Katemas in San Jose revisited

[Peter Byrne Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>]

       Arriving back from California late last night, jet-bedraggled if not 
strictly speaking jet-lagged, it was exciting to catch up on a week's worth of 
love-hounds digests, spanning Katemas and including Ed Suranyi's and Andrew 
Marvick's comments about the San Jose party at Larry Hernandez's place.  Jon 
Drukman's initial observations came in today, and several short posts from 
others who were there have been arriving, but there remain a few notes I'd 
like to sound.

       This first part needs to be in chorus:

>I had promised Larry that I would help set up, so I arrived about
>10:30 am with lots of posters, records, magazines, etc.  Andy Marvick
>(IED) had just arrived with his laserdisc player and his own enormous
>collection of stuff.  A little later Larry Yaeger arrived with a couple
>more VCRs -- in the end there were five hooked up, as well as the disc
>player, so we had every combination of player and recorder.  [Ed Suranyi]

>  IED wanted to post a big thankyou note to Larry Hernandez for
>hosting what was for IED one of the best Katemas parties ever.  IED had
>a terrific time from start to finish (it was more like three than one,
>Ed!) ... [Andrew Marvick}

>Well, all I can say for those who didn't make it to the San Jose Katemas
>party is: "sorry."  It was just amazing. ...
> ...
>>From the point of view of my Kateological studies, the party was an
>unqualified smash.  ... [Jon Drukman]

       Absolutely, thanks to Larry Hernandez for putting not just his 
apartment but his LIFE on the line (you or me ever host a party for 25+, from 
noon hour till the wee ones, in a smallish four room apartment?!?).  But 
thanks too to Ed and Andy, who were the core of the Party Engineering team, 
consulting with Larry H., drawing on wise heads like Larry Y. and the 
apparently limitless Ron Hill, and eliciting suggestions from all who had any, 
so that the day's calendar of music, video, interviews, performances, and 
events was neither a spectacle nor a ritual, but a celebration in which 
everyone could truly feel they shared.  

       The more I think of it, the more admiring I become.  What would it be 
like, I wondered, as someone who had never met any of the love-hounds, much 
less gone to London for the convention, to be in a room with Andrew Marvick, 
Ed Suranyi, Ron Hill, Larry Hernandez, Jon Drukman, and all their gear and 
rarities?  I mention only those well-known to me from the regularity of their 
postings.  Doug Alan, Bill Wisner, Chris 'n' Vickie, Jorn Barger, Neal 
Caldwell--sure, there were some senior people missing or at other parties (and 
contact was made, as Ed recounted)--but I had to think that there was no other 
place on the face of the planet that day where so much enthusiasm for and 
expertise about Kate Bush was constellated.  "Andy here probably knows more 
about Kate than anybody else in the world," someone commented mid-afternoon.  
"Probably more than she does," said Andy--something that IED would never 
profess in a million years with a straight face, proving that he doesn't 
always wear one.

       What would it be like?  Sweet and easy, natural and informative, not 
much different for me who knew something about these folk than it was for 
others who didn't.  At 48 I was not the oldest, at 23.5 Dances With Voles was 
not the youngest.  In fact, I've rarely been in a group with less 'ism':  age-
ism, sexism, in-ism, out-ism.  It was Katemas, a hot and memorable day not far 
from Stevens Creek and Winchester in San Jose, within five miles of which my 
life had revolved from 1958 through 1973, but rarely on so sharp a point.

       At one point that night Ron Hill said "Anybody taking notes?"  Well, 
no, actually.  No more than anybody thought to gear up to record They Might Be 
Midgets that afternoon.  It wasn't like that--none of that self-consciousness. 
I figured we would all just help each other out, and in that spirit a couple 
of small corrections to Ed the Observer's preliminary report.

>Peter and Charlie Manchester had to leave in the afternoon, but Peter
>promised that he would be back later that evening to play show-and-tell.

       Not quite:  I came by that afternoon with my youngest brother Bill from 
Santa Cruz, who turned out already to know the estimable Tracy Roberts who 
sang lead with They Might Be Midgets.  Charlie is not Charlie Manchester, but 
Charlie Cockey, proprietor of Fantasy, Etc., a sweet little bookstore at 
Larkin and O'Farrell in SF where Katefans will definitely get special 
attention.  Charlie IS a brother, though, even if not child of my mother, both 
because we go way back, and because he is the one who turned me on to Kate in 
March 1985.  I left the party around 6:30 to drive up to the City and haul 
Charlie back down with me, returning about 9:45.

>  [About what TMBM would do after "JoL"]                "But I do 
>have the drum track for 'Hounds of Love' already programmed."  So 
>they did that song, with a trio of women as the vocalist, and the
>whole crowd (which numbered about 25 then) joining in for the barks
>and the chorus.  ...

       Actually, this was more amazing still.  Jon said that he HAD made a 
drum track tape for HoL, but had accidentally erased it.  Everybody was hungry 
for the song, though.  So, in what was for me a particularly convincing 
display of heads-up command of his tools and real musicianship, he cobbled up 
a serviceable program on the spot in about 37 seconds.

       Let the record show, by the way, that the craft and splendor of Jon-as-
Kate-as-Madonna's performance of "Wuthering Heights" was not lost upon 
elements of the crowd.  If IED has betimes been the love-hounds' numinous 
curmudgeon (Jorn Barger), Jon Drukman is its slamdancer.  He's a prodigy and a 
sweet lad.  Believe it.  Just don't bank on it.  Mr. Drukman can nail it down 
solid, and blow you away if you dance the fool.

> ...      We held a mirror up to the TV screen in order to read some
>backward writing in "Cloudbusting."  (We were wondering what Wilhelm
>Reich writes in his notebook.  You can't see it well while he's writing,
>but a few seconds later he holds the paper up to the light and if you
>have a good freeze-frame you can see the backward writing through the
>paper.  We think it says, "My final paper" or My last paper."  By stepping

       Not quite:  the company couldn't decide between "My final paper" or "My 
final proposal."  There may have been some uncertainly as between "final" and 
"last," but I recall a consensus for "final" and an open question between 
"paper" and "proposal."  (I incline to the later.)
 
       Thanks to Ed for recounting my uncorking that night about writing to 
Kate and getting a reply, and to Andy for his kind words about it.  It WAS 
"absolutely magical" for me at the time, and I guess I've hungered ever since 
to be able to share that.  As to "divine," I pass along Charlie's observation 
that IED backwards is DEI, "the gods," so it's his call.

       Quite a trip to California, Katemas at the center of it.  Thank you all 
again--also from Bill and Charlie, who have no net access, but now know what 
they're missing.

............................................................................
                                                            Peter Manchester
"C'mon, we all sing!"                               pmanches@sbccmail.bitnet
                                               pmanchester@ccmail.sunysb.edu