John Frost Profile picture
Dec 21, 2019 13 tweets 3 min read
Apparently I sleep walked through 1984 when I was, checks notes, a high schooler in Portland OR. Why didn't some one drag me to see 'Stop Making Sense' the Talking Heads concert film by Jonathan Demme. Pretty sure it would have changed my life.
Maybe it's more obvious now that David Byrne is a musical genius, but I was into music then. I think I would have picked up what he was putting down. Add to that the creative construction of the concert & Demme's cinematographic language. I'm sure I would have found ...
... a foundation for my own inspiration. I do have my own deeper, darker story to tell. It was about this time I met Michael Backman. You may have read about him in 1999 when Newsweek reported on the con-man who went back to his old high school to reboot his life.
I was in choir with and a friend of Michael's during his trip through the halls of US Grant High School in Portland, Or. We talked in school, i sometimes picked him up or dropped him off at home after a choir concert.
We were ambitious for choir kids, but we were in Portland in the mid 80s. It was the environment that produced Tonya Harding but also Katherine Dunn's 'Geek Love' and "Drugstore Cowboy" a Gus Van Sant movie filmed in town. It felt like something was happening and we wanted in.
That idea was Y.E.S. short for Youth Entertainment Shows. The idea was we would start a production company to hold concerts and recruit talented local kids to be the opening act. They would get a chance at being discovered, we would get rich.
I don't think the original idea was Michael's, but he ran with it. He held meetings in the private dining room at Yaws - a local restaurant (now the site of a McDonald's) where we went over business plans, budgets & ideas over milkshakes. In our youth it all seemed very doable
I think Michael really felt this was his ticket to the next level. But around the sixth meeting the cracks in his reality began to show. We needed seed funding and Michael promised it would come in the form of a check from his aunt... you guessed it Diana Ross.
It took another meeting or so of milkshakes and planning at Yaws, but eventually we figured out Y.E.S. was a mirage. As far as I know, Micheal hadn't swindled anyone this time. No money was asked for or received. His first(?) long con fell apart before it got to that stage.
Unfortunately, he got better at the con and worse at being trustworthy. I do still wonder if the idea of Y.E.S. could have worked with the right creative support. The All-New Mickey Mouse Club debuted a few years later and from that came many stars of the 90s.
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More from @JohnFrost

Jul 22, 2020
I believe any 18+ resident in the US should be able to get a job that pays the prevailing living wage of their community (formula below) that includes healthcare and education reimbursement. This will help move people off unemployment and out 1/
of poverty. It will also end corporate welfare, as companies won't be able to get away with paying starvation wages that leave their workers relying on food stamps or homeless. This is the promise of America and it should be enshrined in law. Call it the new WPA, 2/
infrastructure army, or conservation corps, there is plenty of work for the foreseeable future. It's a Jobs Promise. Are you willing and able to work, society will take care of you and your family. Are you willing, but unable to work for legitimate reasons, we will take care 3/
Read 9 tweets
Mar 18, 2020
I know it looks bleak right now, but for one moment let's look toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Time travel is usually not possible, but we have a rare opportunity to see our possible future by examining how other countries faced off against COVID-19. 1/x
There were a variety of strategies and measures of success and failure containing, then mitigating, and lastly self-isolating against Coronavirus. The human toll is already horrible and likely will get worse before it gets better. But it will get better. 2/x
We're no longer talking weeks and it's probably a bit optimistic to think we'll be done in even a few months. But whether we succeed by flattening the curve enough that our healthcare system can be strengthened and cope with the onslaught of COVID-19 cases 3/x
Read 12 tweets
Jun 12, 2018
As a relatively new convert to being a plant-based eater (aka a #vegan) I'll admit I've been dragging my feet in the final step of conversion - vegan wines and beer. But I'm now only buying wines that don't use animal products.
This led to my first interesting encounter with a Sommelier this weekend. It was a BYOB affair with no corkage fee (nice!). On short notice the only vegan wine I could find was a Kaiken Malbec. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, ...
... but the restaurant featured Italian cooking with chefs and staff from Italy, including the above mentioned Sommelier. He tried his best to be polite, but I could tell he was offended I brought an Argentinian wine into his establishment.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 17, 2018
24 years ago today the Northridge #earthquake (actually 2 near simultaneous 6.9 quakes) caused death & severe damage across Southern California. I lived in Burbank at the time and clearly recall feeling powerless against the forces of nature. #northridge
There's little warning for a quake (just enough to duck under a desk if you have a warning system like they do in Japan) and the damage is done almost all at once. So we establish tougher building codes, do drills, and train first responders.
Earthquakes like the Northridge quake are the result of pressure building up in fault lines that run all through Southern California and pretty much every where else in the world. (Even here in Florida, there's a huge fault just off the coast.)
Read 11 tweets

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