like a muffled explosion off in the distance.

Not very loud, just barely above the threshold of all the other ambient noise around. But noticeable. 

It was probably somebody's car backfiring I thought. But it didn't sound like that. Oh well. It was probably nothing.

My mom had Robert Schuller, a "possibility thinking" televangelist I never really understood playing on TV. But with my 12 year old mind in 1980, there was a lot I didn't understand about anything and especially her taste in everything.

Namely this guy.

About 10 minutes later, the TV broke in with a special report. Mount St. Helens had a massive eruption.

I changed the channel and immediately my mom told me to change it back. The same program came on another channel in the next hour and I told her Mount St. Helens had just erupted. 

We watched for most of that morning (sorry Schuller.) I didn't know much about volcanoes. Other than they were cool because they covered everything with lava everywhere, just like the documentaries they showed on TV.

Starting in March, something was happening at a mountain I never heard of before called Mount St. Helens. First a bunch of earthquakes, but the news reporters said it was a volcano and it could be reawakening. Then a week later, the worst was confirmed, it was going to erupt. The first crater on the top of the volcano appeared and ugly black ash had coated the peak of what was a nearly perfectly symmetrical mountain with a snowy white top.

Mount St. Helens, before eruption (with Spirit Lake below) was a postcard PERFECT picture from paradise. The air was fresh, the skiing was amazing and Spirit Lake was teeming with fish. If you were going to camp anywhere in the '60s and '70s, THIS was the place. Good times....

A first crater was formed at the peak of the mountain on March 27, 1980, followed by a second smaller crater in April (left) with a noticeable bulge on the north side of the mountain. But nobody could have predicted what would happen on May 18, 1980. The science of volcanoes overall is still little known - especially those that formed the Cascade Mountain range. Which are composed of several similar volcanoes, all of them active. Mount Rainier, southeast of Seattle has had a swarm of recent small earthquakes and Mount Baker, which is a mere 40 miles from where I sit currently still has small steam plumes that rise above it occasionally, though nothing alarming.....For now.... 

When it was apparent Mount St. Helens was coming back to life, camping and all recreational activity was restricted from the volcano and people living nearby were evacuated. All complied without hesitation. 

Except for one, an 83 year old curmudgeonly, cantankerous old grouch named Harry R. Truman. 

Truman, a three times divorced, but then single old man (obviously) with 16 cats stubbornly refused to leave, fearing the government or developers would take his land. No amount of warning could convince him he was at serious risk. Yet he was frequently in denial of the magnitude of that risk, thinking the wilderness surrounding his lodge and Spirit Lake itself would protect him. "If the mountain goes, I'm going with it" he was quoted as saying. He became a minor celebrity but it was doubtful he actually enjoyed the attention. 

He became a folk hero to some, but disregarded as a foolish old man by many. He flatly refused to go.

His time during the last few months of his life on Mount St. Helens was made into a 1981 movie St. Helens, starring legendary actor Art Carney as Harry Truman.

But while Harry Truman stayed on his mountain, everybody else wanted to get the hell away from it. 57 people perished in the disaster. One very lucky Seattle TV photographer barely made it out alive.

The remains of Dave Crockett's KOMO-TV news car are still on view at the Mount St. Helens Historical Area.

However, the most unusual thing about the eruption was the ash distribution. Ash closest to the mountain was like coarse sand, yet further away it was a talc-like powder, which made it easier to be carried by winds. And while the north side of the mountain collapsed in the eruption, very little ash made it into the Seattle area beyond a trace dusting. The dense ash blew straight into Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR. But the fine ash blew across the country mostly into Eastern Washington state, during day into night as far east as the Idaho panhandle and clouding skies into Minnesota and even Oklahoma with confirmed samples as far away as Virginia and North Carolina a few days after the eruption.

The eruption of course made for a quick industry in souvenirs. Millions of dollars were made by enterprising people selling Mount St. Helens ash to a history hungry public across America. But mostly in Washington State and Oregon.

Photo: Conclusions Drawn

 There were also other products....

Photo: Conclusions Drawn

 As well as songs about Mount St. Helens....

Mount St. Helens never had another major eruption since that fateful day. But don't let the returning forestry, wildlife, tourists and campers fool you. She's still very capable of re-erupting at any time. And living proof that no matter how clever we are, nature can and will surprise us at any time. And anywhere. 

And we don't hold a wet match to it.

Remember May Day Baskets?

Remember when we used to make May Day Baskets out of brightly coloured construction paper and our crayons?

It was a lot more fun than getting decked upside the head by some dreadlocked anarchy dude from down in Eugene, OR who came up to pick a fight in Seattle on you because you LOOK like a capitalist (and sometimes, LESS than they do) on an otherwise perfectly good Thursday night when you actually kinda felt for them and would love to help them figure things out if they would just CALM DOWN!

Good times.....

Seattle's KJET AM 1600

On Memorial Day 1982, Seattle woke up to a pretty AWESOME new radio station.

At Midnight, May 30, 1982, KZOK-AM, a '70s pop station called "Solid Gold 16" dropped it's tired format and became KJET 1600. They signed on the air for the very first time with "I Love Rock N' Roll" Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.

And yes, this was on the AM radio band. The one your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle gets off on these days.

Actually, the correct frequency of KJET was 1590 kHz on the AM band and not 1600, but this was back in the days when digital tuning radios were brand new, very rare and VERY expensive. So most radio stations at that time identified with the next closest number on the analog dial - preferably one that was actually visible on an analog tuning radio dial, such as 1600 in KJET's case. For example, a station on 106.9 MHz would call it's frequency "FM 107" or a station on 92.5, just  "92", "92 FM", etc

KJET specialized in a format that was defined as "New Wave" then, the precursor to Alternative. On that day (which I remember well, I was listening and became HOOKED on this station) you heard The Police, Missing Persons, The Go-Gos, The Clash, Thompson Twins, Joan Jett, Soft Cell, Roxy Music, Devo, Joe Jackson, Human League, The Motels, Jules & The Polar Bears and many other acts of the time on KJET in 1982.


They added more different and increasingly diverse acts to their format over time and plenty of local rock and even some of the earliest Seattle grunge. KJET also introduced Seattle to R.E.M., Kate Bush, Bauhaus, Camper Van Beethoven, 54-40, The Cocteau Twins, Lloyd Cole, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Nina Hagen, Robyn Hitchcock, Siouxsie & The Banshees and countless other alternative rock acts.

Photo: 10 Things 'Zine

KJET also aired nightly live concerts, album features, hard to find imports and local independent rock programming. KJET was also a frequent sponsor of many live concerts.

Inages: KJET Seattle Facebook

Airplay on KJET was just as important as L.A's  KROQ and KITS in San Fransisco for many alternative bands.

Yet sadly, KJET was treated like the bratty stepchild of FM Classic Rocker KZOK and KZOK's then-owners really never liked it from the beginning. But there was really nothing else they could do with it. No other broadcaster wanted to buy the station then because of 1590's spotty daytime signal and they knew it would cost more money to flip it in the long run than stay the course.

KJET, for all it's warts and underachieving ratings (the typical KJET listener wasn't in the demographic ballpark of Arbitron anyway) did have quite a number of dedicated listeners and it was very influential (members of Soundgarden. Mudhoney and Pearl Jam were listeners.)

Image: Pinterest

It's nighttime signal also could be picked up in Eastern Washington and as far north as Alaska, where there were no local alternative rock stations in those areas until the '90s, KJET was there in the '80s, if only via a ghosty, uneven skywave and only after dark. In those areas, KJET was a virtual lifeline for fans of alternative rock. One guy in Spokane once told me how he couldn't wait for night to come so he could listen to his favourite music on KJET. In the pre-internet era, you took what you could get.

Image: Crosscut

Surprisingly, KJET was also automated much of the time and DJs recorded their voice tracks on one tape and the music on another. Sometimes the automation would get out of synch and you heard jocks back announcing songs that didn't come up until later in the playlist!

Yes, it was AM, yes it was scrappy. But it was ours.

KJET wasn't Seattle's first alternative rock station. That distinction belongs to KZAM-AM 1540 (yes, AM again) out of Bellevue, which was "The Rock Of The '80s...Broadcasting In Modern Mono" and they lasted from 1979 to 1981 when it flipped to Smooth Jazz as KJZZ.

Image: KZAM MySpace page

But KJET was the only source of alternative rock for most of the '80s in spite of very worthy FM competition from KYYX-FM 96.5 from 1982 until 1984.

KJET outlived them. But not for long.

(Bob Powers epitomized the attitude and look of radio station managers in the late 1980s.)

KJET lasted 6 years and was suddenly dropped in preparation for a sale of KZOK/KJET in September 1988 in favor of a '50s-'60s oldies format called KQUL or "Kool Oldies" in the hopes of gaining bigger ratings and more AM friendly older listeners. It's last song was "We're Through Being Cool" Devo.

The oldies format was a disaster and in spite of the outcry of thousands of Seattle rock fans, KJET was officially dead and KJET's corporate owners were not bringing it back.

It was three cold years before a new alternative rock station called The End 107.7 signed on in 1991.

AM 1590 was later Seattle's affiliate of the hair metal Z-Rock radio network (as KZOK-AM again) in early 1990 after realizing almost NOBODY was listening to the oldies format and returned to breaking in many local (but grunge rock/thrash metal) acts in the daytime hours and regained some small ratings (1.6), though nowhere near as much as KJET had at it's peak (3.7).

Image: Radio Sticker of The Day

At night and on weekends they returned to the Z-Rock network until October 1993 when Z-Rock dropped all their AM affiliates to go FM only and KZOK decided to sell their AM station.

It simulcasted it's Classic Rock FM sister station KZOK-FM for a year until it was finally sold to a corporate religious broadcaster in 1994, where 1590 AM languishes today as KLFE, another amplitude modulating mouthpiece of the lunatic fringe (or the station your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle is listening to these days.)

Today, the KJET call letters reside at an FM pop station in Aberdeen, WA that has no connection with the original Seattle AM station.

But KJET still has a huge fanbase on the web, who have created tribute sites to this little imperfect, but EXTREMELY influential AM radio station.

Here are a few links to KJET's tribute sites:

KJET 1600 Black Box (Online tribute station with original KJET promos and sweepers)
KJET's Facebook Page
Crosscut article on KJET
10 Things 'Zine: KJET
KJET on Twitter

The Regina Hexaphone (1908-1916)

 

The Regina Hexaphone (no, we're not talking about the popular North Carolina band) was the very first successful fully automatic coin operated jukebox. It played six cylinder records in a rotating selector instead of flat discs.

The Regina Company, established in 1889 originally made music boxes (among them, coin operated jukebox prototypes.) But competition from the phonograph forced them to expand into coin operated cylinder phonograph players

Photo: Mr. Victor

But you may know Regina best for their vacuum cleaners.

Wanna (Virtually) Go Back To 1976?

 

Today is of course, April Fool's Day. And today from 6am-6pm EDT/3am-3pm PDT, WMOH 1450 AM, a talk radio station out of Hamilton, OH (Cincinnati area) turns back the clock to April 1, 1976. Reuniting their air staff of that year and playing 1976 music, 1976 commercials and news of the day. Should be interesting. Go to their website to tune in and enjoy!

More information and photos here:

http://www.wmohrewind76.com/

"Vaping"

After 35 years of smoking cigarettes, I've finally kicked that habit.

I started "vaping", or puffing electronic, or e-cigarettes.

My reasons were simple. Regular cigarettes are insanely expensive, I never actually liked the taste or smell of tobacco myself - even after 35 years. Plus, having had two minor heart attacks, a near fatal bout with pneumonia and breathing problems, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I have enough other health problems and if I can knock just one of my worst demons out, I'll have accomplished a LOT. I also had a lot of encouragement and support from those closest to me - some whom have begged me to quit for years.

And after nearly losing a close friend to esophageal cancer last year, that was the last straw.

But quitting was next to impossible for me. And in fact, I probably never would have even taken on the habit if my mom hadn't forced me to smoke a whole pack as punishment for catching me smoking. So parents, for God's sake, do NOT make that mistake with your own children if you catch them smoking.

I've tried the cold turkey approach, patches, gum, lollipops, everything. I heard about e-cigarettes, but I always thought they were too expensive and didn't do anything. And I knew nothing about them. But one of my friends said he was going e-cigarettes and I pretty much decided to join him. Another friend recommended Caterpillar Vapes, where she ordered her e-cigarette kit and she told me it was so good, she hasn't craved a regular cigarette since.

So I ordered. I hoped for the best, but expected the worst. At the rate I was going, I resigned to the idea I was going to die next to a pack of cigarettes.

And it not only lived up to my lowest expectations, it exceeded my highest. For the first time in 35 years, I do not have a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on or near me.

In other words, a fucking miracle has happened.  

E-cigarettes have a LOT of advantages. First, you're not smoking, but inhaling a water based vapour.

Regular cigarettes create smoke and odours and eventual discolouration of the walls, ceilings and furniture over a long time. This was brought home to me shortly after my mom died and I had to clean off the light fixture above her kitchen table where she smoked for 13 years. The smoke residue had discoloured once white elements of the fixture into a dull golden brown. And cleaning it was one of the grossest jobs I ever had to do. And it really makes me sad that my mom didn't live to see these. If she knew the difference e-cigarettes can make, she would have switched in a heartbeat.

E-cigarettes create vapour that looks like cigarette smoke, but it's actually a vapour that disappears quickly and does not linger because unlike tobacco, it contains no tar and discolouring oils. It's no different than a water based air diffuser. Or even ordinary cooking odours. The vapour and odour of an e-cigarette disappears in seconds.

If you're still smoking regular cigarettes, you REALLY owe it to yourself to make the switch to e-cigarettes. Not only is it VASTLY cheaper than smoking regular cigarettes (which now cost nearly $10 a pack in Washington State - you don't need to buy a pack a day, you don't even need lighters or matches. You just press a button on the battery of the e-cigarette and inhale. And there's a HUGE yearly savings in that.)

E-cigarette smokers don't leave butts, empty packs and ashes everywhere. They don't smell bad. And in rental housing where smoking bans are becoming more and more common, they are completely unnoticeable.

And my starter kit has already paid for itself in the first week of use.

Total $69.03....Same price as a week of cigarettes. With no mess, odour and hassles.

Best of all, you don't have to put up with the usual tobacco flavour. E-liquid flavours come in an INCREDIBLE variety. From Roasted Marshmallows to fresh fruit and drink flavours - I even found one that tasted like roasted hot dogs, although I don't think I'm that adventurous. But if you prefer a tobacco flavour, they have those too.

Nicotine levels of the e-liquids also vary, depending on the kind of cigarettes you smoked - there are also nicotine-free varieties.

I smoked full flavours, so the nicotine level in my e-liquid is 2.4. Medium is 1.8. Lights is 1.2 and Ultra-Lights is 0.6. My goal is to gradually lower my nicotine levels over five years to zero. And eventually put the e-cigarette kit away for good.

The benefit to me is it simulates the feel of smoking, without the tar, stink, ash and chemicals of regular cigarettes. As a writer, taking a drag is a necessary activity for me every paragraph or so. And there's no worrying about burning down the cigarette in the ashtray. Or having to smoke the whole cigarette outside and then come back and write. Which only increased my smoking of regular cigarettes.

How it works:

There are two main components to an eGo e-cigarette (my brand). I ordered this kit. Which contains two 900mAh batteries, which holds more than enough charge per day for my needs. There are also higher 1,100mAh batteries for heavier smokers and 650mAh batteries for lighter smokers. The gist with this kit is you can charge one while using the other.

There are four cartomizers. A cartomizer is what holds the e-liquid. You unscrew the mouthpiece and pour the e-liquid at a 45 degree angle at the sides, not at the hole in the center, which is the air hole which you inhale from with the mouthpiece on. The silica fibers of the coil head inside the cartomizer is what absorbs the e-liquid and when you press the battery button, it heats the cartomizer, creating the vapour. The coil heads have to be replaced every so often, so I bought 4 extra coil heads. The extra cartomizers also have coil heads and I have used the same cartomizer and coil head (and the same e-liquid type) for a week and a half and so far so good. You can also use the different cartomizers to hold different flavours of e-liquids for variety.  

This is a 30ml bottle of Tropical Joy flavoured e-liquid. And in a week and a half of use, this is how much I used. Did I mention this bottle cost $7.69? A pack of the cheapest cigarettes at my closest grocery cost $8.10 and is gone in a day. And I have a second 30ml bottle of tobacco flavoured e-liquid. (Your own use may vary.)

And now the flipside.....

E-cigarettes are a gray area in the health and public regulations. It's not smoking, but it's still not kosher to be vaping in mixed company. There's lots of concern whether it will lead kids to smoking actual cigarettes, but after 35 years of pack a day smoking, I absolutely do not see why. Cigarettes do not come in all these flavours. And there are nicotine free varieties you don't have to inhale, some non-smoking dieters use these to curb cravings for sweets.

But there are also social nannies and misinformed politicians who will try to make access to e-cigarettes and e-liquids difficult. If someone is under 18, I can see it. But for older smokers trying to quit or looking for a tar free alternative, it's crazy.

I think e-cigarettes are probably the best thing yet to help smokers kick the habit. And I'm already feeling the benefit. I breathe easier (although for the first few days, it took a while for my lungs to adjust), my mood was stable, I wasn't going crazy like I did without regular cigarettes. And now regular tobacco smoke is becoming irritating to me. But to create laws against e-cigarettes would increase tobacco usage again. And I want to stay on the course I'm on now.

And my friend was right. I haven't craved a regular cigarette since.

Trapper Keeper

Let's face it. In high school back in the '80s, a Trapper Keeper was MANDATORY. No kid would be caught dead without one. 

In 1980, Mead invented the Trapper Keeper. The folders were three sided, preventing papers from falling out. The metal rings in typical binders were replaced by easy slide-open plastic rings in the Trapper Keeper, eliminating painful binder pinches. The original Trapper Keepers had brass metal snap-close buttons. These were later replaced by velcro.

Until the Trapper Keeper, you carried Pee-Chees. While iconic, Pee-Chees had one major flaw; papers often fell out of them, leaving a nightmarish mess on the hallway floor in front of your locker (often with just seconds to your next class.)  

And woe to the kid who got picked on - the bullies would just walk all over his/her papers.

They originally came in three plain colours, blue, red and green.  

In 1984, new designs were added, making Trapper Keepers even more cooler than ever. But most kids liked to cut through the clear plastic outer covering and slip in their own illustrations.

And even today, I STILL use a Trapper Keeper. I find they're PERFECT for keeping important papers. The look has changed with the times and velcro close has been replaced by strong magnets, but fundamentally, they're as trusty as ever.

1971 Cost Of Living

Is it just me or do you look at this and get pissed off too?

Before They Were Stars: Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar didn't just open the door for women in rock. This little woman with the HUGE voice absolutely KICKED the door in. Right off the hinges. 

But before her mega-platinum career one of as rock's most influential female superstars, she was.....a lounge singer? 

"Coxon's Army Live from Sam Miller's Exchange Cafe" (Trace Records, 1974), was produced as a reportedly unaired local TV special for Richmond, VA public TV station WCVE and is the very first album she appeared on.

This album also features a cover of "Theme From Shaft" but no indicator if she actually sang it (perhaps the female backing part.) This is a $500 record in mint condition. About 1,000 copies were pressed and that's a VERY short run for any record.

Click to enlarge

"Respect" (1974)

"If He Walked Into My Life" (1974)

"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" (1974)

"Day Gig" Pat Benatar (1974) This is the first headlining single she ever recorded.

Also see Before The Were Stars: The Cars