In September of 1987, I decided to go to one of the two title parties and not to go see Hall of Famer baseball player Reggie Jackson's last weekend of games- convienently @ The Baseball Palace of the World. Jesus's lesson to-day is that sometimes there is no "do the rite thing"- sometimes there are two "rite things" (or two wrong things), and one just has to choose. Oh,I can smile about it now, but @ the time it was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make.The hard decision? Whether to go to a party in a dorm @ university or see Reggie Jackson's last weekend playing baseball. What kinda'v duro choisir is that?
Yes: been to parties before and after
Yes: seen Reggie @ Comiskey many times
That's a hard decision? But it was. It was a different time, place, and context.
Obviously I've had a lifetime of games Comiskey Park, and over time I've been able to see vast constellations of stars play: Mike Squires, Jack Brohammer, Randy Scarbury, Bucky Dent, Harry Chappas, Bart Johnson ................... and Reggie. Such a star was Reggie during the entire period of our young lives- there was always that saying that no American league team won the World Series from 1970 through 1983 except with Jaxx on the team.
And what a character. Superhomer run hitter, he had the 'all or nothing' swing that produced monstrous home runs- think the 1970 all star game in Detroit, the four home runs on four consecutive swings in 1978, and that preposterous streched out position he'd end up in after one of his mighty roundhouse swings missed. Then there as the fights with his managers, the attempted laying down of that bunt in '79 or '80, the Reggie Bar (I ate them), etc... Even though he never played for the Sox (or the Cubs- Reggie also played in that day before the Cubs turned from what they were then -kool- into what they represent now- Cub fans.
And my set of frenz who I grew up with have our own special Reggie memory no one else has. In the fall of '82 , we were strangely sitting on the rite field side of Comiskey during an Angels game. Reggie was in right field, and between innings -- as Nancy Faust was playing "Eye of the Tiger" from the then current Rocky film-- he 'punched along' to the riff- y'know, the "BAM BAM-BAM-BAMM!!" riff. "Hey hey-look @ Reggie!!" And to this day, we still share this memory with a little BAM-BAM-BAMM!! action.
Reggie returned to his original team- the Athletics- in the last year or two of his career. In 1987, w/ the A's scheduled to pay that last weekend in Chicago- we made longterm plans to NOT MISS THIS.
But I did. And that call, saying "Dudes- I can't come to the Sox game" was so fucking hard.
But we go back further:
The first time I was hit with debilitating depression was the Fall of 1986, me being a junior university student. Although it runs on my father's side, we never got any of that. the uneducation of my ancestors. To misquote Joyce:
Tally the years of schooling of Hilts parents.
Eight years of grammer school.
Average the years of schooling of Hilts parents.
Four years each.
My first nonme experience w/ it was the two year battle a cousin of mine went through. I kept thinking "What the fuck- just kick it"- but, of course.............. To this point, that I could have it was.......a neverthought thought.
So, December of 1986- 20yo- and it's that punk rock red head that's on my mind. She's the absolute first girl who I actually announced myself to and said - well, intoned and she got it- "I want you. Real bad." Never went anywhere, but that episode, coupled with the pressures of being a junior in university and having absolutely no clue as to what was going on in life allowed Bluebird into my life for the first time.
I was a mess. Complete depression, the worst ever. No forward, but lots to think back on (the romance of life is me- complete nostalgia for it all). I wanted, and needed a change. I petitioned my parents in not kool ways- they didn't need the stress, but they knew something terrible was up w/ me and they responded. What I requested was that I wanted to move to a dorm and live on campus for the first time.
Now, many problems for me. I lived 1 1/2h El ride from my 'hood up to Rogers Park and had done that up till spring break of junior year. It cost what- $2 round trip? Cheap. And what did a dorm cost? Lots. I am cheap, my Dad was cheap, and this was gonna cost the family money. Secondly, it was kool to live in Marquette Park. Always a kool kool strenght, especially when we started venturing north of 55th street regularly (To this day, I really feel bad that most people couldn't experience that). As a freshman we used to make fun of people from our hs that lived on the north side (I think we still do, excepting for those of us who have- Hilts, lazers, Tommy T., BCD (that's 345 NORTH, dude). And finally, my parents were very very concerned about my mental health. It just killed me to ask to them be allowed to live up there for the last 2m of the school year- again, they were so worried. And I felt that they mite feel I was rejecting them*.
So, a Sunday nite in March of 1987- with WXRT broadcasting live a Kinks show from the Riveria (Ray would hit the first few chords of 'Lola' from time to time to set the audience off, then he'd say "What, What, what did I do??") and tears in my eyes- My sisters and I drove up to Loyola with a roomfull of junk to deliver me to the North Side. My room wasn't ready yet, so I went home with my stuff stored in K's. It happened the next nite as well- but that Wednesday, the room was ready and K helped me move in. I remember that teary phonecall home that nite- we were all weepy as Mom passed the fone on to Dad so I could also tell him I wasn't coming home that nite.
Hung up, walked from the basement of Campion and up to what would become one of the greatest places on earth - Room 1018 of Mertz Hall - and sat in the window and cried as I watched the El trains headed south and thought "I could be home in 1 1/2h". Funny- in a little more than a year, the LEAVING of Mertz Hall by a graduating me was thw worst thing in the world- how contexts change, and soon.
That last two months of the year were a gass. Within 2 weeks, I was hanging out w/ lots of girls-Orange especially, but a cornicopia had fallen @ my feet and scattered all of the wonderous things a 21 yo could ever want. My depression? How instantly did that disappear? Like a Reggie line shot into the lower deck @ Yankee's. Instantly life became this wilde wonder land of women and new people and women and women and woman and just fucking around.
Now- and this is the point of this essay- I always felt terrible guilt about leaving my family and frenz and starting a new slice of life away from them. So much so, that @ first, I didn't even tell my closest frenz that............I was no longer living @ home. That red head girl who I'd fallen for the previous semester- I told the next year. Rosenbloom Insurance? Hde found out later that year when we needed a quiet place to call Matt Jenke. And the frenz I'd grown up with? They knew, but there was a conspiracy of silence. I never knew when they figuered it out, but I wasn't asking. Over that summer (betwixt my junior and senior years) the truth came out= BCD, in front of everyone, said "O.K.- lets all say it out loud- Hilts lives @ Mertz".
And with the truth out, it was all ok. My worries passed. So scared was I that they though I was somehow rejecting them. As that summer passed and senior year started, a highlite was a visit from BCD and LFP to the North Side campus. For me, it was a good visit- these guys back in the day could have a VERY STRONG Albini/Rotten/Cobain sense of what was right ........ or, what exactly was the rite thing to do, and their visit was a stamp of approval on me. It mattered to me.
But the crux was that late September date with Reggie Jackson. We'd planned so long for that weekend, and I'd totally planned to go= but then party planning got in the way. There was now a new set of frenz to go alongside the ones I'd grown up with- a college crowd--and I had to make a choice.
And the choice was terrible. Both were erfect. Comisky fucking Park?? A Sox team with Harold, Fisk, Bannister, etc... And Reggie Jackson, back in the A's uni , and for the last time ever. On the other hand..................there were so many women and a brand new scence to play with.
As my favourite saying in this context goes, Women's gotta have it. The women won.
I called Moho or Lazers or whoever and asked them to come to the party. No. Come after. No. The I said, I'm staying up here, guys. Don't be mad.
Not much happened in these parties= they certainly weren't danse parties @ all. But these two parties have gone down in my history as the Two greatest Parties That I Have Ever Gone To. It was in Hair Twizler and Little Simona Le Bon 's room. I was the one who wanted a party, and the girls were more than ready to have one.
What a blast. I remember that the hard core crowd of 2007 - the Middle Guard-were there, but I can't say foer sure exactly who else. Obv. Rocky and Vito and Jackson were there. Crankface, Dead Boys, and Bam Bam. I'm sure Blackie was there, but he really wasn't a made man until say March. And also, there were lots of fly by nite 'tredies' who were around @ the time but never became 'made men/women'. We were all piled into a smokey loud crowded closet sized dorm room. Shortly we were chased out by the RA's, but there was a reprise two-four weeks later- after baseball season and with no conflicts.
For me, these were the two greatest parties ever because it was a whole new exciting crowd and scene popping up, and I helped run it. For the first time, I was hangin gout w/ a lot of artictic types who had actually been to the Smiths shows and thought it real kool that I'd seen the Clash in '82. For the first time I was hanging out with girls, and not just hangin out with them- I went form one to the next to the next, glorying in life and youth. And for the first time, I was hanging out not with people I'd grown up with forever and lived on my block- but people form the subarbs who attached some sorta vallue to the fact that I grew up in pplaces different from them- even exotic to their sensiblilites.
Now, I wasn't escaping from anything, or reinventing myself, or whatever. Instead, I was becoming who I am. And although I rue the fact that I missed Reggie @ Comisky - Ah ye can't beat fun @ The Old Ballpark- I also would have rued missing the Two Greatest Parties Ever.
...........................................*=my guess is that from all of the mompix on securitypix one mite surmise ..................ah, in plain english, it's obv. I love my mom- loved Dad too.
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