KMET – B. Mitchel Reed – June 11, 1975 – Rob Frankel Collection –
You’ll be the first to admit you had a lot of edges to smooth out. High School was one big pressure cooker. You studied all the time – you swore up and down you had no life. You had an older brother who was an over-achiever who got all A’s. You struggled to get B’s. Your dad always shook his head and looked at you like you were a waste of skin.
When you finally graduated you felt a big exhale coming on. You were torn – you kind of didn’t want to go to college, but you kind of did, if it meant moving out of town. You wound up at LACC – but you did move out of your parents house and chipped in with a bunch of roommates to rent a house a block away from school. So far – so good.
You aren’t quite sure when it got started, but it probably had something to do with one of your roommates who just got back from Vietnam, living and going to school on a G.I. bill and had a bar in his room.
You developed a taste for Brew 102, along with Pabst, Schlitz, Budweiser and Coors. You had parties every weekend. They were loud parties – you had loud friends and there were a lot of them. You became popular. You became “that guy”. You were admired for your outrageous behavior – you said and did things and people laughed. But the next day you didn’t remember what it was.
You had a girlfriend – you met her when she was waitressing at IHOP. She was also a Psych major. She liked you – she’d see you at work in the morning when you’d come in, hungover and staring at your coffee. You dated – you saw each other a lot. It was getting serious.
And then things got haywire and the weekends went on all week. And all your loud friends who admired you were now looking at you like you were going to explode at any given moment. And occasionally you did. Your girlfriend wasn’t amused.
But you didn’t remember a thing. Your roommates would remind you and you would look horrified. Your roommate with the bar put a lock on it when he left the house and you had to go back to being a student.
Now you wait for the weekend. You pace back and forth wondering if you’re any good at picking locks.
Maybe if you moved to Palm Springs . . . .
And while you were contemplating all that you most likely had KMET going on in the background, especially if this day was June 11th and it was 1975 and the dulcet tones of B. Mitchel Reed wafted out of the speaker.
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