Here is another view back through the mists of time… This video is the product of clips from several different super-8 movies my father and I shot back in May of 1971. This is the second 1971 performance I’ve cut together from old home movies and published on-line. The other one was shot at the […]
1976 Flashback: “You’re talented, Scott. Why do you have to get up there and lecture your elders about what’s wrong with America? They don’t want to hear it. Why don’t you give them what they want? They will love you if you do, and they’ll shower you with praise. Don’t you want that?” So spoke […]
Secret police don’t have a good reputation in America. The Nazis, Soviets and East Germans gave them a bad name. Since America is The Only Exceptional Nation, we don’t have secret police. We have “undercover officers.” Our secret police pretend to be students, entrap classmates and help create a climate of suspicion and fear on campus. […]
Ambitious minds have to struggle for room in a world full of conformists. This is something I have experienced over and over again in life. Lately I have been thinking about the past a little bit more than usual. Reading Amy Kaufman Burk’s fine book about Hollywood High got me meditating about my own experiences. […]
Achieve the Honorable is the title of Amy Kaufman Burk’s novel. It’s also the motto of Hollywood High School. Amy’s book is a sharply-told story about a diverse group of kids during the 1973-1974 school year, which was Amy’s (and my) first year at Hollywood High. Although the characters are fictionalized, the story very much […]
The anniversary of Richard Nixon’s downfall gives us a chance to look back on our troubled history. Mr. Nixon was a racist and a crook. At the same time, compared to today’s leaders, Tricky Dick looks like a courageous, visionary genius. This should be food for thought for everybody, regardless of where we might place […]
Forty years is quite a long time…at least I used to think so. Joseph LeConte was an early conservationist and a professor at UC Berkeley in the 1800’s. My friends and I went to a junior high school in Hollywood that carries his name. A group of us was given a chance to take a week-long […]
The first big pile of old reels from the Pearce Family Archive has resulted in a bit more than five hours of video, including a fair amount of stuff from the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in 1971 and 1972. Here is the first item from that archive. This movie was shot by my dad Gerry on […]
Here is a picture of the Hollywood High School Still Photography Club. This shot was taken on February 20, 1976. Here I am, front and center, the consequence of a discrete transaction with the photographer. Although I can identify most of the other people in this picture, I’ll leave it to everybody to tag themselves […]
It is about time America confronted its own sordid history. The textbooks we use in schools today leave out most of the really interesting and important stuff. I guess our masters don’t think we’re capable of handling the truth, or maybe they figure it is easier for them to manage a confused and ignorant herd. […]
July 24, 1978 was a hot day in Anaheim, California. I was there with 50 or 60 thousand friends to see The Rolling Stones, with Peter Tosh opening the show. A few months shy of my 20th birthday, I was one of the younger audience members. The scene was as decadent as any I had […]
I admit I am tempted to write something fanciful and perhaps even less than truthful today. It may be April Fool’s Day, but I see no reason to compromise my high standards of journalistic integrity just for a few quick, cheap laughs. Instead, return with me now to October of 1976. Here I am in […]
Robert Hills, one of my only coaches who was not a swimming or diving man, died recently. He’s the guy on the far right of the photo, which is from the 1972-1973 yearbook. (The others are coaches Bratschie, Lamb and Flynn.) I wish his family the courage and strength required to do without him. Coach […]
One of the most popular posts on these pages is a piece I wrote about being on-stage with Perfumes of Araby at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in 1972. That post has a nice photo of Diane that my dad took that year. Here is another photo I’ve found in the family archives. This is a […]
These radios are essentially the same – except the one on the left is 35 years old and the one on the right is newly bought today. I still remember the day in the spring of 1975 that I first got the radio on the left (Sony TFM-3750W). I was 16, and I had my […]