30 years and three months later, I returned to the site of the World’s Tallest Barber Pole. It pleased me to see the school so obviously prospering. It was nice to take pictures on a day when Mt. St. Helens was not exploding, too. That was the key feature of my college graduation day – the mountain blew up and a massive ash-fall was occurring while I was collecting my diploma. My parents came up for the ceremony but hurried off without staying for dinner.

Come to think of it, I should have gone out for lobster, to make up for the fancy meal I missed back in 1980! Oh well, maybe in another 30 years.

Share on Facebook

“Academic Auschwitz”

That’s how I used to refer to the USC Law Center. My three years there neatly coincided with Reagan’s first term in office. They were relentlessly miserable. With each passing day I became more class-conscious and more appalled at the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the American professional demographic. Each day was filled with political and interpersonal torment.

I remember going to a social gathering for new law students a week or two before classes started. Somebody mentioned that I drove an old Mustang. One of the more attractive young women present looked at me with a smile and said, “Is it a convertible?”

Never, not for one minute, did I buy into the Reagan-Thatcher ideology. Fortunately, I also did not buy into their investment strategy. When Reagan was riding high and his chief economic adviser was from the USC business school next door, I argued that borrowing billions from the Japanese to build nuclear weapons was not conservative – or wise.

Why did I go there? If I was so miserable, why didn’t I transfer? I figured one top-tier law school probably was as good as the next. Looking back, I’m glad I stayed. A few days before graduation, one of my classmates, a quiet young woman whom I didn’t really know, spoke to me. “I’m glad you were in our class. You’re more like some kind of artist. More people like you should study law.” She was a nice person but I’m not sure what she meant.

On our graduation day, 25 years ago today, one of my plaid-shorts-wearing, right-wing classmates tossed an object in my direction while we were in the student lounge. It was a vial of cocaine. The guy showed me another perfect Republican smile. “Get a good job and you’ll be able to afford it, too.”

If I could travel back in time and sit with young Scott, I’d tell him this: Don’t take it seriously. Don’t come to class often, and when you do, don’t come sober. Don’t argue politics or the law in law school unless it improves your buzz. Get a nice left-handed acoustic guitar and hang out on Venice Beach. Learn the law from the bar review people, not your professors. Practice for exams as much as possible and study as little as possible. You’ll be a big scholar and you’ll be an even better mediocre musician.

Share on Facebook

Today is the sixth anniversary of my dad’s death. My mom took this picture on Rutherford Drive in the Hollywood Hills back in the summer of ’81. I plan to publish many of my father’s photographs and movies soon, along with his book on the Middle-East. No doubt a grateful world will wonder what took me so long.

Share on Facebook

Back in 1989, my 1979 Chevy Camaro Berlinetta was, as a friend’s ex-wife once said, “a really bitchin car.”

You don’t get the full effect unless you’ve got the t-tops off and you’re going down the highway very, very fast and listening to Free Wheel Burning very, very loud.

A lot of people thought the license plate was a political statement. In fact, it was merely a reminder of my ice hockey position. Didn’t you know I was a big ice hockey player? Yeah, that’s right. We played it every summer at West Hollywood Park.

I had a C-120 cassette tape most of the Grateful Dead’s October 9, 1989 show from Hampton, Virginia in this car that I listened to more than any other single recording. For no extra charge, here’s the show! To recreate the experience, start with cut 11.

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

Here I am in the summer of ’86 at counsel table in one of the big arraignment courts in the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles. I was a deputy public defender, and I was delighted to be getting paid to cross-examine cops. Not much more than a year later, I left that job horrified by the injustice I’d seen and participated in. By then I was a much more radical young lawyer than I was at the time this photographs was taken.

Share on Facebook

Coffee mugs are some of the most common drug paraphernalia around. Here we have a friendly, feline-oriented mug that dates from 1980. Today, 28 years later, you can see that the mug is doing its usual splendid job: exploiting the forces of gravity to keep hot coffee contained within its walls. You can also see that the mug is sitting on a granite counter tonight. This mug spent many years on more humble surfaces.

Share on Facebook

Charles Whitebread died a few days ago at the age of 65. He never smoked cigarettes but lung cancer killed him anyway. I knew him at USC and in the bar review business.

Professor Whitebread was one of the best lecturers I ever watched and listened to. He joined the faculty at the USC Law School in the summer of 1981, which is when I started my first year at the same institution.

I took three classes from him: Criminal Procedure, Gifts Wills and Trusts (GWATS), and Juvenile Law. His classes were packed and people didn’t skip many sessions.  Each 50 minute lecture was a model of clarity and precision, engaging and entertaining. This guy loved and respected his students. He showed up prepared and he inspired everybody to care about the material the way he did.

Here is a drawing of Professor Whitebread that I put on my folder for Gifts, Wills & Trusts back in the spring of 1983. I respected this professor, but I developed a fierce contempt for law school. The only thing about law school that was an improvement over junior high was the fact that it was OK to drink alcohol in class.

Listen to Charlie tell a quick story about a marijuana dealer, a fleeing felon, and hot pursuit.

Share on Facebook

It’s been 25 years since the second US Festival. I had just finished my second year at the USC School of Law and was very much in the mood for big crowds and loud music.

The US Festival was a three-day show. Larry and I went to days two and three, making our way to San Bernardino in my black 1968 Mustang. This is considered a classic car with quaint triangle-windows separate from the front windows. The (cheap) model I owned had three-on-the-floor and no air conditioning. Temperatures would go above 100 degrees both days.

May 29 was the Heavy Metal day. Quiet Riot was the opening act. Larry had been the band’s photographer back in his Hollywood High days. The band was at its commercial peak on this day. I was highly entertained by Judas Priest. The spectacle of these totally un-tanned white boys coming out in black leather, astride big motorcycles, on a hundred-plus degree afternoon…well, I thought it was hilarious. I loved their version of “Diamonds and Rust.” I admit I was a bit astonished and amused by how seriously this band was taken by much of the audience. Ozzy came out, fat and drunk, and without Randy Rhoads, who had recently died in a stupid plane crash. Fans rushed the stage and there was a sense of real danger in the air, along with massive clouds of tobacco and pot smoke.

Things did not get totally out of hand, probably because the promoters had the sense to segregate the alcohol drinkers, and to require them to stay within their own little holding pen, far away from the stage. By far the most impressive set of the May 29 show was the Scorpions. Those German guys really taught the Brits and the Americans a few things about musicality and showmanship. Van Halen co-headlined the show, but they were too wasted to maintain any kind of musical or emotional momentum. Larry and I spent several hours trapped in the parking lot after the show, waiting for the jam to clear.

David Bowie was the headliner on the 30th. Los Lobos was the opening act. The Pretenders played their first show with a new guitarist, the previous one having died of drugs. U2 was on the bill, self-important but good – and lower on the bill than the Pretenders. Joe Walsh and Stevie Nicks each had pleasant sets. After the Bowie set we discovered that the Mustang had been towed, along with hundreds of other cars. Larry and I had to walk several miles in the middle of the night and hand over virtually every cent both of us had to get the car out of the impound lot. We made it back to Hollywood just before the morning rush hour.

The US Festival saw one of the most fabulous performances ever – by business lawyers! Van Halen signed for One Million US Dollars. That was quite impressive in and of itself, but the lawyers were able to get a “Most Favored Nation” clause in the agreement, which guaranteed that Van Halen would make as much money as any other artist on the bill. When the promoters agreed to pay David Bowie $1.5 Million, our drunk and stoned friends from Pasadena got a cool half-million dollar raise!

You’ll notice that there have not been any US Festivals since 1983. That’s because the promoters lost millions on these shows. Think about that for a minute. You’ve really got to concentrate pretty hard to lose that kind of money when you put on a show that draws more than half a million people!

Share on Facebook

This picture was taken in 1988, twenty years ago, at UC Berkeley, bastion of free speech. Some of America’s smartest and most talented college kids thought this was a practical way to deal with the TV problem.

Alexis and I grew up in Hollywood. Our family has been connected to the entertainment business for more than 60 years. We do not have cable or any other kind of pay television. We do own a 13-inch television set. It picks up a few local stations, but mostly it is a DVD player.

Every year we watch the Oscars and the Super Bowl. Every four years, I watch the World Cup. Last night, we watched an episode of a TV show called “Boston Legal.” Actually, Alexis watched it, and I dropped in for about a quarter of it.

To me, “good TV” is an oxymoron. I’d rather listen to ancient old radio shows instead of watching TV, because the pictures in my imagination are more entertaining to me than anything that might appear on a television set. Plus, I just don’t like sitting around, observing a piece of furniture. That said, “Boston Legal” seemed to be OK. As a lawyer, I can’t say I go for entertainment based on the practice of law. The performers seemed to be having fun in this show. There’s a lot more zooming around and other camera movement than I remember being on TV, back in the day.

Here we are again, back in Berkeley in 1988. As you can see, the Authorities sent several uniformed officers with guns – to protect the televisions! After all, this was Reagan’s last year in office, and those folks knew how important it is to keep the people watching TV and not thinking about politics. But let’s don’t blame Reagan. That guy was reading a teleprompter on TV and he conducted his cabinet meetings off of cue cards written for him by others. He wasn’t in power; like the current stooge in the White House, he was merely the Acting President.

Share on Facebook

X was, and remains, one of the finest bands to come out LA. I have seen them many times over the years, at places like Madam Wong’s West. Here’s a ticket stub from a show they put on at the Santa Monica Civic back in 1980. You’ll notice that this was a general admission show. Real rock shows do not have assigned seating.

Back in 1958, 22 years earlier, I had been the star in the first production that anybody ever staged in the Santa Monica Civic. I played Baby Jesus in a Nativity show. They worshiped me. X put on a fine show that night in 1980, but they weren’t God – not quite.

Share on Facebook

“I sold pot in the U.S. A quarter ounce. It cost me 40 years in jail, where I have been raped and beaten. The Supreme Court says this is not cruel and unusual.”

“Hi! I’m a rich, deceased lawyer. My picture is up in room 1 of the USC Law Center. I was convicted of tax fraud, but over the years I donated $160,000 to USC.”

“I’m Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Who says my brains need to be reasonably related ty my job?”

“I’m a haggard USC 1st year law student, the victim of a brutal socialization (brainwashing) process. I feel as if my arms have been tied behind my back.”

“I’m a woman associate at a large law firm. My chances of becoming a partner are cut by my dislike of playing softball and my interest in becoming a mother as well as a 1st rate attorney.”

“I’m a fertilized egg in the womb of a poor woman. I present a threat to the life of the woman I’m inside. The courts say it’s OK for the government to deny the woman a free abortion, despite the direct threat to her life.”

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

Joan Pearce died three years ago today. Here is a picture of her that my dad took in May 1981 at the Renaissance Faire in Agoura, California.

Share on Facebook