Fifth Ave Cinema 1976-1977

I managed and helped with booking at the Fifth Avenue Cinema in Portland, OR. The theater was a two screener owned by Moyer Theaters. We showed art films and competed with the Portland Movie House. My staff was great and I can find some references to support this claim. I brought the Werner Herzog films to the Fifth Avenue. We had the midnight movies every Friday and Saturday with KGON FM for 92 cents. The radio station FM frequency is at 92. Again - name and dial reinforcement for Arbitron ratings. Each weekend my staff rallied to support me against 400 drunk and stoned patrons. After all it was midnight on weekends in a town that did not offer much to do for those under 21. We were the show! My first midnight movie was Pink Floyd at Pompeii. Sold out and turned away another 200 patrons. We used one print for two auditoriums and I had just learned the process of running the film in sync. I started the film and it broke. Oh no! I was scared. I spliced the film together and pushed the correct switch. I figured it out.

We had great runs with Bertolucci's 1900, Kentucky Fried Movie, Pretty Baby, Eraserhead, The Marquise Of O, and Desperate Living. We had a not so great run of the Rocky Horror Picture show. One great midnight show and the Clinton Street picked it up and held on to it for 200 years or so. John Cassavetes came there for A Woman Under The Influence and Joan Rivers for her film called Rabbit Test, Darcelle for Mae West's last film Sextette. The theater had great tunnel vision. And we showed that too -Tunnel Vision. You don't want to know. We had a great Christmas run with the French film The Toy. As evidenced by the promotion we did with KINK FM. We collected toys at the galleria for kids and gave tickets away in exchange.

The Film Committee at Portland State University 1975

I was a member of the Film Committee at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. This was around my attendance at PSU - 1975 through 1976. Film was a mission that I latched on to. Independent film was making waves across the country. I happened on the films of Jean- Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Louis Malle, Claude Chabrol from France, Akira Kurosawa from Japan, Ousmane Sembene from Sengal,  Satyajit Ray from India and from Germany- R.W. Fassbinder and Werner Herzog.  The Film Board pioneered the release of John Cassavetes' films in the Portland market- A Woman Under The Influence, Faces and Husbands and Wives.

The Film Committee presented A Woman Under The Influence for its first public showing, along with other pioneering films - Distant Thunder, Every Man For Himself, God Against All (The Story of Kaspar Hauser), and a tribute to the French New Wave. The French New Wave series was followed by a series tribute to French filmmaker Louis Malle. 

Each quarter the chair of the Film Board rotated to a different member. Upon my ascendancy I launched an ambitious tribute to the then current filmmakers of Germany; Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders and Volker Schlondorff. Many of these films were new releases and had yet to play in venues outside of New York City. Fassbinder made two or three films per year and had accumulated about 12 movies by that time. Their styles were different, they were bold and their films challenged the viewer. 

The German New Wave series included Ali:Fear Eats The Soul, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Beware Of A Holy Whore, and Effi Briest - all by Fassbinder. Even Dwarfs Started Small, Signs of Life, Fata Morgana, Land of Silence and Darkness and The Great Ecstasy of Walter Steiner by Werner Herzog. Kings of The Road, The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick, Alice In The Cities, Summer In The City and The Wrong Move by Wim Wenders. 

My efforts in booking and publicizing this series led to commercial runs for these filmmakers earlier and subsequent films in Portland and Seattle. Most of these films were leased from New Yorker Films, which sadly and recently, went out of business. 

My inspiration and passion was ignited by Andries Deinum. Andries taught film appreciation at PSU. He was engaging and challenging. He screened us Joris Ivens, Eisenstein, Kurosawa, Bresson, and his favorite Yasujiro Ozu. Andries had a lot of passion for film and we carried that passion on through the Film Committee.

WYSO FM Yellow Springs Ohio 1970 to 1972

It was 1970 that I started as an on-air announcer for the non-commercial FM radio station WYSO. The radio station was largely funded by Antioch College, a private liberal arts college. This six hours of excitement was titled The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show and I had it free and clear, weekend after weekend.  No college student was going to get up early to do radio show on a Saturday morning.  I insured my time slot because I was also the engineer for the Metropolitan Opera. The Met was on every Saturday at 2PM. In 1970 there was no radio station located in southwest Ohio that played rock and roll. So I mixed in the latest releases with a mixture of blues, country, bluegrass, some folk and occasional electronic music. 

My volunteer work at the station included audio production. The station staff taught me how to produce audio documentaries. We used reel-to-reel tape and edited with a razor blade. I helped out with the station marathons. Our pitch to raise money to cover the budget that the college could not cover. The station was 750 watts in Mono when we I started and eventually went to some 6000 watts stereo. That was a big deal!

The Grateful Dead sent us tapes of live shows to raise money for the station. Rod Serling was an Antioch alum. He called in to read one of his stories for donations. John Fahey came by the station one Saturday morning. That was the first time that I met him. He performed live and left the station copies of his albums, along with albums by Leo Kottke and Peter Lang. 

It was a fun time. I was still in high school while I was doing all of this. Poco played an outdoor show on campus because Richie Furay was from Yellow Springs, Ohio. The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return To Forever each did shows in the campus auditorium. It is just all memories now.