It was the fall of 1989. Senior year in high school.
A really weird thing had happened earlier in the year at the tail end of my junior year. I always had lunch with Greg, Charger, Chris, Pat, Craig, Des, Karl and some others on the stage in the quad. They were all a year behind me in school.
It was kinda strange. All my really close friends were either a year ahead of me or a year behind me in school. Of course I had friends in my own grade. Good friends, but the people I connected with the most were slightly older or younger than me.
One day at lunch, word got out that the elections for student government were going to be happening soon. The lunch gang started joking around about some of us running. At the time I like to recount the story of how Joe Walsh had run for VPOTUS in the past... not a post you run for! I don't exactly recall who suggested it, but the idea was floated that I should run for Senior Class Vice President... like Joe Walsh!
I went to a typical South Bay valley high school. A slightly less stereotypical John Hughes kinda high school. The student council was made up of the super students and the popular kids. I fit into the former category as I was one of the better students in my class, but I definitely wasn't one of the latter.
I wasn't an unpopular kid. Nor was I a popular kid. My friends and I were socially fluid weirdos. Our little group just kind of fit in anywhere, but were perfectly content to spend our time reciting Monty Python skits while making fun of the football team and listening to Slayer.
What the hell? I'll run for Senior Class Vice-president! I'll make a humorous mockery of the whole affair!
I print up a bunch of 11x17 flyers that say in GIANT LETTERS....
JOHN CLEESE IS LARGE!
vote for krk for senior vice president
The call to vote for me was tiny! I put them all over school. In classrooms. On poles around the school. It was so so so so silly.
Election day came to Leigh High School. I cast my ballot for my class reps. I didn't even vote for myself, thinking I should vote for the person who was taking this all far more seriously than I was. I was a joker, but I wasn't an idiot.
Well.... I won. Really? Yes. I won with my joke of a campaign which consisted entirely of a comment on the relatively large stature of one of my heroes from Monty Python.
Well, that was unexpected! I was certain that Jenn, a very well liked and very likable person, who took the whole thing seriously would walk away with the vote.
But, since I'd won, I was going to take the responsibility seriously. During my senior year, I would go to all the meetings and perform my assigned duties. I even started a recycling program with Alan.
Mr. Wilson was our student adviser. I had a free period senior year where I would work with Alan and Mr. Wilson on student council related stuff. I confused the crap out of Mr. Wilson. I was very near the top of my class academically. I spoke French, a touch of German and understood Latin. I was formerly the second best swimmer on our varsity swim team. Leif was very measurably and obviously better than I was. I was active in a bunch of student organizations, but I had really long hair and a super long goatee that year. I didn't fit the mold he was used to.
I helped organize the senior ball. Mr. Wilson asked me once who my date was for the ball and he was perplexed and a little angry when I informed him I was going to a Primus show that night instead of the ball. But but but.... I was student leadership and needed to be present! Fuck that! Primus was playing and I had no interest in renting a tux and going through everything that going to a senior ball entailed. Nope. Goofy music about fishing and a mosh pit!
As a result of my time on student council, I would spend a lot of time with Alan. An amazing student. Good guy. Politically active. We all assumed he'd be a Senator some day. We assumed the same of Natalie as well!
Anyway!
Alan, knowing my taste for the more experimental and cutting edge music of the time, had discovered this band called Psychefunkapus who had a song called "Jesus Crispies" that he really liked, a hyper active ska influenced song.
I fell in love with it! Bought the CD of their self-titled album. I saw that they were playing The Stone in San Francsico. One of my favorite clubs!
I was hanging out with my friend Heidi a lot at this point and dragged her to the show with me. We drive up to San Francisco. Struggle with the whole finding a place to park in San Francisco conundrum and then make our way into the club.
Oh! Psychefunkapus has two singers! Gene and Manny! Atom and Paul make for a mighty rhythm section and Jonnie is an amazing guitarist. The show is super high energy. Super fun and a little funny.
Yes! I found a new thing! I had no idea at this show how many times I would see them over the next 4 years or that these 5 guys would become lifelong friends.
I approach Gene at the end of the show and gush about how much I loved it. We chat for a while and I throw out the bald faced lie that I write for an indie rag in San Jose. He gives me their manager's information.
I call their manager the next week. He says they have a show at the Cactus Club in San Jose a week or so later and that I could do an interview with the band and bring my camera in.
I go to the show. This was the first time I got to see a soundcheck by a band signed to a major label. Atom sat down with me for like twenty minutes and answered my amateur questions for an audience of exactly no one. He's great to chat with and super friendly to a stupid kid like me.
After the interview he introduces me to the rest of the band. Everyone is super cool and very nice to this kid with the imaginary underground music magazine.
The show is, of course, fantastic. This was my first time shooting a band live. I was taking photography at school at the time, so I got to learn a lot about how not only how to shoot a band live, but how to deal with the hectic lighting conditions of a club in the dark room.
A couple weeks after that! I'd show up at a load in for one of their shows with a giant stack of prints for the band. They put me on the list for the show and let me bring in the camera again.
This cycle continued for basically 4 years, but I got to know the guys really well. Whenever I'm in San Francisco these days I always try to get together with whoever is around; usually Jonnie or Atom. And, on occasion, I'll run into Eugene in Portland.
I can't tell you how many times I saw Psychefunkapus between 1989 and about 1993, but it was A LOT. So many good shows. Made some really good friends and cut my teeth as a band photographer with them. I even got to meet Jerry Harrison and Bernie Worrell because of them.
So Jonnie Axtell, Atom Ellis, José Manuel Martínez Curét, Eugene James Den Daas, and Paul Johnson, thanks for the friendship, good times, and dozens of great musical experiences!
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