Roomie

Dan Graves was my roommate during our last year in college. I met Dan in classes for our major, Visual Communications Technology. There were probably a handful of about ten people or so who really got the technical side of photographic reproduction, half-tone technology, typesetting, screen printing (it's no longer silk-screening, by the way, so please stop using that term!), etc., and Dan and I were amongst that elite group, so our instructors relied upon to help the others. Dan was the elite of the elite—his aptitude for the various processes we had to understand was incomparable.

By the time Dan and I met and began hanging out, he already was a part of established group of friends known as "Bob and The Burnout Band" or simply "The Burnouts". As it happened that year, all of the other Burnouts were paired up with roommates except Dan, and I decided to change my scenery, having lived with the same two guys (Lou Perlaky and Steve Carlson) for a couple of years off-campus, and one year (with Lou) in Bromfield Hall on campus.

Dan is an ex-Marine (note the tattoo) from Columbus, Ohio. He'd joined essentially for the benefit of the G.I. Bill footing his college tuition. He was also as big a partier as they might come. It might not be all too visible in this larger image, but that's a bong resting 'twixt his legs.

I think we did okay as roommates... he would probably agree with the idea that he was the Jack Klugman to my Tony Randall (although I could easily be pegged most people's Jack Klugman). As far as I could tell, we got along quite well... we shared many classes, a similar taste in music, we both liked fried baloney—what more could a roommate want?!?

Dan began to play guitar the year we lived together... most of the Burnouts played—as did I—and I think he felt a little left out. He picked it up quite quickly and was writing songs in almost no time—something I was having trouble doing after six or seven years of playing guitar. One of the first songs he wrote was inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979 during which seventy or so Americans were taken hostage and held for 444 days.

I can't recall if the song had a title, but I still have a copy of it, with all its indelicate language—probably not too uncommon here during the siege. (All spellings and grammar are as he wrote them down.)

Look what those boys are doin'
In defence of old Islam
Let's get all the hostages out
An' drop the neutron bomb

The captors say they're students
But they look like they're havin' fun
This must be an independent
Study in Terrorism 101

    Iran
    Iran
    In a couple of months
    There'll be a hole where there used to be Iran

Hey, Ayatolah Kohemeni
An' you hoodlums in Terhan
Don't you know you're just piles of crap
And the shit's about to hit the fan

They know we want their oil
We know we want it too
Let's go over and get a little
Before the Russians do

    Iran
    Iran
    In a couple of months
    There'll be a hole where there used to be Iran

Me and my friend Larry
We're packin' up our bags
We're goin' over to Iran
And Kill some Muslem fags

    Iran
    Iran
    In a couple of months
    There'll be a hole where there used to be Iran

While the song didn't quite speak for me, I'm sure those feelings were quite rampant at the time. No doubt those same feelings are well represented these days with regard to the miserable failure's quagmire in Iraq.

Dan was somewhat of an enigma as his politics were never quite clear to me. You'd think a pot-smoker would have fairly liberal views, and I think (memory please serve me better!) he did—just not all the time. He was a graphic artist and cartoonist and my experience has been that artists tend to be liberal through and through. I couldn't really get a bead on Dan, though.

We were otherwise fairly compatible, I think. We made three trips to West Virginia together—twice to go whitewater rafting on the New River, and a third time to simply hike a bit in the river's gorge. We drove my 1975 Volkswagen Super Beetle through the winding roads of southeastern Ohio and Northwestern West Virginia, camping at the North American River Runners' facility. (On the third time in, I'd even planned on meeting up with a previous young summer love, Debbie Wymer—from Pearisburg, Virginia—but that never worked out.) Dan and I were both deeply into Tom Waits at the time and we cranked him out most of the ride there and back.

I loved imitating Tom Waits' gravelly voice (I still do!)...

Better Off Without A Wife

By Tom Waits All my friends are married
Every Tom and Dick and Harry
You must be strong if you're to go it alone
Here's to the bachelors and the Bowery bums
And those who feel that they're the ones
That are better off without a wife

I like to sleep until the crack of noon
Midnight howlin' at the moon
Goin' out when I want to and I'm comin' home when I please
I don't have to ask permission
If I want to go out fishing
Never have to ask for the keys

Well, I never been no Valentino
But I had a girl who lived in Reno
Left me for a trumpet player but it didn't get me down
He was wanted for assault
Though he said it weren't his fault
You know the coppers rode him right out of town

I been sleepin' until the crack of noon
Midnight howlin' at the moon
And I'll be goin' out when I want to—comin' home when I please
I don't have to ask permission
If I want to go out fishing
I never have to ask for the keys

You see, I'm kind of selfish about my privacy
Now as long as I can be with me
We get along so well I can't believe it
I love to chew the fat with folks
I been listenin' to all your dirty jokes
I'm so thankful for these friends I do receive

I been sleepin' until the crack of noon
Midnight howlin' at the moon
And I'll be goin' out when I want to—comin' home when I please
Don't have to ask permission
I want to go out fishing
Never have to ask for the keys, no...

Yeah...
Yeah, I got this girl, I know, man, and I just...
She's been married several times and I don't want to end up like her...
I mean, she's been married so many times she's got rice marks all over her face, yeah, you know the kind...

I suppose I could sit here and ramble all morning about the times we'd shared; we spent so much time together both in and out of classes that the lines are blurred in my mind anymore as to which was which.

If there were one story I love to tell, though, it would be of the night that we and the Burnouts had been to the bars in downtown Bowing Green—probably Howard's Club H or the Brathaus—and Dan and I came home and crashed after we'd closed the bars. At about 4:00 am we awoke to the high beams of a car shining in through Dan's window and into the rest of the apartment. Within moments, the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey blasted us out of bed... the Burnouts had managed to get into our apartment and put the damned thing on the turntable and turned it up about as loud as they could.

Another memory I have I'll always associate with Dan... A little less dramatic, yet surely as momentous for me. We were driving back to Bowling Green from West Virginia and we had just crossed the state line into Ohio in the pitch of night. Fireflies were out en masse, looking like so many bright, blinking stars against the dark hills of southeastern Ohio.