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I grew up in South Bay LA, primarily Torrance and Redondo Beach until the
lure of Palos Verdes and those splendid houses on the hill captivated my mother in a romantic fever which spread to us all. Little did I think at the time about the fact that I was in the
middle of seventh grade and about to enter the lion pit of a new school
with PV's most spoiled. OUCH! I had a hard enough time making
friends in Torrance with kids I had known for years; kids with somewhat
humble sensibilities about their middle class origins. Now every
kid was rich or had the act down. It was an easy act to learn and a hard habit to break. But I can't complain now, PV was beautiful: the foggy sunsets and peacock howls, the swirling winter wheat fields in the winds, the cliffs and the rageing ocean, hillsides of fog watered garbanzo beans, it was just amazing.
We weren't rich but my folks liked to act it out too. They bought into one of those sprawling housing tracts on the hill with a view. My poor dad! he'd work 2 or 3 jobs to keep up with the house payments and the Mercedes in the garage, the 7 foot grand piano. He parked his Fords on the street; the right tires would catch all the debris running down the gutter and create this beaver marsh of muck between the car and the curb. The passenger seat was always covered with stacks of paper work which was constantly falling onto the floor and out the door and into the muck whenever the door was opened. He ran those Fords into the ground. Or into the muck. Bought a new one every five years, suburban clock work at its best. My mom was a piano teacher. I started playing seriously around 5 when the balls of my feet finally reached the pedals. My mom started me off but after a year of what must have been insanity (having home schooled my own highly spirited child now for 9 years I have a pretty good idea what it must have been like)she found me another teacher: Mrs. Fahringer. I really hated piano lessons with Mrs. F primarily because it was so uncomfortable holding gas for 30 minutes. It'd give me stomack aches! Mrs. Fahringer would be sitting next to me beating her pencil on something saying " . . one and two and three" and I remember trying to discreetly squeak a few out while trying to maintain concentration on the music and her loud forceful counting with her raspy smoker croaken voice. I always blew the recital. I'd start out ok but then I'd freak and forget. Sometimes I'd just improvise an ending while other times I'd keep playing the parts I remembered, or I'd just keep starting over and over and over again. This went on for 8 years all the time I wished my fingers would get real slender long and narrow like a real piano players. It's ironic that my mom changed my name to Bob Fenger early in my life foreseeing maybe, my short stubby fingers of adult hood: bobcat, bobtail, bobfenger. I've only recently started embracing that name and it's humorous implications as a pianist. The one really cool thing about PV were all the trails. If you had a motorcycle you were free. It didn't matter if you rode on the street without a license, there was always a trail to getaway on. I even ditched a cop once on a 3-horse power Briggs and Stratton mini bike. You just had to keep your eyes and ears open and as soon as you saw the "MAN" pull off and hide or haul ass on to a trail. Then one day the cops got dirt bikes. It redefined the meaning of motocross. I finally got caught but not without the help of a helicopter; what a ride that was!! Don't get me wrong now, I don't condone car chases and all that crowded city craziness, these were trails with no one around and we were bored out of our mind, kids. After High School I went to work in a gasket factory for six months breathing asbestos dust, until one day I started coughing up blood. The next day I quit the job and joined a band on the east-coast(DRAGON SOUP), and like an idiot, within 6 months, married a groupie. The whole thing lasted about a year. When I returned to LA my parents were still separated, the Irish Setter's hair was chain saw matted material, and the giant doughboy pool in the back yard looked like a bomb had hit it. So between all the chores I decided to check out El Camino College. I took nothing but art and music classes. Hitchhiked there every day. Had a blast! It was the first time since 6th grade and Miss Phebes (sorry about the "how does the sperm get to the egg?" question ) that I had fun in school. I eventually discovered Richard Bunger at Cal State Dominguez Hills, in the middle of beautiful Compton California, who was an expert on the Prepared Piano works of John Cage. The college was originally suppose to be in PV, the library books even said Cal State Palos Verdes on the inside cover but instead it ended up next door to the Goodyear Blimp just on the outskirts of Crip Territory and where all the major freeways collide. There I studied with Bunger and learned everything about the prepared-piano and decided to build a dedicated prepared piano for percussive/gamlan effects, prepared piano string feedback, and kinetic oscillator effects. I call the instrument the ACOUSTISIZER(for more info windworld.com;). My 15 minutes of fame was at hand. I got right-ups in all the major papers and even a blurb in Keyboard Magazine. From Cal State I went to UCLA and spent 8 years there checking out everything from Architecture to Art and New Forms and Concepts and eventually Systematic Musicology. In retrospect, I have to say, UCLA days were the best. What a cultural rich banquet. In 1992 UC budget cuts ended it all. I lost my cushy job and with it my Ph.D, and on top of everything my biological father died on the same day as my UCLA separation date. Talk about strange coincidences. Or was it? The bright side of the lay-off was that I was going to get to spend some time with my biological father finally. As it turns out he was also excited about my coming for an extended stay and he just over did it and had his final stroke. Oh well. Things happen in threes. I had bought a cheap piece of property in Joshua Tree some years earlier, where I ended up moving, met a woman, had a kid (remember I said things happen in 3s), scared them both away, was diagnosed BI Polar, and now: consider the precepts and schemata of happiness within a dictated unnatural court ordered continuum of unpredictable dynamic imperatives. Put simply: I live to see my daughter any chance I can get. X wife #3 holds the jailer's key. I've left a lot of things out of this bio like: my 5 year squat Down Town LA and battle with Southern Pacific Railroad, my X wife #1 and her partner's robbing of my parent's house (at gun point!!), the hit and run car I jumped on for a wild ride through the Wilshire District holding on while smashing the windsheild in with my boot, the Voltage Loft after hour club where Jane's Addiction played before they made it, and of course, my 6 month homeless period where I lived in my car on Cotner Avenue (next to the 405 Freeway ) with a German Shepherd Dog and a Black Pursian Cat and where I had the misfortunate experience to witness first hand, how city agencies systematically and insensitively crank out homeless people by first taking away there home, then their parked car and with it, the last of their possessions, hope and dignity. But if anyone's interested I'd be glad to elaborate on any of these subjects more upon request. Also, I just want to say thank you to Jowee Jiao (X wife #2)for a lot of the above mentioned maddness. She is a wonderful giving person and was quintessential during the Down-town LA days. ALSO: HI MOM THANK YOU TOO! I LOVE YOU! I HOPE NOTHING YOU READ HERE UPSETS YOU TO MUCH. IT'LL ALL COME OUT SOMEDAY IN MY BOOK ANYWAY. bob bye EDUCATION RECAP
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