the origin of the KKK

it was my fourth year of college.  i was sitting in my dorm room with a (now-dead) pal and solid goldstein.  with no obvious end in sight to my pursuit of a degree (jacked up by the fact that i had been voted "most likely to succeed" in high school), and teenage hormones flushing through my body, anything that happened seemed to be amplified in its "worse-ness."  on this night, our collective angst was directed squarely at berry fey ... a colorado concert promoter that was essentially our low budget answer to california's bill graham, but every bit as slimy.

warren zevon was playing -with a full band- not 300 yards from where we lived, in less than two hours.  there were, however, four problems:

1. the show was at the CU events center.  a place that was unrivaled in CO for it's raw suckage.  originally (and obviously) planned to include rock concerts -which at this time was nearing the loudest they'd ever be (with certain exceptions)- the builders yanked the sound baffling as the site went over-budget.  the result was a booming monstrosity -- which, incredibly, no critics ever seemed to bitch about.  {even today it's nearly unmatched in the entire western US with how bad it is.  unfortunately there are notable exceptions like this fucking armpit -- a venue so bad that, more than once, i've driven 400 miles in the other direction to see bands live.  the regency ballroom is a venue so bad, i won't even kut it.}
2. warren zevon was opening for kansas, which meant the certain-to-be-stoners crowd would be completely uninterested.  and kansas were well past their prime.  that meant we could expect an endless amount of talking and drooling through zevon from the ambient crowd at large.
3. tickets were expensive.  thanks to a confluence of the jacksons and berry fey seeing an opportunity, prices were shooting through the roof.  $15 to see a show?  what are you kidding me?  when records are five bucks apiece?  we were still able to see bands like REM, at places like the rainbow, for a face value of five bucks ... why the hell would we pay 15 to see an opener everyone else in the audience would walk and talk through?
4. we were college students, which also meant we were broke.  that should go without saying, but i need to drive the point home because you're rich now and probably have forgotten how terrible this period of time in your life was from a financial point-of-view.

goddammit.  goddamn berry fey for charging so much.  goddamn michael jackson for releasing an album that wasn't as good as off the wall and yet was receiving more airplay.  goddamn berry fey and his complete ignorance toward music, humanity and breathing.  goddamn cafeteria for cutting oranges in half now so you couldn't sneak fruit out.

goddamn it all.

it was solid goldstein who had the idea: why don't we go over and see if we can buy an extra from someone for less?  we fight about it a little but there's one salient point: all it costs us is time ... and we're not that far away, so the time component is almost nil.  if the experiment doesn't work, all we've really lost is about 45 minutes.

we go over, not completely sure what we should be doing.  goldstein is braver than the rest of us and looks mildly more ominous because he's wearing his overcoat.  "any extra tickets? ... any extra tickets? ... any extra tickets?"

pretty soon i see one of the local radio DJs (a guy i recognize from having won some contests before),  i know for a fact that he'll do ethically questionable stuff because i've seen him selling radio station copies of records at the local used store -- if he has a spare (and he very possibily could) he may well sell it.  i point him out to solid G, who immediately locks on target.

"hey pat, you got an extra?"

"sure.  what'll you give for it?"

my mind spins.  i hadn't thought this through to the next step.

goldstein is absolutely nothing if not the cheapest person i've ever known.  incredibly cheap.  unbelievably cheap.  cheaper than me.  i could go on and on with stories of his cheapness, like the time he was filling his backpack with soda as he left one of my parties ... or the time he took an unopened quart of half-and-half while in the VIP room at a bridge concert and then proceeded to drink it on the spot ("i picked it up because it was there") ... or any of a dozen more stories. .

the big question was WWSGD?  what would solid goldstein do?

of course he already knew.  "one dollar."

i want to hide my head in my jacket i'm so embarrassed.  that is, until the DJ HANDS SOLID GOLDSTEIN THE TICKET.

for an instant i'm stunned.

but in immediate retrospect, it makes sense.  make the lowest offer possible to mankind and see what the response is.  who knows, you might get it ... and if not, you've got a great post stuck in the ground to negotiate from.  worst you lose is what the asians call "face" ... and we're US college students, which means we have none to lose.

goldstein grimaces just a bit as he walks back.  he mumbles, "i should have said, '50 cents.'"  THAT is my goldstein.

we're emboldened.  anyone can do this.  we fan out to different entrances.  in no time we've scored three tickets for a total of $4.  (goldstein, of course, doesn't offer to throw in his 33 cent off-set for the single $2 ticket that tom gets ... i do, but i don't throw in solid G's 33 cents).

we ignore the seat numbering and sit in the middle of the still fairly-empty arena, just off the floor, to see zevon.  the sounds sucks, but the band's great.  {in fact this turns out to be the last time i ever see him play with a complete band.}

we leave after kansas's second song.

a great, great evening.  cheap tickets.  warren zevon.  walk out of the main act and not even care about it.  cheap tickets.  go back for dessert in the dorms.  cheap tickets.  we couldn't have even listened to all the music we heard on a juke box for less than we paid for the full-on live performance.

my head swirls in exactly the same way it does when i win something in competition.  in fact it's hard to say which i liked better: getting the tickets cheap or hearing warren zevon.  and i liked the show.

the next day goldstein is pontificating to me.  "know what we should call what we're doing here.  the 'cutrate concert club.'  but we should spell all the words with Ks."

"why?"

"because we're not part of a roosevelt administration ... and anyway, Ks are cooler."

"the KKK.  you think we should call this the KKK?  are you kidding me?"

he wasn't.

it took awhile to sink in.  "minority" in my neighborhood meant you were catholic.  there was one black kid that went to my high school of 1500.  i didn't even know the word "nigger" was still in use until i heard muhammad ali drop it on frazier.  but i knew one thing for absolute certain -- if you're wonder bred (sic) whitey you don't make even a glancing reference to racial or religious affiliations.  not even as a joke.  this isn't an early version of political correctness, this is about civility, decency and maybe even a small-hearted effort put the brakes on hatred of all forms.  and that's without saying there's also some weird non-zero chance you could get your ass kicked if you didn't.  who the hell knows?

and, yet, here's a jew telling me we should call it the KKK.  it's not making sense to me. "are you sure?"

he nods and smiles in his typical goldsteinian manner.

the idea bugs me, so i sleep on it.

i wake up the next morning, and i decide i'm in.  kutrate koncert klub.  KKK.  everyone else has to deal with it.  if you're so warped that the KKK only means the klan to you then you are giving them power and not taking what you can have.  i hate the klan.  i hate what they stand for.  but i don't have anything against the letter K.  and i like alliteration.  KKK has a snappy ring to it.

i'm going to take the moniker back.  i'm going to make it mine.  call what we're doing the KKK?  sure.  you bet.

i run across goldstein, but he now feels differently.  "it's a bad idea," he says.

"too late," i say.  "you built the train, but moved away from the controls.  i'm the engineer now.  stay on or get off.  i'm not slowing down."

30 years later solid G and i are still very good friends -- in fact, we still kut shows together.  every now and then he winces when i use the phrase KKK or any of its derivatives ... one of his recent TXTs to me said it all when we suggested that we should "cut" a particular show ... he'll come around.  big ideas sometimes take time.  don't take my word for it -- ask obama.

having said all that, i'm not as brave as i should be.  what this 'blog should be called is "the KKK," and i apologize for not doing that for you, dear reader.

god only knows that i may well end up being categorized by a google robot somewhere as a racial threat ... as if i don't have enough problems in my life as it is.

no matter.  this is the home of the KKK.  and if i can't have kkk.blogspot.com, i'll certainly take kutrate.blogspot.com ...

... as long as it doesn't cost me anything.

{it's interesting that KKK.blogspot.com is already taken ... and like a LOT of the great domain names, by someone who sat it up and then never did anything with it.}

[if you've read this entire article, you may also be interested in the tenents of the KKK.]