Leo Zeck, his student film and me

SUPERIOR, WISCONSIN

Long time ago I was in a student film (at the University of Wisconsin-Superior) about a girl who walked forward while everyone was walking backwards. (I KNOW, IT WAS A CLEVER GOOD IDEA)

Folklore: Don’t walk backwards.

So I did walk backwards for the short quirky film (filmed around Duluth and Superior) but that was in the late 70s. It wasn't easy, let me tell you!
Kinda glad I didn't know the folklore about this before filming.
I don't have a clue if this movie exists anywhere but Leo Zeck, if you read this, email me! [laratrace@outlook.com]

More folklore: Don’t even THINK of mocking an owl. (Who?)

Places I have Lived: Seattle

Seattle, Washington


I love Seattle. I miss Seattle. I wrote this post about band clothes:

Years ago I had a conversation in Seattle with a musician who told me, "music is medicine." He even had a small record label by that name.

Music was my focus and life in my teens and 20s.  I was a professional rock musician. It was more than a career. It was a calling... (and the weird thing is I am not finding any people in my first family who had musical talent but both my adoptive parents were both talented musicians.)

I'd kept quite a few "vintage" dresses from my rock band days, which was in my 20s, eons ago.  They are kinda like a scrapbook of fabrics (yet I don't sew a lick!)

Why do I keep them?   ...these are many many good reasons...

First, I am from a family of dressy women. My adoptive mom Edie wore evening gowns! I can't even imagine a holiday dinner when she and I (and guests) weren't dressing up.  When I left home at age 17 I had little money to buy like her but I did collect a mix of vintage rayon, satin, silk and retro velvet.
Second, when you are in a rock band, you barely make rent money. Wearing unusual band clothes was a "fitting" thing to do... especially if you are female.  Fitting is my way of telling you it was very hard for me to afford tailoring.  The rock bands I joined had no budget, seamstresses, or dress codes. When I started in the late 70s, there were a tiny handful of female singers.  ((Hint: Linda Ronstadt was one. Heart came along eventually.))

Third, most of these dresses were found in thrift stores yet they are probably the most precious creations I could own or wear.  One vintage 1940s black rayon midi-length has two beaded hummingbirds. (see photo)  I also wore this to work in Seattle, I wore it to nightclubs, I wore it on a cruise. It is still lovely but I did a crappy job hemming it years ago...I found a tiny hole in the bottom of the dress. (No tag inside means it must have been handmade.)

Fourth, mainly it's the feel of fabric and touching recreates memory for me. (Sometimes I think being adopted did cause me some brain damage and trapped some memory in fog.) (I've kept some old tshirts from my travels too; some are from bands, of course.)

I think of band clothes as body armor; in a way these simple clothes create an illusion that isn't there.  Black leather pants -- and what do you think?
Some of my rock band clothes were gifted.  One blue velvet dress was given to me in college by a classmate (the mother of Wendy who I knew somewhat in high school). Her mom wanted me to have this family heirloom and of course I did wear it often.  (I do wonder if Wendy knew about this?)
There is even a pink quilted bed jacket my mom gave me.  No, I have not worn it.  When did the bed jacket thing get popular? I think women in the 1930s and 40s had much better "taste" than we do now.  (I'll admit I've a taste for kitschy colorful table linens, too.)
The rayon green print wrap dress was found in an abandoned house in Wisconsin (my friend's grandmother lived there and was deceased)(top photo of dresses) (I scooped up a black fur coat, too.) That green number was what I was wearing when I met Blackfoot. (You will have to read my memoir One Small Sacrifice to know that rock and roll saga). I also wore it when I sang in Automatic and then Tropic Zone in Minneapolis.
I didn't give up on music; my first marriage killed it for me.

Another post about my working for Jerden Records in Seattle 
Oprah spoke of Maxi Priest and his music is medicine HERE.

Places I have Lived: timing and synchronicity

OREGON

Many years ago, 1984 actually, I read an interesting article in Cosmopolitan magazine about healers. I was living in Oregon and engaged to be married. Dave proposed to me on Friday the 13, that July. We decided to get married on Crystal Lake at my parents retirement home in Wascott, WI, and the Larrabee siblings were set to meet there for a family reunion, too. When I got to Wisconsin, my adoptive dad was sick. Throwing up sick. Taking him to doctors was my new job, like an ambulance driver. It was during surgery on August 3, the doctors said cancer and gave him 6 months. On August 4th, the wedding happened, many people flew in, lots of lovely gifts, a big meal, but it's still a blur to me. We drove north to Duluth in our wedding clothes to see my dad in the hospital, since he was unable to walk me down the sidewalk/aisle.
When I got back to Oregon, I wrote letters to the healers in that Cosmo article. One of them was Patricia Sun, in California. She mailed me a cassette tape. Patricia was known for making a sound, a mysterious sound.
Since dad wasn't interested in healers or thinking outside the western medicine paradigm, healing spirit wasn't in the realm of possibility for him, sadly.
I had my own ideas then about healing and they have matured as I have.
Take a listen to Patricia Sun's work. (There are more videos of her on youtube, of course.)

2014: Patricia Sun Media announces the release of a free audio recording titled Relationships and Matching Energy: The Good, the Bad and the Wonderful. The audio recording is available at http://goo.gl/1fZiyA. Ms. Sun introduces her insights on wonderful win-win relationships, expanding on empowering both men and women. She also draws on concepts from her new blog, Domestic Abuse..."it's complicated".

Ah, The places I have Lived: NYC

modelling as a brunette after NYC

NEW YORK CITY

When I was 23, I moved from Washington state to New York City to get into show business.  My college classmate BJ's mom was an agent for actors and singers. I wrote Shirley and asked if could live with them in Queens until I got settled and employed as an actress-model-singer. She said, "Yes!"

For fast money I was employed by Model's Service and modeled shoes, sweaters and jeans.  Back then earning $100 a day was like a million bucks... well to me anyway. (And I was able to buy clothes at a greatly reduced price.)

Soon I was working at the Kona Tiki as a hostess (in the Sheraton Hotel, 163 W. 52nd St) when I met singer-actor-model Daniel Drake who was also a healer-reflexologist.  Dan explained about mystics like Edgar Cayce and over time he took me to some of the best bookstores in Manhattan. I read every single book about Edgar Cayce over the years.

At the Kona Tiki, I worked for Cynthia Kipness who was daughter of Broadway producer Joe Kipness who had his own restaurant Old Joe's Pier 52 across the street. My agent Shirley kept me busy working for her, delivering contracts, driving her around, auditioning and singing. Cynthia was Shirley's friend. That's how I got the very cool job and met some very high-powered people.

All this changed me. New York City has it's own power. I was lucky to get an agent but in the process I had make-believe friends who wanted Shirley to be their agent, too. It was like a war was going on between actors. Not nice. I celebrated my 24th birthday with Dan. By late November, I was on the Greyhound back to the midwest. Let's just say, I met bad people, too.

BUT WAIT! My mind was opened. That is a good age to start questioning what you know, or think you know.

Theory, ideas, spirituality, etc. are just that: theory. 

In the next few posts I plan to share theory about Pangea, Atlantis and more.  We have to question more.
New York did that for me. Maybe these posts will open your mind too.

whistling pig farm (ah the places I have lived)

Groton, Connecticut

I had a ground hog (his other name: whistling pig, wood chuck) named Woody.  He wasn't afraid of me but he wasn't a pet.
I came home from work and found him sitting in front of the clothes dryer, which was in the garage. Apparently someone had gnawed and eaten a hole from the crawl space (maybe) into the garage behind the oil boiler/furnace.
The crawl space (dirt floor) was home to family of skunks, too.
Yes, I had a critter farm in the city of Groton, CT.
I didn't feed Woody, my grass did.  (Or the skunks ate the mice/rats in the crawl space, as I was told by the Skunk Lady (via email).
One night we heard little baby skunks having a squealing match under the floor. (Not good) Those little fuckers could spray as bad as their parents. (It was totally impossible to sleep with that smell.)
So I bought bobcat urine. Yes, there was a hardware store that sold it. (Don't ask how they harvest it. I have no clue.)
You dip toothpicks and cotton balls in that urine and put them around the yard and crawl space.
They told me a bigger predator would make the skunks rethink living under my 100+ year old cottage. Maybe it would scare off Woody, too.
No chance of that.

Groundhogs in the Garden

Woodchucks or Groundhogs

Here are tips for identifying and getting rid of groundhogs or woodchucks.

(I have a more of this story in the chapbook BECOMING as Laramie Harlow)

Read more

Ah, the places I have lived | Drugstore Cowboy

PORTLAND OREGON

Way back in 1988, at least I think it was, the William S. Burroughs - Gus Van Sant film Drugstore Cowboy was filming in Portland Oregon and a friend of mine, Ray Monge, was in it. He brought actor Matt Dillon to my gift store to meet me and GUESS WHAT? I wasn't there that afternoon.

WHAT THE___!!! I was really messed up when Ray told me. But Matt and Kelly Lynch signed a publicity photo for me. And my photo was stored by a supposed-friend in Tillamook and I never saw it again. So that's my bad story for the day.

My first store was l'quix fix, when I was 30.  My last store was ZOOLOOZ in Old Town (located in the New Market Theatre) (1986-1990). I worked seven days a week back then. 

That makes me tired now.

Movie Clip: google DRUGSTORE COWBOY

Ah, the places that I lived" : Las Vegas 51s

VEGAS
When you live on Gipsy Avenue, you and your roomies have crazy parties and dress up. This party we were celebrating Mexico. I'm on the floor and Emily is right behind me. That girl was a party all by herself.
I remember MTV was brand new. I was mesmerized. I couldn't stop watching. Yes, that was in 1983, a very long time ago.
In Vegas, I got a temp job doing demo's for liquor candy - yup, fancy chocolate candy that had liquor in each piece. (This was not my first demo job) (Paid well)
Marty, back row left, and Jeff, center, were minor league semi-pro baseball players, recruited from Minneapolis to Vegas.  (On Sundays, Marty and Jeff had "pro-fun tours" in Minneapolis/St. Paul sports bars. I met Marty and Jeff when I sang in Tropic Zone.) Emily was from New Orleans.
Those were fun times.
The group of us went up to Mount Charleston Lodge often -  a very hip hangout with live music.

[The Las Vegas 51s, formerly known as the Las Vegas Stars, are a Minor League Baseball team of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Mets. They are located in Las Vegas, and are named for Area 51 which is located near Rachel, Nevada, about 80 miles north of Las Vegas. The team logo jokingly depicts one of the grey aliens thought by UFO believers to inhabit that base. They play at Cashman Field which has a capacity of 9,334 people. The 51s won the PCL championship as the Stars in 1986 and 1988.]

Spooky AREA 51

READ ABOUT BASEBALL THERE

ah, the places I have lived

brunette or blond (often) after I lived in NYC

MINNESOTA (then known as Tracy DeMeyer)

After Automatic disbanded in 1982, I joined Will Sumner's Tropic Zone in Minneapolis. My friend and roommate Charlie had recommended me and he was my agent who would eventually own and operate the Norshor nightclub in downtown Duluth which he renovated.
I packed up and moved to Minneapolis and moved in with a soundman Denny who worked at Prince's nightclub First Avenue. I did get to go there and hang out often...Denny toured the country with lots of big name rock bands.
First Avenue is most known from the Prince movie Purple Rain. It inspired the "Minneapolis music scene," a mix of funk, punk and alternative musics acts that hit national prominence in the 80's. Such acts as Prince, The Time, Vanity, Appollonia & Sheila E on the funk side. Husker Du, The Replacements, Soul Asylum, The Jayhawks & The Suburbs on the punk and alternative side.

I think First Avenue nightclub shut down eventually but I'm not sure.

History

Here's Tropic Zone performing after I was let go*... (soon after I moved out to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 1983.) Their new lead singer Ron McCray sounded just like Al Jarreau. I don't think any video exists of me singing with them but I did backup vocals on a new song they recorded at Minnesota Public Radio studios shortly after I left the band. Will told me I'd be back in the band if they ever made it big. (nice guy) (They were called latin-jazz and Brazilian Rock and famous in the Twin Cities but never nationally... Will moved out to CA and is still a musician there.)

*I was let go after Thanksgiving in 1982 after Ron sat in with us on a song. That my friends is the music business. It can kill you if you let it. I didn't get in another band after that: I was too broken. Friends told me I never should have joined Tropic Zone since it wasn't a good fit for my voice and singing. I agree. (maybe more later)

https://www.willsumner.com/

New Series: ah, the places I have lived

Let's say I have a checkered past. I lived in 12 states when I was a musician. Those moves were destined by what bands I joined (or auditioned for.)
Here is a photo from my time in Vegas. Yup, that Las Vegas, Sin City. I did audition for a few rock bands. I had an agent David Sailon. I didn't join any rock bands, way back in 1983. But I had professional photos taken for my portfolio.
Here is one:

I still have that kimono somewhere in my stuff.
The reason I went was Marty. He phoned me when I was in Jackson Hole and convinced me to move to Vegas and Gypsy Ave. where he and others had a house with a pool. Emily and I got into lots of trouble, ur, fun, when I arrived. Let's just say we won at a craps table and some Mormon guy thought we were hookers.