The Death Of Funk

 

“They paved over Paradise and put up a parking lot.”—Joni Mitchell

 

Even as the living remnants of Gainesville’s sixties/seventies  counterculture gathered last week to celebrate the old Hogtown remembered in Marty’s Jourard’s new book, Evil Forces advanced ever further in their attempt to erase all vestiges of the city’s colorful past.  Six-story buildings—and worse—have been popping up everywhere, blocking out the sun and replacing signature structures and businesses which made the place unique.  We may not be buried in the canyons of Manhattan but it’s a lot nicer to be able to see a modest distance to the left and right as you amble down the avenue.  We were spoiled for decades by the dearth of such monstrosities, amused by the singular eleven-story Seagle Building, which stood guard over the far more historically significant one-story Alan’s Cubana sandwich shop.

Oh, eventually the University of Florida might build a taller-than-usual dorm in the middle of campus or some real estate maven could throw up a skinny apartment building in an out-of-the-way location like Biven’s Arm, but in Gainesville not much ever got beyond two stories.  It stayed like that forever and we liked it that way.  I guess we thought it would never change.  We were wrong.

One day, about ten years ago, I got a letter from my Austin, Texas friend, Pat Brown, a calm woman, an artist by trade, not a person easily untracked by calamities.  Pat was apoplectic over “the demise my home town.  They are razing historical buildings, demolishing city blocks in the interests of progress, whatever the hell that is.  They are raising hideous apartment buildings high as the sky.  Throngs of people are moving here, searching for the Austin of the sixties and seventies.  Guess what?  It’s not here anymore.  And what’s left of it is disappearing by the day.”  The population of Austin in 1962 was 201,762.  By 2015, it was over 900,000.  There is a net population increase there of 110 people a day.  You don’t want to hear about the traffic.

So now it is Gainesville’s turn to go under the knife.  Real Estate plunderers like Nathan Collier sail in on their pirate ships and start spinning funky old buildings into gold.  Captain Hookorbycrook is planning, among other nightmares, yet another five-story apartment building “catering to professionals” (i.e., anyone who’s got the cash to live there).  The thing will include 292 units and the requisite parking garage, which would stretch over three parcels in the 200 block on the north side of University Avenue.  Other changes for the Avenue aren’t far away.  Three other multi-story apartment complexes are in various planning stages, including one in the 1100 block, where the building which housed The Independent Florida Alligator newspaper will be no more.

Collier and his fellow seawolves call this sort of thing “urban infill,” considering it a boon to the city.  Local restaurant owner Steve Solomon begs to differ.  “It’s one-size-fits-all,” he complains.  “With this gentrification, you’ll be able to go to all these college towns and they’ll all be the same, the same look.  There’ll be nothing like the old Gainesville look.”  People move to cities like Austin and Gainesville because they like what they currently see.  Unfortunately, so many of them move in that what they see will not likely be what they get.  The chambers of commerce of virtually all American towns avidly seek growth.  More people, more money.  Uniqueness is sacrificed at the altar of Greed.  First, we lose Grand Funk Railroad, now we lose grand Funk.  Ah, but that’s progress, right?  Nothing we can do about it, say the city fathers.  But there is something they can do about it.  Something called Zoning.

The Alternative

Have you ever been to Kennebunkport, Maine?  It’s a lovely little place, even though the Bush Complex is just around the corner.  Scores of tiny little shops and restaurants selling everything from kites to wind sculptures to lobster rolls, all of them available via a short walk in a delightful atmosphere.  If there are any chain stores in Kennebunkport, I haven’t seen them and nobody is complaining.  The town is thriving, crammed with happy tourists and uncompromising in its look.  There are other towns on the coast of Maine but this one took a wise path and is much the better for it.

Ever been to Estes Park, Colorado or Bar Harbor, Maine?  Sure, they’re right next door to enticing national parks, they have the added allure of terrific scenery, but they also have the wisdom to remain attractive, unsullied by the overbuilding blight.  Estes Park has chains but they’re located just outside the charming downtown area, a nest of little shops and eateries on very walkable streets, many of them backing up to the small Fall River which cuts a pleasant path through town.

Ever go to Soho in its infancy?  Some wise administrator in New York City decided it might be a good idea to rent extremely cheap lofts there to artists in hopes these creative people would daub some color on the place and resurrect the vacant buildings.  That’s exactly what happened.  From the year 1970 to the early 2000s, Soho was a young and vibrant quarter, artists, sculptors and photographers sold their work on the streets, musicians played on the sidewalks on weekends.  Unlike in the towns mentioned above, however, as the crowds increased, the rents skyrocketed.  The artists and small entrepreneurs who made the place a success were displaced and the larger vendors arrived.  When an Apple store shows up in your neighborhood, the thrill is gone.  The same thing happened in Georgetown, D.C.  It isn’t as though these places aren’t successful any more, It’s just that we’re no longer interested in going there.  It’s like the mall.  Why bother, there’s one everywhere.

The American blight is worldwide.  Now we have chain eateries in Paris.  Any wonder why the French don’t like us?  “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur, but your friggen golden arches are blocking my view of Le Tour Eiffel!”   It’s a universal nightmare.  Pretty soon, they’ll have American Chinese Restaurant chains in Beijing.  Can anything be done?  Sure.  Will anything be done?  Probably not.

It’s up to you.  If you want to keep your little town looking like Old Gainesville or Athens, Georgia, you’ve got to fight the battle.  Otherwise, as usual, the money will prevail.  The good news is that the best opportunities for success in these wars remain in the small cities where local politics still presents viable “smaller-is-better” candidates.  It doesn’t take impossible numbers and outlandish budgets to make the changes required to preserve a modicum of history, to make a place for tiny local businesses to spawn, to install keepers of the flame.  It’s not impossible, hardly a pipedream.  Many people in these places are elected to office with a small percentage of the popular vote.  Maybe you should be a candidate yourself.  I’d do it personally but for some unexplainable reason they almost never elect ex-head shop proprietors.  They do elect head shop accountants, however.  Ex- Subterranean Circus CPA Harvey Budd is now a Gainesville city commissioner.  Hey, Harvey—your constituents are calling.  This gentrification business is getting out of hand.  We need an influential man, a champion, a white knight to nip it in the….well, you know. 

 

Martymania

Last week’s release of Marty Jourard’s Music Everywhere—The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town, a book celebrating sixties/seventies Gainesville, livened up The Auld Home Town.  Marty’s Thursday book signing and talk at the Matheson Museum brought out a capacity crowd and Friday’s Road Turkey (Jourard’s band) performance at High Dive was a smash hit.  It was All-Marty, all the time.  Everyone wants a piece of The Man, even book fairs in Savannah and Miami, where he’s been beckoned to speak soon.  And now, just released, prominent agrarian/artist/photographer Chuck Lemasters has presented us with renderings from the clandestine Big Marty Dinner of April 20.

This collection of photos will be part of a travelling show of iconic Marty paraphernalia, together with, among other fascinating prizes, his first baby booties and a peppery audio interview with his first middle-school girlfriend, who has plenty to say.  The entire collection will then be presented at the Marty Museum of Modern Art, now abuilding on lovely Wacahoota Road in rural Micanopy.

Gentlemen, the photographs please!

Michelle Ganeles, Steve Soar, Marty Jourard, Bob Sturm on the far side; Stan Lynch, Ricky Stano looking across the table.

 

Bill with 18-year Circus employee Ricky Childs.

 

Bill & Siobhan in the foreground.

 

Marty checks his book for relevant information.

 

Ex-Circus troublemakers Lemasters and Sturm.

 

Bill and Marty check out Sturm’s old Circus photos.

 

Left: Jen and Richy Stano, Stan Lynch; Right: Sturm and Marty.

 

Marty pontificates for Richy, Bill and Bob.

 

Bill & Michelle discuss cosmic events.

 

Steve, Marty and Bob consider the cuisine.

 

Stan Lynch beams; Steve Soar eats.

 

Stan, Siobhan, Jen, Richy and late-arriving Natalie, fresh in from the airport.

 

Previews Of Coming Attractions

The annual pre-Kentucky Derby Flying Pie arrives next week with portraits of the candidates and predictions for the finish.  As everybody is well aware, the wise old sages at Pie Horse Central have predicted the winner of this race for three straight years and never mind that the favorites have dominated.  There’s a lot of scientific gobbledygook that goes into these selections, long nights of poring over Past Performance Charts and watching old race films, all so we can make you look good to your water-cooler buddies at work.  “Yep, boys, there’s no doubt about it—Old Seabucket will prevail by a length or two, you heard it here first.”

And, of course, the gala Bill & Siobhan nuptial event marches ever closer, now just two piffling months away.  The wedding dress is being spiffed up, the shoes are just in after a lonely trip from China and the plane and hotel reservations are all made.  A Vegas photographer has been enlisted to travel with us to the Valley of Fire for post-wedding pix and the Grand Canyon mules are prepping for the honeymoon trek to the Phantom Ranch.  If we get out of there alive, there’ll be visits to Sedona and a lot of poking around in Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah line.

Later, in July, our pals Barbara and Bruce Reissfelder will, for some arcane reason, fly off to Iceland for a chilly vacation.  We’ll probably never make it to Iceland and neither will you, so we’re asking them to bring back scads of photographs to look at.  Bruce usually likes to snap 5000 or more because he doesn’t want to miss anything so let’s hope there’s a little pre-editing before we get the final group.  While in Reykjavik, the Reissfelders will stop by the sparkling new Marty Jourard Monument to lay the traditional wreath. 

 

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com     

  

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Move Over, Herodotus

 

In mid-September of 1967, Gainesville’s first headshop, the Subterranean Circus, was founded.  By October, the notorious Jourard brothers had found it.  A trio of middle and high-school kids, Leonard, Jeff and Marty Jourard felt right at home skulking through the blacklight room, reading the underground newspapers, riffling through the piles of incense.  They came separately, in pairs or all together and when they showed up it was not for ten minutes.  The Jourards were there for the duration.  It’s not as though no other young kids ever came in.  But most of them walked around the place, hands in pockets, looking intimidated, uncomfortable.  Not the Jourards.  Leonard, Jeff and Marty felt right at home, as if they’d been waiting an irritating length of time for the place to finally appear.  This is where they belonged.  Hell, yeah.

Now, in those days, the counterman at the Circus was often Dick North, a bespectacled, pony-tailed, mustachioed no-nonsense operator, a thoughtful man, a subscriber to eastern religions and the use of experimental drugs, a fellow with little patience for fools or children.  Dick was not unlike The Soup Nazi of Seinfeld fame, the Manhattan chef/counterman whose product was so delicious that customers allowed themselves to be tyrannized by his insistence on a strict purchasing regimentation.  If a customer erred in the process, the Soup Nazi tossed him into the street with the loud admonishment, “No soup for YOU!”   Dick North was The Rolling Paper Nazi.  Act up in the Circus and it was “No Big Bambus for YOU!”  But remarkably, the Jourards remained.  One day I arrived to find the kids arguing the merits of the L.A. Free Press vis-a-vis the East Village Other.  I looked at North and wondered: “Dick, you’re not a patient man.  You have been known to have a short fuse with difficult customers.  Yet, you put up with the Jourard brothers for extraordinary lengths of time.  What’s the story?”  

Dick North looked at me and smiled.  He twirled his ample mustache in the fashion of the eminent Groucho Marx.  Then he raised his eyebrows once, twice and said, “Well, sometimes that Marty kid brings doughnuts.”

Then, suddenly, they were gone, Marty and Jeff off to join the rock ‘n’ roll wars with a band called The Motels, Leonard repairing to parts unknown.  We kept track of them for awhile via their father, Sydney, a prominent author and psychologist who occasionally visited the Circus.  Eventually, as happens often, they were lost to the ethers.  Then one day, out of the blue, Marty emailed.  He was writing a book, he said, about Gainesville in the 1960s and 70s, the atmosphere of the town, the people, the remarkable music scene.  Was I available for an interview?  Sure, why not.

Now, when a saxophone player communicates to tell you he’s writing a book, it gives any man pause.  Saxophone players and books are not your normal travelling companions.  Surely this was a snapshot ambition, a passing fancy.  Sooner or later, Marty would settle down with a nice chubby groupie, start a family and all this book foolishness would be forgotten.  Except it wasn’t.  Marty had the fever.  If he didn’t do this, nobody would.  The Gainesville of the sixties/seventies deserved a savior, a booster, a….well….a historian!  And Marty Jourard would be that man.

 

Where It All Comes Together

There are towns and there are towns.  Why is Gainesville a cradle of individualism, a nursery for rebels, a garden of art and culture and tolerance while nearby Tallahassee, a mere 150 miles down the road, is not?  Don’t blame the politics.  Austin, like Tallahassee, is a state capitol with a university, too, and is much more like Gainesville than Tallahassee.  Why is Athens, Georgia, smack in the middle of the anachronistic South, progressive and vibrant?  Why is Bloomington, Indiana cool and West Lafayette not?  Why are people avid to live in freezing climes like Ann Arbor, Michigan and Madison, Wisconsin and not at all thrilled by Champaign-Urbana?

There is, of course, more than one answer.  Obviously, years ago, some entity planted  magic seeds in these cities, got the ball rolling, caused the right people to take an interest.  Most of these places have always been a little more tolerant of human indiscretion, a bit more open to new ideas, a little less afraid of rapid progress, a trifle less likely to punish.  Creative people, questioning souls, individuals who ride near the edge feel more comfortable in these pockets of acceptance, flourish there, feel free to present their credentials, are not required to hide their light under a bushel.  And in these places, have you ever noticed, there always seems to be exceptional music?

Who knows which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Were the musicians in these oases nourished by the towns in which they lived, liberated by the positive vapors to explore their art, encouraged by their peers, untrammeled by the dark forces so prevalent elsewhere?  Or did the music men help to create that atmosphere, foster it, send it on its irreversible path?  A little of both, we suspect.  Marty Jourard explores all this in his new book, originally titled “Gettin’ Down In
Gator Town” but altered by the forces of nature to “Music Everywhere; The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town.”   The work is more than a history of music in Gatortown.  It is, in fact, a remarkable sixties/seventies History of Gainesville.  And it goes to prove, once and for all, that saxophone players can, albeit a rare phenomenon, sometimes display multiple talents.

Gettin’ Down In Gatortown

Austin, Texas is famous for nurturing ultimately famous musicians, chief among them the star-crossed Janis Joplin, who rose like a meteor and crashed to Earth like a North Korean missile.  But Gainesville, unbeknownst to most, had more than its fair share.  I once saw a young Bernie Leadon sing a couple of songs at a small Methodist coffeehouse called The Bent Card.  When friend Michael Garcia came home form the Vietnam War, we had a party for him at a little house on Wacahoota Road in Micanopy.  Among the bandsmen on the front porch was Don Felder.  Not too long afterwards, Leadon and Felder marched off to California to become founding members of the Eagles.  Then-unemployed guitarist Ron Blair built the fancy curved stairway in our clothing palace, Silver City.  Next thing you knew, Ron was lighting up the West Coast with co-Gainesvillian Tom Petty and the rest of the Heartbreakers.

Everybody has their headliners.  But the gestalt of towns like Austin and Gainesville, the subtle underlying common denominator, the apple in the pie has nothing to do with famous people.  It has everything to do with the thousands of small, anonymous music-makers who wander these favored places, infiltrating every nook and cranny and house party and tiny bar, plying their trade.  In early-sixties Austin, there was a house party every night, some big, some small, but inevitably with the one constant: there was music.  It might be a raucous quintet, it might be a brother and sister chirping folk songs or even a UT English professor plunking out old Jimmy Rodgers numbers.  As often as not, it was a character named John Clay, clever songwriter, average banjo-picker, leading the party crowd in another stirring rendition of the 1962 Austin National Anthem, The Road To Mingus.

It was the same in late-sixties Gainesville, with a heavier dose of rock ‘n’ roll bands.  They were everywhere, jamming in garages, backyards, fraternity parties, anywhere they could find a mike.  Audiences of half-a-dozen were perfectly acceptable.  And cub reporter Marty Jourard was right in the middle of it, committing it all to memory, learning to play keyboards, picking up his first saxophone, learning to lead The Life!  Marty started out playing bass in a band called Road Turkey with guitarist Steve Soar and drummer Stan Lynch, who would later join the Heartbreakers, in sophisticated local joints like Trader Tom’s, where topless dancers solicted $2 table dances while the music played.

Marty eventually moved on the The Motels with brother Jeff, travelling the country, opening for big name acts, seeing the world.  Unaccountably, a couple of their songs became big hits in Australia, of all places.  When it was apparently over, Marty Jourard repaired to Seattle, took off his shoes, put the saxphone in a case in the closet and began giving expensive piano lessons to the local kids.  In the process, he ran across the lovely and talented Natalie, settled down and prepared to live happily ever after.  But then….

The Motels would rise again.  Oh, not those Motels, not the old guys, but an entirely new group, with the exception of lead singer Martha Davis.  Hey Marty, wanna hit the road again?  Marty did, and now, at age 58, he’s trouping around the universe—including Australia—with Martha and a bunch of kids, ripe in his second childhood.  Who knows, he might last as long as Mick Jagger.

Fortunately for all of us, during his musical down time, Marty diligently pursued his book dream, writing, rewriting, interviewing, spending weeks in Gainesville libraries and newspaper morgues, putting together his Magnum Opus.  So now it’s here in all its radiant splendor, available at the Matheson Museum in Gainesville or via Amazon for discreet buyers of prominent literature.  It’s a winner, the kind of book you can open on page one or page 78 and start reading.  It’s dear to the hearts of those of us in Gainesville but that’s not to say readers in Poughkeepsie wouldn’t enjoy a look.  And if you decide to own one, you might very well possess a singular property.  You might have the only piece of literature ever written by a saxophone player.

 

Marty’s Party

Every time a local musician who was once a customer of the Subterranean Circus writes a book, we like to have a party in his honor.  Being a demure little fellow, Marty didn’t want anything big but he would accept a dinner for a dozen or so at Leonardo’s 706, a restaurant directly across the street from the one-time Circus property.  We were able to locate old headshop alumni Ricky Childs, Bob Sturm and Chuck Lemasters, while Marty brought along the still-frisky Road Turkey crew.  The fellowship was lovely, the wine was nice, the meal excellent.  A good time was had by all.  We discussed with the author the possibility of another novel.  Was he satisfied with a one-time boffo hit smash like, say, J.D. Salinger or Norman Mailer, or would he be back for more.  He assured us the latter was the case.  “Right now,”  Jourard assured us, “I’m working on something called ‘Ancient Evenings’.”  What is it they say in Rome?  Oh yeah, that’s right.  Caveat emptor.

 

Party Pictures Below

Because of the dark interior and light streaming through the windows, photos at Leonardo’s were difficult.  Siobhan battled the elements to get something on her little cell phone so we were not shut out completely.  Then, in a Frank Merriwell finish, party attendee Michelle Ganeles came through with some nice shots.  The first three photos are hers, the rest are from the cell.  Marty Jourard is the showoff in the blue shirt.

The Last Word: for locals, Marty’s book launch and signing is today (Thursday) at the Matheson Museum, 513 E. University Avenue, Gainesville, 6 p.m.  A temporarily revived Road Turkey delivers a one-night stand Friday at 8 p.m. at High Dive, 210 SW 2nd Avenue.

 

 

 

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

 

 

 

     

 

The Last Foal

 

You never forget your first, or so they say.  My first thoroughbred foal, eventually named Star Spectre, was born on April 26, 1976 at the Sleepy Hollow horse farm in Micanopy, about a half-hour’s drive from Gainesville.  His mother, Bonquill, was boarded there while wife Harolyn and I awaited completion of our own farm in Orange Lake.  Night after night, we made the trek, often with a coterie of friends, sitting up with the mare long into the night, movie cameras at the ready in avid anticipation of the blessed event. 

When Star Spectre was finally born, we fussed over him as much as one would a human infant, visiting constantly, playing with the little critter, taking hundreds of pictures, even holding his bowl under his nose until he finished eating.  Star Spectre developed into a muscular colt, a good-sized chestnut, very attractive, with chrome halfway up all four legs.  He broke his maiden at a flat mile in his third start at Arlington Park outside Chicago and was nominated for the 1 1/8-mile Florida Derby, his pedigree suggesting the longer a race was, the better.  And then, of course, he broke down, bowed a tendon, which is like a shot between the eyes to a racehorse.  We gave him away to a crusty old trainer who brought him back to the track a couple of years later and won a few cheap races before the tendon acted up again.  By then, we had half-a-dozen mares and the foals were coming left and right.  Each birth was still exciting, most of them easy, a few precarious, although they could never equal the drama of the first foal.

Time went by, things changed.  Harolyn departed from the scene, taking a couple of mares with her.  My own herd of mares increased to fifteen, which is a lot on a 40-acre farm.  The birthing season stretched from January until June, now more of an everyday business challenge than a source of celebration.  Sure, it was fun to have the newcomers around, but there were mares to be teased, booked and bred, ultrasounds to be performed, medications to be administered, veterinarians to be consulted.  And then there were the stallions.

The old adage encouraging the breeding of the best stallion to the best mare is naive and shortsighted.  Even assuming you can afford to breed to the best stallions, there’s a little matter of pedigree to consider.  What’s your objective?  If you’re trying to win the Kentucky Derby, it might be a good idea to abstain from breeding to a sprint champion.  If you want your eventual two-year-old to work in 9.75 seconds for a sale, keep that sprint champion in mind.  Some breeders attempt to compensate for shortcomings in their mares by breeding to stallions which don’t lack the same qualities, which is fine as far as it goes.  But body types matter.  Breeding a tiny mare to a giant stallion is not usually a good idea.  On the other hand, breeding a bad-legged mare to a very correct stallion makes a lot of sense.  If you’re all in a quandary, they have experts for these things, although I’m not sure they do any better than the rest of us.  On the whole, it’s a lot of work.

Every day you’ve got almost undecipherable problems.  If a stallion is popular, everybody will be breeding to him, perhaps even you.  The vet checks your mare and advises that Thursday morning will be the optimum breeding time.  You call the stallion facility and discover that slot is not available.  You can take an evening breeding, the stud’s third of the day, or opt for the next morning, when he is fresh and perhaps more fertile.  Or maybe Wednesday night.  Is that too early?  Is Thursday night too late?  How long is this particular stallion’s sperm viable?  What does the vet think?  Does your chewin’ gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?  There are no answers, only mysteries.  You do the best you can.

More time goes by.  If you’ve made good decisions and all your mares get in foal, you look up one day and you’ve got fifty horses on your forty-acre farm.  This is not necessarily a good thing.  This means you’ve got to feed fifty horses, get the blacksmith out for fifty horses and eventually train all those slated for the racetrack.  Old horsemen like to tell one another about how to make a million dollars in the horse business.  “Start with TWO million,”  is the advice.  And they’re not kidding.

If all this sounds like so much complaining, it isn’t meant to be.  There is adversity in all enterprises and at least ours isn’t boring.  Where else can a guy with a head shop on the corner wake up one morning, get a phone call and find out he’s just sold an item for half-a-million dollars?  That’s a lot of sassafrass incense.  Or, in a year when he has just a couple of foals, wind up with one who wins a pair of $100,000 stakes races and goes on to compete against the best three-year-olds in the country at Keeneland?  Where else, for crying out loud, can a guy get a Vaunted Vamp?

 

Vaunted Vamp

Every so often, one of those crazy fools who waits in a mile-long line to buy a $50 million lottery ticket actually wins the lottery.  His chances, of course, are only slightly worse than those of a thoroughbred breeder having a great deal of success with a donated mare bred to a free stallion.  But every once in a while, when the planets are correctly arrayed, the Cosmic Arbiter decides to display his wry sense of humor by plunking down a marvelous racehorse in the middle of nowhere.  So it was with Vaunted Vamp.

One of the local horse farm owners decided he’d had enough of the business.  He offered his veterinarian, Siobhan Ellison, a mare named Peace and Quiet, undistinguished but attractive, which Siobhan intended to use for a riding horse.  Alas, Peace and Quiet did not live up to her name, displaying neither peacefulness nor quiet and disqualifying herself from riding-horsedom.  Before dumping P&Q, Siobhan offered the mare to me.  I looked at her pedigree, unimpressive but interesting, and took her.  I bred her to a first-year stallion standing at Farnsworth Farm named Racing Star, a multiple stakes-winner known principally for his grass prowess.  In speed-crazy Ocala, a grass horse was unlikely to set the stallion world on fire so Farnsworth offered his services for free.  If the stud was successful, they could worry about charging stud fees later.  The breeders proved right however, as Racing Star sired little of consequence.  Except in the singular case of Vaunted Vamp, who wound up winning 21 races and over $420,000.  During one of our delightful trips to the Calder Race Course winner’s circle, an amazed owner with horses in the same barn told me, “I hope you realize you will never have another horse like this.  Even great horses don’t win this many races.”  Maybe he jinxed me, but he was right.  Episodes like this one, however, are the cream on the enchilada, the horseman’s raison d’etre.  They atone in part for all the aborted fetuses, crooked foals, racetrack failures and other disappointments horse owners contend with daily.  Nonetheless, the weight of those encumbrances over time takes its toll.  And as we age, our tolerance for disappointments withers.  After all, the list of negatives that oldsters deal with is long and challenging already.  Nobody is looking for another lousy phone call.

 

The Evil Dissipation Blues

I can’t put my finger on when it starts or why, but one curious day most of us begin sliding into a strange mental ravine.  We begin staying home more.  We’re less likely to attend events after dark.  Long trips other than the annual vacation become rare.  What the hell is going on?  Oh, I realize that health issues play a part.  Diminishing vision discourages night driving.  Venues which require lengthy perambulation from the parking lot are hard on old knees.  Party time is much less festive when some of us are no longer allowed to drink.  But a lot of people who are in exemplary shape contract the same disease.  Even me.

After a couple of decades of travelling to Knoxville in alternate years for the Florida-Tennessee football game, one year Siobhan and I decided it was just too much of a bother.  And that was with the benefit of her brother residing in Chattanooga, where we spent the nights before and after the games.  It wasn’t the football.  Florida, which has beaten the Vols eleven straight years now, almost always won and the games were close and well-played.  We enjoyed visiting the relatives, who provided a fun environment and comfortable amenities.  Why then?  Who knows?

I used to go to all the University of Florida home basketball games, generally buying my tickets outside just before tipoff.  I haven’t had many wives or girlfriends who were big sports fans so I went myself.  One year, I met a fellow named Torrey Johnson there and we bought adjacent seats.  After that, we met outside the arena before the games and continued to sit together.  Basketball was more fun with Torrey but eventually he moved to South Florida and I continued to go on my own.  Then one year, I decided I’d had enough of pre-season exhibition games against inferior opponents—usually won by the home team by scores like 200-12—and I didn’t go.  If I wanted to watch, they were on television, after all.  After awhile, I started skipping other contests I perceived to be less than competitive but continued going to the conference games.  But that ravine has a slippery slope.  Once you’ve got one toe in the mud, you start sliding further down.  Last year, I went to UF games exactly twice, watching the rest on TV.

For years, Siobhan and I went to the movies every Friday night.  People with gleaming cell phones—instruments which flashed like so many dancing fireflies—drove us away.  Are we just old and crotchety?  Do we get pissed off too easily?  Are we turning into (shudder) Republicans?  Maybe it’s just an unexplainable factor of age.  Maybe we have an intangible monitor which starts reining us in when we reach a certain number, the same one that tells us we can’t wear mini-skirts and Metallica t-shirts any more.  So thank God for those among us like Mick Jagger who manage to turn the damn thing off for awhile.  Remember, Dylan Thomas gave us clear instructions: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”  Is anyone still paying attention?

The Last Foal

As you get older, the chore of foaling mares and raising babies seems to get tougher.  The physical aspect—staying up for endless nights watching mares, wearily cleaning and rebedding stalls the next day, sacrificing time which could be spent on other activities—is one thing.  The psychological aspect is another.  Sometimes, things go dreadfully wrong.  Our penultimate foal, a healthy colt at birth, began weakening by the day with a heinous condition called neonatal isoerythrolysis, which occurs when a foal is born with a blood group that is different from its dam and then receives antibodies against those red blood cells through the mare’s colostrum, leading to the lysis of the baby’s red blood cells.  By the time anyone notices what’s going on, it’s almost always too late.  We transfused the colt at a healthy cost of $1000 but he continued to fade and died shortly thereafter.  When he could no longer rise on his own, we took him out of his stall into the sunshine on a sled and back again in the late afternoon.  Talk about your long day’s journey into night.  This was the last straw for Siobhan.  We agreed to curtail the breeding operation and find future racehorses at yearling or two-year-old sales.  Winning a big race with a homebred you foaled and raised is more gratifying, of course.  But all of those beaming owners with purchased horses on their way to the winners circle don’t seem to mind.

So now there’s April, The Last Foal, a filly by Uncaptured out of Cosmic Light, a bright little creature, strong, quick to get up and get running.  When approached, April is tolerant, unfrightened, a confident look in her eye.  Her legs are straight and her size is good.  She traces back to my second racehorse, Deadly Nightshade, less than a champion but never a quitter, always advancing at the end of the battle.  If you always remember your first foal, let’s hope we always remember our last, not for her chronological order but for her talent, her gumption, her quality, her achievements.  It’s all up to you now, April, so grow in strength, deepen in character, broaden in courage and gain in speed.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll remember The Last Foal most of all.

 

That’s all (for now) folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com 

 

      

Taxing Times

 

 

“Take the money and run.”—Steve Miller

 

There once was a time, believe it or not, when there were no taxes.  Back when people lived in caves and ate dirt, the world was tax-free.  Alley Oop didn’t pay a cent and neither did Oola.  Fred Flintstone never heard of taxes and he got along just fine.  Then one day, a terrifying monster appeared on the horizon, a giant larger and more fearsome than the fiercest T-Rex, a titan which would change the course of all who lived.  The thing was called Civilization.  And Civilization was one hungry critter, always looking for more blood—like Dracula.  The blood that Civilization wanted was money.  Your money.  And it quickly figured out how to get it.

In ancient Egypt, the Pharaohs assigned “scribes” to raise funds in any way possible, including a tax on household cooking oil.  The scribes conducted regular audits to insure that oil was not recycled—the first historical record of tax avoidance.  The Book of Genesis suggests that a fifth of all crops was delivered to the Pharaohs.

The city states of Greece imposed “eishpora” to pay for wars, which were numerous, but included a stipulation that any post-war surplus must be refunded.  Athens imposed a monthly poll tax on foreigners.

Imperial Rome used tribute extracted from colonized peoples to multiply the bounty of empire.  Julius Caesar imposed a one percent sales tax.  Augustus instituted an inheritance tax to provide retirement funds for the military.

Religious institutions historically rivalled—and sometimes surpassed—political states in their material power.  To consolidate this, they imposed their own forms of taxation.  For Christians, it was the “tithe,” a tenth of what the faithful produced.  The expansion of Islam was accompanied by a levy called the “khums,” about half the Christian tithe.  There are direct references to this in the Qu’ran, requiring use of the tax for specific purposes such as relief of the poor.  In India, Islamic rulers imposed a tax called “jizya” in the eleventh century.  In Latin America, the Aztec, Olmec, Maya and Inca cultures all raised forms of taxation, usually in association with ritual observance.  Both Hindus and Buddhists sustained their temples and monasteries with contributions of time, skill and resources from the faithful.

In eleventh century England, taxes were made famous by an Anglo-Saxon woman named Lady Godiva.  According to legend, her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, promised to reduce the high taxes he levied on the residents of Coventry when she agreed to ride naked through the streets of the town.  A challenging ordeal to be sure, but well worth it when they name expensive chocolates after you.

In colonial America, the colonists were paying taxes under the Molasses Act in 1764, an impost which evolved into the Sugar Act and included duties on foreign molasses, sugar, wine and other commodities.  When the Sugar Act did not raise substantial revenues, the Stamp Act was imposed, then the infamous Tea Act in 1773.  For the colonists, the Tea Act was the last straw.  Citing “taxation without representation,” hundreds of protesters organized the Boston Tea Party, dumping more than 92,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor.  If measured in today’s terms, the value of the lost tea would be in the neighborhood of one million dollars.

 

Godzilla Arrives

The origin of the income tax on individuals is generally cited as the passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, passed by the U.S. Congress on July 2, 1909 and ratified February 3, 1913.  From 1791 to 1802, the government was supported by taxes on distilled spirits, carriages, refined sugar, tobacco and snuff, property sold at auction, corporate bonds and slaves.  The War of 1812 brought about the nation’s first sales taxes on gold, silverware, jewelry and watches.  In 1817, however, Congress did away with all internal taxes, relying on tariffs on imported goods to provide sufficient funds to run the government.

In 1862, in order to support the Civil War effort, Congress enacted the nation’s first income tax law.  It was a forerunner of our modern income tax in that it was based on the principles of graduated or progressive taxation and of withholding income at the source.  During the Civil War, a person earning from $600 to $10,000 per year paid tax at the rate of 3% and those who made more paid taxes at a higher rate.  Additional sales and excise taxes were added and a new “inheritance” tax also made its debut.  In 1866, internal revenue collections reached their highest point in the nation’s 90-year history—more than $310 million, an amount not reached again until 1911.

The Act of 1862 established the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue.  The Commissioner was given the power to assess, levy and collect taxes and the right to enforce the tax laws through seizure of property and income through prosecution, powers and authority which remain today.  In 1868, Congress again focused its taxation efforts on tobacco and distilled spirits and eliminated the income tax in 1872.  It had a short revival in 1894 and 1895, at which time the United States Supreme Court decided the income tax was unconstitutional because it was not apportioned among the states in conformity with the Constitution.

In 1913, the 16th amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system.  Since that time, it has evolved into a mystifying challenge for all but the most basic taxees, generally requiring the services of professional tax preparers or CPAs to negotiate the labyrinthine maze created by the coven of IRS witches annually responsible for concocting the new puzzles.  The Internal Revenue Service has become a universally despised outfit, condemned and threatened with extinction in each new presidential election.  A reasonable alternative to the current system would appear to be a tax on goods—or goods and services—which would deliver the greatest tax responsibility to the biggest spenders.  One objection to this idea is that the poor would be required to pay more for basic necessities, although this could be alleviated somewhat by removing from taxation basic food items.  And no, we are not talking about cheese nachos, pop tarts and Cherry Garcia ice cream.

Then, of course, there are the poor old CPAs to consider.  These one-time bookkeepers have risen through the social ranks to country-club status, challenging lawyers and plastic surgeons in the cost-per-hour olympiad.  What will become of them when there are no more of those complicated income taxes to prepare?  Do we care?  Well, most of them have one foot into the Financial Planning industry, so there’s that.  Another reply is that there is no protection from social evolution.  Once there were two or more record stores in every moderate-sized mall in America.  Seen any lately?  Rented any videos at Blockbuster in the last couple of months?  Does anybody even remember the typewriter store?  How much did you lose when you bet on Betamax?  Head Shops were doing quite nicely until states and municipalities suddenly started passing onerous laws against their existence.  There are no guarantees in life.  Even the number of golf courses is decreasing.  Whoever would have expected that?  Maybe the disenfranchised CPAs could get into the rapidly-expanding alternative taxicab industry or obtain one of those ubiquitous Dunkin’ Donut franchises which are popping up inside gas stations, attached to convenience stores and in the back of Asian massage parlors. Or perhaps raise nutria for fun and profit.  Opportunity is limited only by imagination.  The possibilities, as they say, are endless.

Skullduggery

Now as we all know, when there are large sums of money at stake, shenanigans often enter into the picture.  The put-upon taxpayers are never eager to cede their revenues to the government, just ask the Sheriff of Nottingham.  Some of the reasons for non-payment are obviously rendered without the assistance of legal advice.  Daytime TV host and home guru Martha Stewart failed to pay $220,000 worth of taxes on an estate she owned because she felt she didn’t spend enough time there.  Hello?  Hotel czar Leona Helmsley was convicted of tax fraud in 1992 for claiming $2.6 million in ineligible business expenses.  She couldn’t believe it, telling an associate, “We don’t pay taxes.  Only the little people pay taxes!”   Comedian Richard Pryor told government investigators he just forgot.  Richard Hatch, winner of the first million-dollar Survivor TV jackpot was tossed in prison for neglecting to pay taxes on his prize.  After being eventually released, he was sent back for violating the terms of his release.  Hatch claimed he was being discriminated against because he is gay.

Then there was the little old lady from Pasadena.  She told her CPA that she had offed her husband because she was tired of taking care of him but still wanted to claim him on her tax return.  She was certain the well-known accountant-client relationship prevented the man from revealing their private conversations.  The CPA ran, not walked, to his nearest police station and turned her in.  Sometimes it’s better to just pay your taxes.

 

Payment Of the Year

In 1997, a taxpayer in Oklahoma was advised that his income tax check was $3407 short of the required amount.  He packaged up his “payment” and wrote Internal Revenue this letter:

“Dear IRS:  Enclosed is my 1997 tax return and payment.  Please take note of the attached article from the USA newspaper.  In the article, you will see the Pentagon paid $171.50 for hammers and NASA has paid $600 for a toilet seat.  Please find enclosed four toilet seats (value $2400) and six hammers (value $1029).  That brings my total payment to $3429.  Please note the overpayment of $22 and apply it to the Presidential Election Fund, as noted on my return.  Might I suggest you then send the abovementioned fund a 1.5 inch screw (see attached article—HUD paid $22 for a 1.5 inch Phillips Head Screw).

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year and I look forward to next year.  I have just recently read an atricle about the Pentagon and screwdrivers.” 

 

Who Says There’s No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?

Rashia Wilson, who calls herself The First Lady of Tax Fraud, was sentenced in July of 2013 to 21 years in prison.  She was prosecuted for identity theft and also ordered to pay $2.2 million.  A partner, Maurice J. Larry, got 14.5 years and was fined the same amount.  From at least April of 2009 through their arrests in 2012, the pair fraudulently obtained tax refunds by receiving U.S. treasury checks and pre-paid debit cards loaded with proceeds from false tax returns they filed in the names of other people without those folks’ permission or knowledge.  Wilson boasted on Facebook that she was untouchable and spent lavishly, including $90,000 for an Audi A8 and $30,000 on her son’s first birthday party.  The kid’s second birthday was probably a big disappointment.

 

Dumbhead Of The Year

Krystle Marie Reyes of Oregon falsely claimed $3 million in income using TurboTax, which issued her a prepaid Visa debit card for $2.1 million after her home state approved her claim.  She went on a $200,000 spending spree and was only caught after she reported the debit card lost.  No, seriously folks, she really did.

 

Disa And Data

Cynthia Hess, AKA “Chesty Love” of Indiana was an exotic dancer who tried to deduct $2,088 for her breast implants.  The IRS rejected her claim and she sued in U.S. Tax Court.  Cynthia won because she was able to prove that the new implants (size 56FF) allowed her to make more money than she otherwise would have.  No doubt.

William Halby, a lawyer from New York recently lost a tax deduction case in Tax Court.  He had tried to deduct $100,000 in expenses for prostitutes and pornography which he had spent from 2004 to 2005.  In an appeal, he argued that his deductions were for medical expenses and were justified as part of “sex therapy” due to his being depressed and alone.  This time, the court ruled in his favor.  William is currently thinking of expanding his therapy.

Aaron Zeff, the owner of Harv’s Metro Car Wash in Sacramento, California, was surprised when two IRS agents showed up at his place of business recently looking for payment for back taxes.  Aaron had previously received no notification of the deficit.  He was even more surprised when they told him the business had owed four cents since 2006.  Penalties and interest had driven the bill up to a grand total of $202.35, necessitating the dispatch of these collection agents.  I’m just guessing but it seems like there’s not a lot to do at the IRS offices in Sacramento.  Could someone fetch these boys a Foosball table? 

Nyquist leads the field down the stretch in the Florida Derby.

Clash Of The Titans

This is a race that almost never happens,  Traditionally, the best three-year-old thoroughbred horses on the east and west coasts, like any bride and groom, never meet until the wedding—in this case, the fabled Kentucky Derby, always scheduled for the First Saturday in May.  But here was undefeated Nyquist, the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Champion and Hope Of The West flying into Hallandale, Florida’s Gulfstream Park to meet homestanding Mohaymen, King Of the East in a knockdown dragout Florida Derby for the role of Louisville favorite.  What’s going on here?

It’s simple, really.  Nyquist was sold in the 2015 Fasig-Tipton sale of two-year-olds in training in Florida, making him eligible for the one million dollar bonus any sale graduate gets for winning the Florida Derby.   If there’s one thing that will spur an owner to leave his cozy nest at Santa Anita, it’s the promise of a cool million in addition to the winner’s share of $600,000 in the Florida Derby.  As they say in the business, that’s not soggy gingerbread.

Owner Paul Reddam, who has reached these climes before with Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another, was properly sanguine about his prospects.  “Anyone would have reservations about facing Mohaymen in his own backyard,” he said.  “But my feeling was, if you’re afraid to go run against someone now, how do you really think you have a Derby horse?  We just stuck to the plan.  If we get beat, we get beat.  You can’t be afraid.  If you’re afraid in this business, you’re not going anywhere.”

Nyquist broke sharply from the starting gate and led to the first turn under a firm hold by Mario Gutierrez.  It was the California horse’s second start of the year.  “It was always part of the plan to go to the front,” Gutierrez said.  “Everything depends on the break, how the other horses are going to be acting.  Coming out of the gate, I broke so clean and so fast I just had to take the lead.”

Nyquist rated on the lead along the backstretch and had most of the longshots put away by the far turn.  He was joined on his outside by Mohaymen leaving the turn and heading into the homestretch.  Both horses rounded the turn extremely wide, a factor of the “good” but not “fast” racetrack being quicker outside.  Majesto, a 21-1 shot ridden by the wily Javier Castellano, cut the corner and moved up along the rail to contest the battle.  “I saw Mohaymen coming to my side,” said Gutierrez, “I’m riding the race and I didn’t want to be overconfident but if he was going to pass me he was going to have to do it running wide.”

Just when it looked like the Battle Royale was about to commence, Mohaymen began to falter.  “He was pretty wide throughout, but the track is wet and we wanted to stay out in the clear,” said the big grey’s trainer, Kiaran McLaughlin, who had saddled his charge to Gulfstream wins in the Holy Bull Stakes and the Fountain of Youth.  Mohaymen faded to fourth, losing for the first time in his life.  His rider, Junior Alvarado, later said, “I’m not a person to blame the racetrack all the time but I can only say that today the horse never took me.  He’s a horse that all the time drags me and jumps in the bridle right away.  This time, he wasn’t pulling me.  It got me a little worried.  By the eighth pole, I saw Nyquist getting along well and I had to move my horse, this time I’m the one asking him.  The track could be one little reason but there’s nothing else I can really say.”

In addition to Nyquist, Majesto, who hung on for second and the well-closing Fellowship earned sufficient qualifying points for the Derby.  Mohaymen was already eligible.  It was Majesto’s first race since breaking his maiden on February 27.  Castellano commented, “I think he’s going to be good going to the Derby.  He has the points and he’s late-developing.  He’s going to start getting really good.  I’m looking forward to it.”

The mystery for the day remains Mohaymen.  Off race track?  Past his peak?  Got up on the wrong side of the stall?  Hard to count out off one less than stellar performance.  All grist for the bettor’s mill as the Race of the Year ranges up in the rear-view mirror, a mere month away.  Giddyap!

 

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com