It Came From the Basement: "Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms"

The latest in a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.

This is a book that Super Sam gave me during my intership at my hometown weekly newspaper, the Farmington Valley Herald, during the summer of 1986.

"Who was Super Sam?" you ask. His full name was Louis H. Sampliner, and he had quite a journalism and fiction-writing history, some of which I vaguely recall him telling me about. Picture Wallace Shawn, but perhaps a little shorter and absolutely much less lively, although possibly with a similar slight lisp. And Super Sam was older, as he was in his early 70s when I worked with him, and Wallace Shawn is only 79 as I write this.

Like anybody working at a small-town newspaper, I wore many hats during my internship and my employment the following year, after I graduated. I reported on town meetings (planning and zoning), wrote features about local residents, helped the sports editor cover high school sports once in a while, took photos, copy-edited news and feature stories and columns, typeset articles and picked up lunch orders from local restaurants.

Sam was a mentor to me. He taught me that good news writing was tight, concise. He would point out my editing and writing errors and patiently wait while I fixed them. He was smart and confident and sometimes a little bit cocky when teaching me things. But he was also funny and self-effacing.

He worked as an assistant typesetter, alongside an amazing woman named Sally, and wrote columns once in a while. At age 73, he wasn't there full time, but he was a well-known and respected presence in the small office. He could be grumpy and short-tempered, but he was always loveable and just about always right.

I had to set up a free trial with Newspapers.com to access Sam's obituary from May 28, 1993. He was 80 when he died, and had spent his entire adult life working with words. He was the director of the University of Hartford news bureau for many years, according to the obit from the Hartford Courant. "Mr. Sampliner, better known as 'Sam' to most students and local media representatives, was a publicist since 1946, when he founded the news bureau of Hillyer College in the basement of a Hudson Street building," the appreciation indicates. "When the college joined the Hartt School of Music and the Hartford Art School to form the University of Hartford in 1956, he moved to the Bloomfield Avenue campus. He was director until 1978, but continued to work part-time until his death."

After graduating from a New Jersey high school in 1932, he worked for Atlantic City News; Standard Magazines, a New York-based publisher of pulp magazines such as Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, per Wikipedia; and Popular Library, where he was a comic book editor, the obituary indicates. He never attended college.

Additionally, he published more than 50 science fiction and adventure stories. He is listed on Fancyclopedia as one of the hundreds of attendees of Chicon, the World Science Fiction Convention held in Chicago in 1940. Sam seems to have been somewhat on the periphery of the science fiction publishing world. I found a blog post about two Badger State writing groups, the Milwaukee Fictioneers and Allied Authors of Wisconsin, in which Sampliner is briefly mentioned. "In 1940, writer Louis Sampliner and Palmer swing through Milwaukee for Bloch, while making a pilgrimage to visit Derleth in Sauk City."

Let's break that down: Palmer refers to Raymond Palmer, an early member of Milwaukee Fictioneers best known as the editor of Amazing Stories and an author of books including the UFO-themed The Coming of the Saucers. Bloch is Robert Bloch, another sci-fi author who was first published at age 17, and was a member of the Fictioneers. Derleth is August Derleth, a native of Sauk City, Wisconsin, who was the first publisher of H.P. Lovecraft's books.

You'll notice that Super Sam is the only one of that bunch without his own Wikipedia page. Nevertheless, he seems to have worked alongside Palmer for quite some time. Addtionally, he published freelance articles in numerous publications, including the Farmington Valley Herald, the Hartford Courant, the West Hartford News, the New Britain Herald and New Haven-based The Elder.

At his death, he left two nieces, so I'm assuming he never had children.

As for the Farmington Valley Herald, I believe it was established in 1894. It went out of business in 2005. The publisher when I worked there was a wacky, energetic guy named Lou Ball, who was always the center of attention when he was in the office. When I knew him, he was in his 60s, and drove an orange Datsun 240-Z with the license plate "BALLS." He was known to dress head to toe in red-white-and-blue on July 4th, and show up in the office once in a while with an arrow through his head, a la Steve Martin. He was loud and funny and smart and most everybody loved him.

Below is a picture of me with Lou, taken at the going-away party the paper had for me when I left on my road trip in 1988.

Over the years, I have only used Soule's synonyms book infrequently. But I love coming across it once in a while, as it reminds me of my first "real" job all those years ago. And it has all the best words! Like "party-colored," a synonym for piebald and variegated.

The dictionary's namesake, Richard Soule, was born in Duxbury, Mass., in 1812, and died in St. Louis in 1877, according to Famous Americans. A descendant of a signer of the Mayflower Compact, he graduated from Harvard and worked as a civil engineer before turning toward literary pursuits. Other books he edited include Memorial of the Sprague Family, a poem, with genealogical and biographical notes; Manual of English Pronunciation and Spelling, with a Preliminary Exposition of English Orthoepy and Orthography with William A. Wheeler; and Pronouncing Hand-Book, with Loomis J. Campbell.

Giving me this book appears to fit one of Super Sam's life patterns. According to his obituary, "For at least 30 years, he wrote poems he read at special occasions and major university affairs to honor individuals."

I'm honored that he shared this book with me.

It Came From the Basement: Ramones Alarm Clock

The latest in a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.

This clock's alarm should just be Dee Dee yelling, "1,2,3,4!" on repeat until you slam it off.

Or better yet, stage-dive off your bed onto it and smash it after a single use.

I believe my in-laws gave me this clock, many years ago. My father-in-law, Rich, is a fellow Ramones fan. When I found that out early in my relationship with Beth, I was stunned and thrilled.

I have to admit that I've never used this clock. It sat in my attic for years, because that's where we used to keep all sorts of stuff that we didn't use or know what to do with. Then a few years ago all those things moved to the basement.

I first heard the Ramones sometime in 1982-83, when I discovered college radio and punk rock. During my college years, I saw the groundbreaking Queens-based quartet four times, at the Agora Ballroom in West Hartford, Connecticut, and perhaps at a club in New Haven. The shows were always a blast, as my friends and I slammed and skanked around the dance floor, pushing off people and doing our best to avoid getting pegged by stage divers.

I loved watching the band in "Rock 'n' Roll High School," the 1979 movie featuring PJ Soles, Vince Van Patten, Clint Howard, Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel. I only owned two of their records -- Rocket to Russia and It's Alive, the latter a live album -- but considered myself a pretty big fan during the 1980s into the '90s.

My college band, The Toastmen, included "Blitzkrieg Bop" in our set list for a number of shows. It was always a blast to play.

I want to wrap up this piece with a video that combines my musical taste from 40 years ago (!) with an artist from the Now Times that I'm into:

It Came From the Basement: The Never Bird's Wheelchair

The latest in a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.

This looks like something out of a late-19th century British orphanage, doesn't it? Made out of wicker and standing just shy of two feet high, this wheelchair -- or is it a carriage for a small child? -- was a prop that my son, Owen, used in one of his school plays a few years ago.

The Corwin-Russell School @ Broccoli Hall, located in Sudbury, was where Owen attended from 8th grade through a gap year. It was a great place for him. A big part of the school's identity and culture is theater. I should say, THEATER! Every year, the entire community at the small school -- students, teachers, office staff, parents, siblings -- gets together to "put on a show." They gather at the school and a local theater during January and early February to rehearse lines, make costumes, build and paint sets, rehearse choreography, bond with each other, rehearse and then rehearse some more. (To be clear, parents don't perform in the play, and only new teachers take a role on stage alongside the students.)

I wrote about Owen's first experience with the school's play back in February 2016.

In 2019, the students performed "Never Land: A Musical," an adaptation of J.M. Barrie's story, "Peter Pan." This was a change from the school's usual choice to perform well-known shows, ranging from "The Little Mermaid" to "Billy Elliot" to "Sister Act."

Written by school staffer Jake Egan O'Hara, the son of the school's founders, who has extensive experience in acting and costuming, the show was longer than the typical fare the students perform. Nevertheless, the show was well-acted as always, and the costumes and sets were as over-the-top brilliant as ever.

As for Owen, he played a character I -- and many other folks -- had never heard of: the Never Bird. The role was perfect for him, in that he didn't have to speak, and he was only on stage for a few minutes. His costume featured a riot of brightly colored feathers, striped leggings, topped by a bird-shaped hat full of plumage. For a kid who was already the tallest in school, this outfit made him stick out all the more.

He placed large eggs in the wheelchair/carriage, and then distributed them to characters on stage. His appearance on stage generated plenty of "Oh my gosh!" and "Amazing!" comments from the crowd.

As for the Never Bird, the character is mentioned only in passing in "Peter Pan," but features more prominently in "Peter and Wendy," according to this Neverpedia page. The character is female in J.M. Barrie's story, and "rescues Peter from drowning, when he is stranded on Marooner's Rock, unable to fly, as the tide is rising," per the Neverpedia page. "She lets him use her watertight nest as a lifeboat, enabling him to sail to the mainland."

When Owen graduated, in the early days of the Covid pandemic, the teachers and administrators from the school hit the road to hand the graduates their diplomas and other cool stuff. They gave Owen the Never Bird's wheelchair.

This season, the school performed "Matilda the Musical." You can check out a video montage here.

It Came From the Basement: My Favorite Stuffy?

This is the latest in a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.

Four posts into this new series, I feel the need to talk etymology. When I was a kid, my family used the word "cellar" to refer to the lowest level of our house -- where we stored toys, sports equipment, tools, old furniture, my rock collection (!) and my dad's boxes of stuff from his Army hitch in Europe (some items from which will show up in this series). The cellar was also where our oil burner dwelled, alongside spiders and other creepy crawlers.

Nowadays, I call that place in my own home the basement. I use the same word to name the subterranean room in my mother's house, where she has lived for the past 15 years or so. So what is the difference between a cellar and a basement? "While both are rooms that are located below or partially below the ground level, they serve different purposes," say the experts at Complete Basement Systems. "By definition, a basement is the floor of a residence or building entirely or partly located below ground level. A cellar, on the other hand, is a room below the ground level used as a storage area."

It seems to me that a basement is where normal people store their junk, maybe set up a pool or ping pong table and a laundry room, while a cellar is where serial killers stash bodies, marvel at their antique medical equipment and set up industrial-strength drains under their work sinks that can handle a LOT of blood.

OK, now that we've got our terminology straight, let's talk about this:

When I was a young lad, I loved this kitty cat.

I think.

Back then, it was soft and cuddly and I snuggled in bed with it.

Probably. I honestly have no memory of doing so, but considering the fact that I'm 58 years old and still have this stuffed animal among my possessions, it must have been important to me. I don't have any other stuffies from when I was a kid.

Today, it is stiff like a taxidermy model, and dirty and unloved and I don't care about it at all.

Well, but that's not true, is it? I've considered tossing it into the trash over the years, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do that. What am I afraid of? Do I believe this hardened little feline's soul will come back to haunt me? Am I afraid of throwing away a symbol of my childhood? Am I concerned it will claw its way out of the Pet Sematary, drag itself through the graveyard and across busy highways to find me and kill me?

This kitty -- I don't recall if it ever had a name or gender -- doesn't trigger fond childhood memories of any sort. Did I cuddle with it when I was scared by thunderstorms? No idea. Did I give it a voice and a personality to keep me company when I was bored and alone? I don't think so. Did I gather up other cats, both stuffed and live, and juggle them along with my favorite fake pet? Certainly not.

Who gave it to me? My parents? My Grandma Jo? Grandma and Grandpa Bogert? Did it come off a hot tin roof?

And why did that person or persons consider that this little white cat was a good gift for me? Why not a dog? Or a teddy bear? Or a Sasquatch?

Don't get me wrong: I imagine that when I was quite young, I really loved that cat. Probably petted it, pretending it was real and that it loved me. But I ask you, then, why isn't that cat in the picture below, which features me (left) and my older brother, Steve, and three stuffed animals, none of which are the cat in question.

Hmm.

Anyway, when I was 5 or 6, we got a dog. A real one. A puppy, actually. And it was a little cuter and way more interactive than my precious little puddy tat. I definitely talked to that dog, Lucky, when I was down. I absolutely comforted him when he would cower behind the oil burner when a summer thunderstorm swept through our suburban neighborhood. And I loved to play with him in the house, and outside in piles of leaves my family would rake up for him every fall.

But since we didn't enlist a taxidermist when Lucky died in 1986, I don't have him in a box in my basement. But I have my ratty old cat, who exists these days only to make me feel bad about dragging it through my life, stuffed into a tomato box that I grabbed from the produce department where I worked when I was in high school and college.

Poor cat.

I don't even remember how long I've been stashing you in that box, along with a mess of baseball cards, Mardi Gras beads, old coin wrappers, two canvas bank deposit bags and the cap and gown from my college graduation (!). Doesn't matter. What matters is that you're the oldest thing I own that was only ever mine.

For those of you who prefer the word "cellar":

For those who argue that "basement" is the proper term:

It Came From the Basement: Freakshow Wine Bottle

Welcome to a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.

Today's item: an empty bottle of Freakshow Wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon from Michael David Winery.

I gravitate toward things with strange names, whether on a restaurant menu (huaraches, for example, a lovely Mexican dish featuring pinto beans, onions, potatoes, red salsa, chicken/beef/pork and named for popular sandals of the same name), albums in a record store (Crippled Pilgrims, Butthole Surfers, And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Haircut One Hundred) or bottles of wine.

I don't drink much wine, so when I do, I like to buy something with a funny name that can taste like rancid pond water as far as I care, as long as the label makes me laugh. I initiated this method of buying wine back in 1989, when Beth and I celebrated our first dating annniversary on a weekend trip to Vermont. We whooped it up in a motel with a pizza and a bottle of Space Shuttle White Wine from Bully Hill Vineyards.

I'd never heard of the vineyard or the wine, but I couldn't resist the name and the label. I did the same thing when I bought the Freakshow Wine. I had no idea if it would taste any good (I think it did), and frankly I didn't care.

So why do I have the bottle? To give a little man-cave ambience to the basement. It sits alongside my guitars, pedals, cords, folders and notebooks of songs going back decades, the beer fridge and other random rock 'n' roll shit. I am the only one in my household who ever sees it, and I don't pay it much mind when I'm playing my guitar. But it's nice to know it's there, keeping things weird.

It Came From the Basement: TT the Bear's Beer Menu

Welcome to a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.

Bullet LaVolta.

Jack Drag.

Giant Sand.

Franz Ferdinand.

Mobius Band.

And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead.

Flaming Lips.

These are just some of the bands I saw over the years at the late, great TT the Bear's Place in Central Square in Cambridge, Mass.

Opened in 1973 near the location that became it's long-time home five years later -- 10 Brookline Street, next to the Middle East Club -- TT's over the ensuing 42 years played host to countless punk, indie, country and rap acts. The room was no-frills and intimate, with an occupancy of just 300. I loved going there because of its close quarters. You could shimmy to the front and bathe in the performers' sweat. The stage was low and there were no barriers, so you could bump up against the action on stage. If things got too crazy or you got bored with an opening act, you could retreat to the other side of the bar, but even there you were close enough to hear and see what was going on.

The club hosted local bands and touring bands from around the country and the world. Acts that played there that went on to play much bigger venues include Smashing Pumpkins, Jane's Addiction (blech), Til Tuesday, Indigo Girls and Mission of Burma, among many others. The club was founded by Bonnie Bouley and her then-boyfriend, Miles Cares, per Wikipedia.

As for the odd name: "The...name originated from the need to be unique, to not have a name like any other establishment; the owners considered their own names, Miles & Bonney's; eventually they decided to name it after their pet 'Teddy Bear'-style hamster, who was nicknamed Tough Teddy, hence they settled on T.T. the Bear's Place," per Wikipedia.

In 2014 Joseph and Nabil Sater, owners of the Middle East, purchased the TT's building. "In early 2015, the owners announced that there was to be a substantial rent increase, and a lease of five years, with an option for another five years," according to Wikipedia. "Ms. Bouley did not agree to the terms (she considered the rent high and the lease to be 'short-term') and, without the new lease, the club could not be successfully sold to a new owner. Bouley decided in May 2015 that the club would close."

In June of 2015, TT's held a goodbye yard sale. I stood in line with hundreds of other nerdy folks and shuffled through the place, feeling odd the entire time that I was picking through the ruins of a club where I'd had so many great nights. I spied a fantastic Elvis bust, but found out it was spoken for. In the small room at the back of the club, posters by the hundreds were piled on the pool table and all around. There were gnarly stage lights, old microphones, amp cables, you name it.

What I came away with was the beer menu featured above, as well as some swizzle sticks, a poster of The Neighborhoods (which I gave to my buddy Ray) and a drinking glass that says "Swampwater" on it above a caricature of an alligator. The owner, Bonnie, was working the checkout register. When I showed her the glass, she looked wistful for a few seconds and said, "Oh, we used to use those glasses a lot."

In late July of 2015, TT's held its final show, featuring local legends O Positive and Scruffy the Cat with Dave Minehan of The Neighborhoods sitting in for the late Charlie Chesterman.

The space is now a club known as Sonia.

It Came From the Basement: Uncle George's Banjo

Welcome to a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.

Was George Brigham a banjo master like Bela Fleck, Earl Scruggs, Pete Seeger, Roy Clark and Steve Martin?

Perhaps. But my uncle, who was born in 1924 and died in 2008, never let on if he was able to pick and grin with the best of them. I recall, as a kid, seeing his banjo in the basement of my cousins' house in West Hartford, Connecticut, and wondering whose it was. I never saw my uncle, or anyone else, play it.

My cousins were curious about George's banjo-pluckin', too. "I remember seeing that banjo at home and asking him to play it," my cousin Sue remembers. "He never would."

"I just remember him saying he took '52 lessons for 52 dollars' and I never heard him play!" my cousin Amy recalls. Her twin, Joy, agrees. "As Amy said, he didn’t play it for us, and seemed almost dumbfounded that he learned it after 52 lessons."

Fifty-two lessons! I'm not sure if that's once a week for a year, but regardless, that's plenty of time to learn how to play "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" with some flair. Below is a video that is oh-so-appropriate, as it features Steve Martin, Earl Scruggs, Pete Wernick and other banjo masters on the David Letterman show. Letterman always reminded me a bit of my Uncle George, even though he's nearly a quarter-century younger.

Notice that each of the banjoists is playing a five-stringed instrument, known as a clawhammer banjo. Uncle George's is a four-string piece, known as a tenor banjo. Evidently, the four-stringers are used more in jazz and Dixieland music, as opposed to country and bluegrass.

What sort of music might Uncle George have played on his banjo? "Not recalling hearing Dad plucking away," my cousin Ann says. "I always liked having a Banjo in the Basement!" Her sister, Lynne, tells me that she "never heard it played. Would have loved to!"

George liked to play tennis; he and my dad had regular Saturday morning games when I was a kid. My dad loved to sing and act in community theater shows, but he never learned to play an instrument (well, he did take guitar lessons for a short time). I don't believe their younger brother, Bill, did either.

When my uncle passed away, Amy and Joy bequeathed his banjo to me, along with old photo albums and scrapbooks. I hoped that I might be able to learn how to play it, since I have been a guitarist since I was 14 years old. I asked a friend (check out his tattoo shop if you're ever in Newton, Mass., and need some ink) who is a fantastic musician if he knew where I could get the banjo checked out. He suggested Sandy's Music in Cambridge.

So I headed to Sandy's shop in Central Square. He (or someone in his shop) looked over the banjo, examining the bridge, the rim, the tuning pegs, the frets, the neck and the head. He noticed a crack in the neck, and said if I wanted to get it fixed, they could certainly do it.

For about two hundred bucks....

"I don't know how to play it," I said. "You could hang it on the wall," he replied.

Sandy's, which opened in 1970, closed in 2013. The space along Massachusetts Avenue is now occupied by Mike's Monster Guitar, which is run by Mike Feudale, who worked at Sandy's as lead repairman for 18 years.

I haven't hung the banjo on the wall, but it's on a rack in the music area of my basement, next to a ukelele that my wife bought several years ago, a three-string slide guitar that my in-laws gave me for Christmas, and above the case that holds my grandfather's accordion.