Weezer

“On an island in the sun

We’ll be playin’ and havin’ fun

And it makes me feel so fine

I can’t control my brain”

         “Island in the Sun,” Weezer

 Tori, Alissa, Josh, and Jimbo at Weezer concert

A few days ago, son Phil called from Grand Rapids.  Through his PBS station he had obtained free tickets to a concert featuring Weezer and the Pixies.  He couldn’t go, but I was all in, along with Alissa, Josh, and Tori. I arrived at a Days Inn the afternoon of the show, and Alissa picked me up from her job at Grand Valley State.  At their place Josh played some Weezer to get us in the mood, and we ordered pizza slices around the corner from Van Andel Arena.  We arrived in time to catch a few songs by British rock band Basement, finishing up a 30-minute set.  Next came the Pixies, who blasted through a rousing set virtually non-stop. I’m more familiar with lead singer Frank Black’s subsequent solo work but recognized such Pixies late-Eighties classics as “Here Comes My Man,” “Debaser,” and “Monkey Goes to Heaven.” I was disappointed the two big screens were off.  I would have enjoyed close-ups of the individual members, especially Black (called Black Francis while with the band).  Did the band request no screens, I wonder, or was it out of deference to Weezer, the headliners?

 Black Francis (Frank Black) in Grand Rapids with Pixies

Weezer concert at Van Andel Arena

Weezer won over the audience right away.  After “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets came over the loud speakers, someone announced, “And from Kenosha, Wisconsin, Weezer.” Actually the band started in L.A. some 27 years ago.  Out came Brian Bell, Scott Shriner, Patrick Wilson, and Rivers Cuomo dressed like a barbershop quartet and sang several numbers a Capello and duo wop style. Mounting the stage, they rocked out on many numbers but not to such a degree as to drown out crowd favorites such as “Buddy Holly,” “Pork and Beans,” “Hash Pipe,” and “Island in the Sun.” The latter produced hundreds of lighters and cell phones from the near sell-out crowd. About halfway through the set Rivers Cuomo got aboard a boat carried up one aisle and down another by burly roadies and, stopping directly below us, sang the Turtles’ “Happy Together” while playing acoustic guitar.  Back on stage he brought the house down with the 1982 Toto favorite “Africa” and Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.”  The band’s first encore was my absolute Eighties favorite by A-ha, “Take On Me,” followed by “Say It Ain’t So.”   Totally awesome. 

 1187 Battle of Hattin

Knights Templars burned at stake

Back at Days Inn, before meeting Phil, Delia, and Miranda for lunch I watched a documentary on the History channel about the Knights Templars, whom I had learned about in David Parnell’s Crusades class.  Catholic warrior monks formed supposedly to protect pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, after a disastrous military defeat at Hattin in 1187 at the hands of Saladin and the subsequent loss of Jerusalem, the secret Order morphed into powerful European land owners and money lenders until French King Philip the Fair, in debt to the Templars, persecuted its leaders on charges of heresy. The episode featured four seemingly knowledgeable historians.  Normally I can’t stand History channel fare, with all its commercials and emphasis on warfare, conspiracy theories, and disasters. This contained elements of all three but captured my interest.

I had intended to stay at the downtown Holiday Inn, but no rooms were available. Days Inn “near downtown” (as advertised) was less than half the cost, including free breakfast, but had lackadaisical check-in staff, more interested in chatting with staff or friends than being helpful.  A door to my room had to be forced open and shut, and my phone did not stop blinking (the front desk was no help), a noisy fan kept going off and on.  Pillows were comfortable and there was no sign of bedbugs nor ants, so I was satisfied.  As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. When I first arrived at the address, a sign said Baymont Inn but nothing about Days Inn. I drove around a bit before venturing inside and discovering both were part of the Wyndham hotel chain. It reminded me of Avis and Budget at the same airport car rental booth.

 Miranda, Delia, Jimbo, Phil

At a Mexican restaurant in Phil and Delia’s neighborhood Miranda mentioned that a stranger recognized her from her Instagram account, which evidently has hundreds, if not thousands, of followers.   Someone recognized Delia from Miranda’s Instagram photos.  Miranda has applied to the Peace Corps and hopes, if accepted, to be assigned to the island nation of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon).  When I told her I might attend a conference in Singapore in 2020, she invited me to come visit her. I brought up that Weezer was introduced as being from Kenosha, reminding me of the scene in “About Schmidt” (2002) where Jack Nicholson is in a trailer campground when a couple from Kenosha invites him for dinner.  He brings a six-pack and while hubby goes out for more beer makes a clumsy pass at the wife, who makes it clear he should leave.  Phil recalled how sad it was when Schmidt retired from his job as an actuary and Kathy Bates jumping nude into a hot tub with him.  We were both surprised Delia, a movie buff, had never seen it.

Over 30 Facebook friends registered likes to my account of the Weezer concert, and I received a half dozen comments.  Allison Schuette wrote: “Liz [Wuerffel] wondered if you could still hear afterwards.”  Tom Wade said he treadmills to Weezer’s rendition of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Nephew Bob wrote: “Party on Lanes!”

left, Terrapin Bruno Fernando; below, Wildcat Jermaine Samuels

March Madness has begun.  Since I won David’s pool twice in the past three years picking Villanova, I went with the Wildcats once again, even though they are just a sixth seed.  Maryland, the only team I really care about, is also a sixth seed, so I picked them and two other six seeds, Buffalo and Iowa State, to reach the Final Four.  In the unlikely event any go all the way, I should be the only one to have selected them. Home in time to cheer on Maryland, surviving a scare to dispatch Belmont 79-77.  In the evening Villanova topped St. Mary’s 61-57.  So far, so good.

Chancellor Bill Lowe hosted a faculty reception in the new Arts and Sciences Building, featuring piano stylings by Billy Foster and plentiful food and drink. Wife Pamela was demonstrating a long bent nail that she had run over, resulting in a flat tire. Zoran Kilibarda commented on my shirt, which celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of IUN’s Black Studies program.  Diversity director James Wallace confirmed that F.C. Richardson, adviser to the Black Student Union in 1969, will be a guest of honor at next week’s IU Bicentennial banquet.   Spencer Cortwright, excited over Momma Mia!coming to the Memorial Opera House.  I congratulated David Parnell on his nomination for a Founders Day teaching award.  Jonathan Briggs, a Weezer fan, said he’d almost driven to Grand Rapids for the convert. Parnell commented that Weezer’s rendition of “Africa” isn’t as campy as the original by Toto but pretty good.

When I speak to VU professor Mary Kate Blake’s class about the 1980s, they’ll have read Lance Trusty’s “End of an Era: The 1980s in the Calumet,” so I’ll read them the final paragraph from Trusty’s “Centennial Portrait of Hammond” published in 1984.  Trusty wrote:

 Hammond was a chastened city as it celebrated its centennial in 1984.  The 1980 census revealed that the population had declined rapidly to 93,714 citizens.  The few large industries that had survived the dismal Seventies and the Calumet region’s steel mills and oil refineries continued to reduce their work forces. Times weren’t desperate for most, but near-term optimism was hard to find.

 The Hammond of 1984 had many hidden strengths.  It was still part of the enormously resilient Chicago metropolitan area and shared in its markets and transportation web.  The Hammond of 1984 was a residential city of skilled workers, enjoying the often overlooked benefits of a sound Catholic liberal arts college and a fast-growing university.  An era was ending in 1984, as the tough industrial city sought a new economic base in a fluid, unpredictable economy.

In 1992 Trusty was less sanguine: “In ten years Hammond, seemingly the least changed city in the Calumet, lost a tenth of its population, its downtown, and most of its industrial base."

Since Andrew Laurinec’s article in the Eighties Shavings is not part of the VU class’s assignment, I’ll read this paragraph: 

 My family lived in the Robertsdale neighborhood of north Hammond, nestled between a popcorn factory, lever Brothers, and the Amoco refinery.  Depending on the wind direction, you’d either smell popcorn, soap or whatever kind of noxious gas the oil plant was burning off at the time.  Sometimes at night Lever Brothers would release a cloud of soap and God knows what else into the sir.  It was not unusual to see people washing their cars the next morning.  After all, there already was soap on their car.

In 1980 there were 1,600 Lever brother employees at that plant.  In 2015 the number was down to 350.