Eddie Izzard and me

Back in July of 2008, Jules and I went to see British comedian Eddie Izzard perform at the Schnitzer Auditorium in Portland. Izzard was funny as hell, we laughed our asses off, and afterward Izzard treated the audience to an impromptu Q&A outside the theater. Jules had told me she would love to invite Izzard to our house for dinner, so near the end of the Q&A I shouted, "My wife wants to have you over for dinner."

To which Izzard replied, "Well, that would be nice, thank you very much, but we're off to San Francisco!"

Someone actually caught the exchange on video and posted it on YouTube:

 

Too Late to Say I Love You (a mostly true story)

I qualify this story as "mostly true" because it's about not just one of my grandfathers, but both of them rolled into one. The idea behind writing it this way was to memorialize and express my gratitude to both of them at once, from my 19-year-old perspective. I took a few other liberties with some of the details, but most of the anecdotes recounted here actually happened—in some fashion. In particular, I think this story captures rather accurately what an unmitigated and unrepentant smartass I was. My deep and sincere apologies to you, Grandpa and Grandma, and to everyone else in my family who tolerated me until I finally matured (a little). I love you.

Too Late to Say I Love You

The man was perfect. I watched him through a part in the curtains as he walked slowly up the concrete path. He had a little, Fuller Brush mustache under his nose and a neat, square-shouldered grey suit over his stocky body.

Step-Uncle Jim sat in a folding steel chair with his arms crossed. He looked at his watch and sighed. In the kitchen, his wife hummed and talked to the mixer, the oven, and the open refrigerator.

A grim nod from my father cued the rest of us to stand. The Fuller Brush mustache was at the door. Step-Uncle Jim, his wife, two teenagers, two parents, and a grand­mother squeezed into the limousine.

I needed wood for my two-story treehouse. Dad made me earn the money for nails by mowing the lawn and washing windows. But I ran out of grass and glass before I came close to earning the money for the two 4 x 8 sheets of plywood I would need. So I walked around all week with my hands in my pockets answering, "I could care less," whenever anybody talked.

Then Grandpa came over. He had a whole carload of nice, beautiful, gorgeous, long waterski planks. Dad frowned. My treehouse was on its way.

I measured and sawed and hammered and nailed for a week. "The best treehouse on the block," I bragged to Older Sister.

"The only treehouse on the block," she laughed.

We went over to Grandpa and Grand­ma's for a Fourth of July picnic din­ner. Grandma peeled all the apples she had picked from their backyard for the applesauce; Grandpa was busy with the ice cream crank. Back then, they didn't have electric ice cream makers, so you had to break your arm to make the same dull vanilla they charged 49¢ for in the store.

I ran down to the basement to see if the mousetraps had caught any. I found three pieces of fuzzy green cheese—and an intriguing cardboard box stuck between the rafters and the ceiling. I ran back upstairs to con­jure Dad from beneath Life magazine, and led him into the basement to view my discovery.

"Yes sir," Dad whispered, "that's my old train set."

I made him take it down.

We set it up on the card table outside and ran an extension cord to the dusty transformer from an outlet in the kitchen. For an hour and a half, Mom and Older Sister scowled while Dad and I played with the old trains, laughing and inventing impos­sible track patterns for the limited but challenging twenty pieces. We finally ate dinner and left.

Some friends up the street from our house let us use their beach cabin one weekend. We took Grandpa and Grandma along for their 45th an­niversary. I couldn't see how anyone could live together that long, but I guess Grandma had practice from living with her first husband. Her first husband died when Dad was 12.

I chased Older Sister up some loose rocks with a long, slimy piece of kelp. She screamed and kicked, almost causing an avalanche, as I whipped her brutally with thin air. She was up 30 feet and the kelp was only 10 feet long. But she threatened to tell Mom and Dad that I had said a swear word or something, so I quit.

Grandma and Grandpa came walking along the beach wearing coats and scarves, and I looked down at my sunburnt legs. I thought, Somebody should tell them that the sun is shining, but I knew that they were old and couldn't wear cut-offs and T-shirts. I felt sorry for them.

We rode down to Barnacle Bill's for lunch, and I had some of Grandpa's abalone. I had never heard of abalone before, so I was taking my life in my hands. It was pretty good. I made a joke about the word "abalone" and Grandpa laughed.

In school, I was mainly interested in art and construction. Whenever it came time to paint, I was the first out with the supplies. I took some of my projects home to finish. I had a lot of brushes, paints, and mixing trays that Grandpa had said he had no use for, so I sometimes finished my projects before he other kids had begun. The teachers always called me "creative" because they though I was mixing all the different colors from the paint in the art closet at school. But it might be hard to get Chrysler Blue by mixing powdered green, red, and black watercolors.

I remember being taught to whistle. Dad used to call Older Sis­ter and me for dinner by whistling. We could hear his whistle from about a mile away. There was a girl at school who could whistle almost as loud as Dad. She put her two little fingers in her mouth and blew like a tornado. The teacher made her run two laps one day for whistling in Curt Schnaible's right ear.

I learned how to whistle from Grandpa. He showed me a really cool way to whistle. "You make a cup with your left hand," he demonstrated, "and it's gotta be watertight." He led me over to the kitchen faucet. "You put your first and fourth fingers to­gether, like this, over your second and third," Grandpa said. "Then you put your thumb like this." I tried it and tested it for watertightness.

It leaked about two drops and stopped.

"Good!" Grandpa congratulated, smiling proudly. I began practicing my whistle. At first it sounded like what Dad called "air in the pipes" when the toilets didn't fill up cor­rectly, but eventually I was a regular locomotive. I practiced whistling in school and finally the teachers stopped writing "creative" on my re­port cards.

I left one of Dad's wrenches out in the rain one day. It was a "monkey," ''pipe," or "crescent" wrench, I could never remember which. But that didn't matter after I left it out in the rain. Dad called it ''rusted."

"You'll have to fix your bike with a stick and a rock from now on," Dad said, not exactly smiling. I wanted to get on my bike and ride away, but all I could do was shuffle my feet and count the rocks in the asphalt. I wondered if I would get anything for my birthday the next week.

Two days went by slowly, then it was okay for me to laugh again. I quit using my napkin at the dinner table and forgot to close my eyes when Dad said the prayers. I was back to normal.

My birthday came and there was a whole armchair full of packages. I didn't have any friends over for a party, but there were just as many presents as the year before. I knew, because I counted.

I opened a long, heavy package first. It was a metal tool chest, complete with tools, from Grandpa. Dad smiled.

Mom brought cake and ice cream out to me while I was fixing my bike.

Four summers flashed by, tanning me in the park and teaching me in summer school how to measure the cir­cumference of the earth. I began collecting things that I thought would be valuable someday, like first-edition comic books and old tube ra­dios. Nobody knew about the comic books—I kept those private for in­tellectual purposes—but everyone on the block with an old tube radio also had my phone number. I collected padlocks and broken watches, too.

Christmas was on its way, and I was running low on money. Mom said I should sell all my "junk" so I could afford to buy presents for the family. I realized then where Older Sister got her sense of humor. I told Mom "No," of course, and she looked disgusted.

"What are you getting Grandma and Grandpa for their 50th anniver­sary?" she prodded. I said I didn't know, and made a joke about an IOU. Now Mom really looked disgusted. I went on chewing my gum.

Grandpa and Grandma came over Christmas Eve to bring us our presents. They looked tired as they got out of the car, probably from cooking roast and cinnamon rolls all day like every Christmas I could remember before. I opened the front door for them and put all their packages under the tree.

We had dinner and then gave Grandpa and Grandma their presents. They opened them, and after the usual conversation time from which I could never be excused, Grandpa and Grandma decided to leave. I got one of those looks from Dad saying, "Help them carry their stuff to the car," so I did.

I waved goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma and ran back into the warm house.

Christmas arrived at eight the next morning, to the familiar sound of shredding paper and four loud thank-you's competing all at once. But the others had only begun with their presents while I had narrowed my take down to one. My last package was a heavy one from Grandpa. I shook it a little from side to side, hearing the same sounds I had heard somewhere before, long ago. I ripped it open.

Just then the telephone rang and Mom got up to answer it. But I was too busy to notice; I had just opened another valuable for my col­lection. It was the old trainset. Dad's eyes glowed as he watched my face go from disbelief to pure joy.

Mom came back into the room and her smile was gone.

The Magic of Mirrors (a poem?)

When I was in college, a fellow student impressed me with his mirror writing, so I decided to try my hand at it. This, uh...poem? is the result.

Family Gathering (a true story)

"Observe an event and write succinctly about it," our journalism professor told us. So I did, and this is the result.

My family hated it—or, more accurately, were hurt by it. I can't say I blame them, because even though it's based on real events and conversations, the manner in which I chose to report them was unfair. My selection of only the oddest or most mundane actions and comments by family members made them appear two-dimensional and vapid—which they most assuredly are not. But at the time, my arrogant, ignorant 19-year-old self thought it was funny, and if my family didn't agree…tough!

My journalism professor, who, at 27 years of age was also arrogant and ignorant, liked my story—a lot. He liked it so much, he read it aloud to the class as an example of fine journalism. He even saved it and read it aloud to his subsequent classes over the next several terms. Much to my chagrin, accounts of his public readings found their way to my mom, who at the time worked in the college's education department. She was not happy with the notoriety.

My professor also shared my story with the editor of the college newspaper, who, in his youthful arrogance and ignorance, thereupon proclaimed me "the best writer here" and nominated me to become the paper's next managing editor (a post I would assume in the first term of my junior year—the term before I would arrogantly and ignorantly quit school to play drums in a rock 'n roll band).

The fact that my family hated this story makes me uncomfortable including it here, but I'm going to anyway because it's a revealing snapshot of who and where I was at age 19. Which is a place I am more than happy never to return to again.

The only other place this story has been published was in my book Stories, Songs, Poems, a Play, and Some Other Stuff Nobody Else Would Publish, which was illustrated by my friend Matt Wuerker. Matt did the drawing that accompanies this story.

Family Gathering 

Part One: Five Minutes

The dog takes off from Grandpa's lap. He abandons the scratching fingers to check out a noise in the back of the house. Pots and pans rattle in the kitchen.

Grandma is wearing a pink dress in celebration of her birthday. She is sitting in our widest chair because she is so wide. She is a Jehovah's Witness. She is a wide Jehovah's Witness. She is talking about a show that she listens to on KKEY radio.

"Shut that door out there," Dad yells to Brother. He gets up to close it himself.

"I want you to see our new piece of furniture," Mom yells to Grandma. She tries to turn on the stereo, which is what she means by the new piece of furniture. We've had it for eight months and she doesn't know how to work it.

Sister is wearing one of my shirts. She is sitting in the green armchair with her legs crossed.

Dad says, "Rick I think that problem with your clutch is in the adjustment."

I say, "No, you tightened it all the way six months ago. There is no more adjustment."

Grandma blows her nose. She is carrying on a conversation with the window: "Who in the dickens would want to kiss a guy with a beard?"

"Not me," Brother says.

"Not me," Dad mimics.

"What are you writing?" Sister asks.

Part Two: Five More Minutes

Grandma tells us about stove bolts they had in cars 50 years ago. She is interesting. I don't understand what she is saying sometimes, but she is interesting. She is old and funny. She tells us about a dog that was poisoned by a lady who lived across the street in 1941. "The Witch" she calls her. "The Niggers" she calls black people. Her dog used to chase Niggers, until he was poisoned. The Witch poisoned her dog. He was a beautiful dog.

Grandpa is in the kitchen. Sister is in the bathroom. Chopin is on the stereo. Grandma continues.

"And they're going to get a new screen," she says to the window. She watches the rain.

"Will you come and cut the ham?" Mom says to Dad. We are having ham for Grandma's birthday dinner. It is a pre-sliced ham. Dad wonders what Mom means by "cut the ham," so he gets up to investigate.

Sister comes in. I look at her blue-striped Adidas. "It's raining…it's halfway snowing," she says.

"It' s kinda half rain and half snow," Dad says.

Brother moves his foot.

Grandma and Grandpa are looking at a fuzzy black-and-white-striped pillow on the floor.

"What kind of fur is it?" Grandma says.

"What kind of fur is it?" Grandpa says.

"I think it's just imitation fur," Dad says. The pillow is made of rayon. It has become matted from people who sit on it and watch TV. People like Brother, Dad accuses.

I sneeze.

"As soon as the marshmallows are melted, we can eat," Mom says.

Grandma reaches for her "walker" and slowly helps herself out of the big chair. She moves into the dining room. We follow and the walls close in around dinner.

Three Loud Bursts (a true story)

Many of us remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we first learned of the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the tragic events of 9-11. This story recounts what I and others were doing on November 22, 1963, when we learned that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. It's an amalgam of personal reflections, news reports, and interviews I conducted with friends, neighbors, and family members (the quote mentioning a "technical director" came from my dad, who worked at Portland's KATU TV at the time).

Three Loud Bursts
We practiced multiplication tables at our wooden desks. Mrs. Ryan walked around the room with her hands behind her back, checking answers and making sure we didn't cheat. Shannon, the prettiest girl in the class, sat across the aisle to my left. Mrs  Ryan passed between us.

We turned in our papers and waited for morning recess. It was nice weather: a few clouds, but fairly warm, for November. It would be good to go run on the playground. We listened to the by-now-memorized rules and regulations for recess…no hitting, no sliding down the bank, no teasing the girls…we listened and waited.

In another part of the country, a black car moved slowly down a wide road. Seventy-six degrees, just past noon; the convertible top and side windows were down. Six people rode along and smiled. "You can't say that Dallas isn' t friendly to you today," one of them said. Thousands of people lined the streets, taking pictures and waving.

Mrs. Ryan was cut short by a crackling loudspeaker above the door. She stood by her desk, looking up. A woman's faltering voice gave us the news. "President Kennedy has been shot," she said.

"I was at home…I heard it over the TV. . . I was shocked…couldn't believe it."

"…sheer terror…I was buying groceries…some woman said the President had been shot…I came home and listened to the radio."

Some closed their eyes, some watched Mrs. Ryan with her head in her hands. Shannon cried.

"We will have two minutes of silence for prayer," the voice said.

"We were visiting some friends…sitting in the living room…deathly quiet. The TV was on…'President has been shot'…President Kennedy has been shot." 

"KENNEDY SERIOUSLY WOUNDED…PERHAPS SERIOUSLY, PERHAPS FATALLY BY ASSASSIN'S BULLET…PRESIDENT SLUMPED OVER IN THE BACKSEAT OF THE CAR, FACE DOWN…CONNALLY ON THE FLOOR OF THE MIDDLE SEAT…THREE LOUD BURSTS…"

A Secret Service agent assigned to Mrs. Kennedy said, "He's dead," as the President was lifted from the White House touring car. Mrs. Kennedy's clothes were stained with blood. She watched as they carried her husband into the hospital. 

"It came over the loudspeaker in the gym…our teacher broke down and cried…we wondered what was going on."

"We were going to do a commercial…everything stopped…the technical director couldn't push the buttons."

Mrs. Ryan let us out for recess.

"You shot the President! You're a Communist!" we joked, running around the blacktop. Shannon stood by the swings. Craig noticed that someone had forgotten to raise the flag all the way, and we wondered why.

The sun felt good.

A bullet was found to have penetrated Connally's chest and lodged in his thigh. The wound was serious, but not fatal. In Emergency Room One, doctors worked on the President. Jackie Kennedy stood quietly by…"looking brave, but fear was in her eyes." She called for a priest. An oxygen tube was inserted in the President's throat, and he was given transfusions of whole blood. A doctor tried to stimulate his heart with chest massage.

The doctor monitoring an electrocardiograph reported no heartbeat: "It's too late," he said.

We came back in from recess.

My 1974 interview with Gary Ogan

I was a 19-year-old college sophomore when I interviewed Portland musician (and eventual Oregon Music Hall of Famer) Gary Ogan. I had heard Gary's newly released single, "Try a Little More," on Portland's KINK radio (an "underground" FM station), loved it, and decided I'd like to interview Gary and maybe see if I could get the interview published. I found Gary's number in the phone book, called him, asked whether he was up for a chat, and he said "Sure."

On my way to the interview, I had my car radio tuned to KINK and a song came on that took my breath away. When the song ended and the DJ said, "That was 'These Words and This Tune,' by Portland's own Gary Ogan," my jaw dropped to the floor. I couldn't believe I was about to interview the person who had written this little lyrical and musical masterpiece.

The interview itself was a lot of fun, in large part because Gary was a lot of fun. Even though he was a rising local star with an album and a single to his credit, both of which were receiving airplay, he didn't take himself too seriously. 

Another reason it was fun: after we were done chatting, Gary asked me if I'd like a copy of his 45, and of course I said, "Yeah!" As it turned out, Gary didn't have any copies on hand, so he asked me if I'd like to accompany him to Rex Recording, the Portland studio where he had recorded the 45. Ummm...yeah again! 

When we arrived at Rex, there was a guy sitting at a piano just inside the studio, plinking away at some tune. I had no idea who the guy was, but Gary did. "Rick," he said, "I'd like you to meet Tom Waits. He's here recording some pieces for a KINK show later on." 

Full disclosure: I didn't know who Tom Waits was. But I found out soon enough, and when I did I couldn't believe how lucky I had been to meet him...on the heels of getting to interview my new idol, Gary Ogan.

Gary located a stack of his 45s and handed me not one, but a whole handful—some of which I would later give to friends, but one of which I kept for myself, and still have to this day.

Gary went on to record with Leon Russell and many others, and he has written and recorded several hundred more songs—one of which ("The Wonder Of") happens to be my wife's and my "song." We listen to it each year, eyes glistening, on our anniversary. Through the years, Gary and I have stayed in touch, and we even worked together on a one-sheet for his brilliant CD, Suite Woogie. Perhaps needless to say, he's still one of my all-time favorite singer/songwriters.

I never did find a magazine willing to publish my interview, so I'm publishing it here—in the sincere hope that it doesn't embarrass Gary as much as my clumsy writing embarrasses me!

Photo of me and Gary Ogan (during a break from his gig at at Mark's on the
Channel, in Scappoose, Oregon, June 2019), by Jules Cooper

GARY OGAN: "TRY A LITTLE MORE"

by Rick Cooper

You keep your head in a book, my friend
you've got nothing on the brain;
you keep your eye on a passing cloud
and expect for it to rain…*

It's different to think of Portland as more than pavement and "liquid sunshine.” It's strange to think of it as having its own head shops, movie studios, and massage parlors. You drive to San Francisco during spring vacation to see all that. And it's there…among the street bands, waterfront restaurants, and cable cars. But it's here, too…among, the trees, bridges, and rain. And Portland has something that San Francisco doesn't.

Portland has Gary Ogan.

But you've got to try…
oh, you can try a little more;
if you want to try…
oh, you can try a little more.

"I think there will always be a need for every kind of music," Gary says. "You just pick a cross-section of the public…there's always going to be the need."

Gary Ogan was twenty-one years of age when he recorded his first album. Since then, he has done numerous commercials, demos, and special tapes. Late in 1974 he released a 45 called "Try a Little More."

"It didn't do too hot in Portland," he says, "so we hired a guy to promote it on the West Coast. I pay absolutely no attention to what's going on except, you know, if it breaks…the main thing I'm interested in is getting a contract."

Whom does he expect to get a contract with? "Anybody. "

Encouragement
Gary was a musician from the start. He started picking up drums, he says, “when I was a baby."

"I just got nothing but encouragement from my folks, so as far back as I can remember, I was playing things."

His main instruments now are guitar and piano. He picked a little, as we talked, on the guitar he used to record "Try a Little More." The guitar is an old Epiphone acoustic, with nylon strings that have been on there "almost forever."

When did he decide to pursue a career in music? "Way back when," he shrugs, "when I was a kid." What would be doing if it hadn't been for music? "I'd be another person."

Would he be a bum? "I still might be one," he laughs.

In the same room are a small upright piano, two more guitars, several music manuscripts, a sofa, and a tape deck. I asked Gary if he ever recorded his own material. He replied, "When I finish a song and I think I'm going to die the next day, then I record it."

How did he start in studio recording? "Bill Lamb, the guy I did the record with, was in a touring high school 'debonair’ group. Greg Branson fell in love with his voice and wanted to make him a star. So, you know, I'd try anything, so he had me come down and play with him.

"He hated my songs, but eventually we were doing commercials and we finally ended up at Elektra."

Experience
Elektra recorded Gary's album, Portland. Gary and Portland friend Bill Lamb together wrote and performed on the album. Bill is guitarist/singer/mandolinist/writer for their present band, Salt, which also includes bassist Kelly Stites.

Gary and Salt bassist Kelly Stites (right) relax in Gary's practice room.
(Photo: Kent Hathaway)

Was it easy to get into recording? "Well, it was essentially a thing of luck with us, the first time; it's really hard for me now, you know, I've done several demo tapes and haven't been signed up yet…it is hard for me now,” he laughs.

What happened after the album? "I quit. I didn't like the contract. I don't mind being binded if I'm binded the way I want to be binded, but I didn't want to be binded to play music with Bill for the rest of my life. I love working with Bill, but I just wanted to do more things."

Portland got air play on FM radio; one song even made it on AM. That song was—it figures—"Portland Rain."

Gary says they tried to record the album in Portland, but it didn't work out. So they went to San Diego, spent a week there, did the whole album except for a couple of cuts, then went to Los Angeles and finished it in "three or four more studios."

Overdubbing? "Our producer was really into doing live tracks, you know, basic tracks, so we went through a few studio musicians. We didn't do a lot of overdubbing ; the basic tracks were pretty much live."

What does Gary think of the 200 albums per week being produced today? "Most of them are mediocre to bad."

Success/Influences
Is it possible for a band to become famous overnight? "Mmmm…it depends on what kind of an act you're putting together, how extensive of a show. Obviously, if you're going to emerge and be a success, whatever you're doing has to be news."

Is it a matter of having a gimmick, or is there more interest in real talent? "Well, once again, there are people that fall for anything…kids that fall for the Alice Cooper gimmick; or people that are really into what the artist is saying. It just depends on the audience you're trying to reach.”

What kind of audience is Gary trying to reach? "Everybody."

His first success? "Staying alive this long," he laughs. "Probably Elektra…but it wasn't the high point. The high point was the single. Working on the single was totally exhilarating."

Gary: "It's a bill from Rex Recording." Kelly: "How much is it?"
(Photo: Kent Hathaway)

Gary: "Too much." Kelly: "So what's new?"
(Photo: Kent Hathaway)

Side two on the single is "These Words and This Tune."

Some of my dearest friends are those that I never see;
the ones I can tell are doing well and thinking of me…

"I split up with this band I bad been working with and I was hot to try something new. So I wrote the two songs especially for the single…we just worked ourselves to death and it was great."

I long to hear what you find, oh and save the smiles you leave behind;
I'll keep them and wear them like a crown inside my mind.
Major early influences? "The Beatles. They were early influences." Any major influences now? "No."

Anybody he really admires? "Yeah. I love Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. I think they definitely have everything wrapped up, as far as being able to put things across."

Gary holds an album by one of his favorites singer/
songwriters, Joni Mitchell. (Photo: Kent Hathaway)

Tomorrow, Etcetera
Has Gary ever had the desire to be famous? "YEAH," he laughs, slapping his knees, "I want people screaming my name from their rooftops!"

"I want people screaming my name from their rooftops!"
(Photo: Kent Hathaway)

But seriously: "If you have something you want people to hear, it makes you sound a little more modest…rather than just having them know your name or getting off on the clothes you wear, or something."

Where will he go from here? "I just want a contract…move out…and record and go on the road and write.”

Enough material? "I have hordes of material.”

His former band? "We practiced for six months, played for three, and then split."

The synthesizer? "I don't program it, I just play it."

Tennis? "I'm nuts about it. Luckily, I'm in a band of tennis freaks."

Wondering if the weather is good enough for a game of... "Tennis? I'm
nuts about it. Luckily, I'm in a band of tennis freaks." (Photo: Kent Hathaway)

His favorite night spot to play? "Arbuckle Flat…because they listen."

Why is his band called "Salt"? "'cause I hate names," he laughs. "That doesn't make sense, does it? Well, we just started the band, and it's the most aggravating thing to come up with a name, you know…so I said, 'Salt'…nobody's gonna ask what it means, nobody’s gonna say anything about it…and sure enough I say, 'Salt' and they say, 'Fault?' 'No, Salt.' 'Fault?' 'SALT, as in Samuel.' So Bill tried to call us 'Salt as in Samuel.’

"Sure enough, people still ask us what it means…NOTHING!"

*All lyrics copyright 1974 Gary Ogan, Candlewax Music (BMI).

Telegram announcing Oscar nomination for "Rip Van Winkle"

Here's a scan of a photocopy of the telegram sent to Will Vinton on February 20, 1979, announcing his Academy Award nomination for the Claymation short film, "Rip Van Winkle." 

Most of us who worked on the film got to attend the ceremony, but for naught: the Oscar went to Canada Film Board's wonderful cel-animated film "Special Delivery."

Flat Liberation Front Disrupts Auditions for Claymate of the Month

Here's a scan of a photocopy of an illustration my college pal and Will Vinton Productions colleague Matt Wuerker drew in 1977 when I was up against the printing deadline for my newsletter "Frame by Frame" and needed a Claymate of the Month. I was unable to come up with a Claymate before the deadline, and Matt's delightful illustration filled the gap perfectly. 

The janitor in the foreground is Morris Mann, the alter ego of superhero Metamorphos Man (a Claymation film that unfortunately never got made). 

My proudest contribution to the illustration: the policeman's "Mickey Mouse Club."

Depicted in front of the stage, left to right, are Claymate judges Rick Cooper, Barry Bruce, Don Merkt, Will Vinton, Joan Gratz, and Susan Shadburne.

First Love, Last Chance (a true story)

Unbelievable as it may seem, this is, in fact, a true story. The names (except for my own) and a few other details have been changed to protect the guilty. Also, I was in third grade, not fifth, when this happened. The reason I changed it to fifth grade is because I suspected no one would believe such a thing could happen to a third grader.

I wrote this story when I was a teacher in my early 30s. I submitted it to a magazine called Oregon English, whose editor happened to be a former high school English teacher of mine. I always wondered whether he published this story because he knew me—or despite the fact that he knew me. I'll never know. Just like he never knew that it was a true story.

Last I heard, the girl in tis story grew up and became a wife (married an old grade-school friend of mine), and recently had a bad ATV accident that left her temporarily paralyzed. I wish her a full recovery, and a long and happy life full of good memories. Like the one she gave to me.

First Love, Last Chance

Dawn was the kind of girl any fifth-grade boy would die for. She had long, brown hair that swept back behind her perfect little ears and cascaded down her back like a waterfall's dream. Her eyes, also brown, shimmered as if backlit by some ethereal fire. And her mouth—with its perfect pearls lined up behind those soft, alluring lips poised for pouting or playing—her mouth alone was worth any embarrassment I could suffer from getting caught staring during a math lesson. If only Da Vinci had known her! My Mona Lisa—Dawn (even her name was delicious)—was the angel of every saint's fantasy.

Sure, there were other pretty girls in the class, and maybe even one or two worthy of the Valentines we had to send, but none of them was Dawn. Even Christy, whose beauty and charm had once inspired me to profess my love for her on a hand-made birthday card (another required class project), couldn't measure up. Perhaps it was because, unlike Dawn, Christy was obtainable—which made her slightly less desirable—and she lacked that unfathomable, seductive mystique which made Dawn interesting, challenging…and dangerous.

Dawn was dangerous—not because she was a goddess at age ten (although any girl who could pose for the cover of Cosmopolitan at that age should be considered a potential threat to mankind); not because her presence in class threatened my academic eligibility for sixth grade (although I did blow several easy tests just for lack of concentration); not even because I was so infatuated with her that I would eventually implode into a black hole of unrequited love (or, if I ever got up the nerve to touch her, explode into a billion fragments of sheer ecstasy). No, she was dangerous for another reason, and one which I have realized only recently in retrospect. She could read minds.

That's right: in addition to being painfully pleasant to look at, she was also psychic. The reason I didn't figure that out until recently is that she practiced her clairvoyeurism very discreetly; there was never any hint when she looked nonchalantly in your direction or brushed past you that she was hanging ten on your alpha waves. She knew when she got her drink at the fountain and I followed, caressing the handle where her thumb had just been, that I was whirling in enchantment, vertigone…she knew that I made a fool of myself playing Ringo in that Beatles lip-sync act just for her amusement…she knew that I made friends with her brother Brian not because we had boxing lessons together, but because he lived in the same house with her…she knew all of my deepest feelings and thoughts, and she knew that about 97.4 percent of them centered on her.

At least, I 'm pretty sure she knew it—why else would she do what she did to me? Why else would she taunt and torture me that way?

It happened one rainy winter's day after school. I had gone home with Brian to change for boxing lessons (my only reason for taking boxing was to impress Dawn; so far, it hadn't seemed to work), and Brian let me use his bedroom to change in. Dawn's bedroom was about fifteen feet further down the hall; I thought she might be in her room, but I wasn't sure. If she was in her room, she was being very quiet. 

When I was through changing, I came out and Brian went in. As I stood there waiting for Brian outside his closed door, Dawn emerged from her bedroom, smiling that devastating, innocent/mischievous smile. "Rick," she purred, "come in here; I have a book I'd like to show you."

My heart leaped up to my throat. "W-what?" I stammered, trying desperately not to hyperventilate, turn red, or slobber.

"Come on," she motioned. "I have a really neat book I want you to see."

For some reason, I hesitated. Was this really happening to me? Was the girl of my dreams actually inviting me into her bedroom? And if so, why? What could I say? "Nope, sorry, I'm busy. Show me another day." Or, "Why not just bring the book out here?" Or, "Are you sure you just want to show me a book, or do you have hanky panky in mind?" My mind was spinning so fast it was starting to turn my stomach—and I sure as hell didn't want to throw up in front of Dawn.

My feet started to move. My body followed. I felt hot; my palms began to sweat. It was all I could do to keep from falling over. I couldn't smile; I was lucky to muster any expression, considering the condition of my nerves. I kept falling forward until I was at her bedroom door…and then I thought I would surely either faint, or wake up and realize I was watching a rerun of Fantasy Island.

Now I was inside her bedroom; inside Dawn's bedroom. Ten years old, and already on the edge of nirvana. Surely this meant that I would soon die, having nothing left to experience, no other goals to attain. My heart was pounding so hard I had to force it back down into my chest to give it room to beat.

Dawn closed the bedroom door behind us—and locked it. We were alone. 

My mind went blank. My body was numb. Dawn moved toward me. Oh God, I thought, I'm too young to die. I stood there, frozen, unable to think, unable to move. The walls were closing in around me.

Then she spoke. "Now I've got you where I want you," she said, and she moved even closer to me. I think I backed up a little. Her voice had jolted my senses back into operation; I was beginning to get the feeling back in my hands and feet. Now if I could just get my brain working. She moved toward me again; I backed up a little more. My back touched the bedroom door. "Come on, Rick," she cooed, "kiss me." Now her face was just inches from mine, and her lips were glistening like a rose sculpted from ice. My lips just hung open, trembling.

"Um…uh…" I stammered, "where's that book you—you w-wanted to show me? (Oh my God, did I really say that? Here I was, locked in the bedroom of the most beautiful creature on earth, and all I could think of was a book?)

"I lied about the book," Dawn confessed, and she moved still closer to me. Now, suddenly, I felt threatened. I didn't like being pursued. I wanted to be the aggressor; Dawn was stripping me of my masculinity. I couldn't let that happen.

My brain clicked back into operation. I reached for the doorknob. Dawn's hand grabbed mine. Her face turned sour; it was no longer the face of an angel. In fact, it was beginning to look rather unattractive. Now all I wanted was out. Fortunately, God came to my rescue—in the form of Dawn's mother.

"Dawn," her mother's voice boomed from the living room, "what are you doing, dear?"

Now Dawn's face looked just plain ugly. "Nothing, Mother," she shouted back at her, half-snarling like a dog. She released my hand. I turned the doorknob. I fell out of Dawn's bedroom and gasped, free to breathe again. Dawn closed the door behind me—no, slammed the door behind me, with more force than you'd expect from a ten-year-old girl. I'd heard the expression before about hell having no fury like a woman scorned, but only now did I begin to realize exactly what it meant. The fact that a girl could go from angel to demon in four seconds flat blew my mind. Who could ever live with such a creature? (I gained a lot of respect for my dad that day.)

The next day at school, Dawn acted as if nothing had happened. And perhaps nothing had happened, technically speaking. But it almost did, and things were very different because of it. My goddess and I had switched places. She was now obtainable…and I wasn't.