Kingsborough Community College Memories

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2021
Images from the Internet

Kingsborough Community College Memories

While I started this blog in 2008, the notebook in which it was handwritten was packed up when I moved. Recently I found the first draft, finishing it in June 2021. This is the first time it is being published.

Thanks to my being truant for my Sophomore year at Lafayette High School, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, due to bullying, I was granted a year-long Grade Point Average (GPA) of 47; that was the public school system’s “Scarlet Letter” notification that marked me as truant, as surely as if it were branded on my forehead. Due to this, my overall GPA when I graduated was 73. That is two points lower than most four-year CUNY (City University of New York) and SUNY (State University of New York) schools would accept. Brooklyn College turned me down flat, due to those two points. That is how I ended up attending Kingsborough Community College (KCC).

Campus then

Kingsborough was on the eastern peninsula tip of the same “island” that contained Brighton Beach in the center and Coney Island to the west, in a neighborhood called Oriental Beach (just past Manhattan Beach Park). It was an old military base, and was built as a series of bland barracks that were long, low, and squat buildings. Soon after I started attending the school, they started construction of the beautiful campus it is now. At the time, the parking lot was outside the school campus, about a quarter mile away; now it is on-campus. We were in classes through all the noise and, of course, the formation was completed the end of the semester after I graduated.

While I will not say that KCC was a party school back then, I will admit that drugs and alcohol were rampant, because in 1974, many who ended up in KCC were never expected to go any further in an educational facility. The college was full of early vestiges of the disco “Tony Manero” mentality, prog and what is now known as classic rockers, often wearing tee-shirts with the likes of Yes, Kansas, and especially CSNY, and having a contingent of heavy metal fans (in fact, the first time I heard “Stairway to Heaven” was on a jukebox in their annex cafeteria; I was a folkie, and was not impressed). While I was there, I was getting into Sparks’ Kimono My House, and just started seeing The Ramones and Talking Heads at CBGB in 1975, starting my immersion in the New York “punk” scene.

Towards the end of my freshman semester, I was playing 500 Rummy with the first pal I made there, Hoi Wan John Louis (I called him Louie; though I haven’t seen him since we graduated, we are still Facebook friends). We played the same game for two years and I eventually lost by a couple of thousand by the time the score had reached into the twenty- thousands (somewhere in a box, I still have the scoresheet). Louie and I were talking about how we did not want the space under our photos in the yearbook to be blank when we graduated, as I never got the yearbook in high school; technically, I graduated from a Junior class since I had to repeat my Sophomore year, which also meant no prom and no graduation ceremony; I was not heartbroken, so after some thought, I decided to join the school’s newspaper, The Scepter. It seemed like a good thing to have listed in the book.

On the following Thursday, I walked into The Scepter office, and explained my purpose to write for them to the first person I met, which was to hopefully do some film reviews; again, this is pre-seeing the Ramones, which developed my interest in music substantially. I was ushered into the high office of the Faculty Advisor, English professor John Manbeck. He remained there in that position until 1999, during which my Master’s school mate and good friend Thom Harkins also worked there while he attended KCC, and would go on to write the book, Woodstock FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Fabled Garden.

When I told Prof. Manbeck that I wanted to write for the paper, he asked in what position was I interested. I jokingly said, “Arts Editor,” knowing I was a novice writer. As soon as I said it, I realized that I was probably overstating my bounds, stepping on someone’s toes. One does not walk into a job and say, “I want my boss’s position.”

But Manbeck said, without missing a beat, “Editorial Board elections are on Tuesday, and we currently have no Arts Editor.” I put my name on the ballot, and after running unopposed, I started off as the head of an entire section of the paper, arguably the most read part; there was no deep political investigative reporting going on, and honestly, in my tenure, it was frowned upon by the administration. I did not realize the commitment it would take yet, nor the doors it would open for me.

This being pre-computers, the articles were placed into cold type. This meant that every line of text was made by huge machines that used melted lead to form it letter-by-letter (luckily, not by us). We received huge yellow proof sheets that we have to correct, and they would only make the revisions for misspellings. The linotypers were not going to retype everything for text changes.

The paper came out every three weeks, and the days before were long, getting ready for publication. We had to cut and paste on blue graph boards to give to the printer. And I learned layout the hard way. If I did something foolish like “tombstone” the headlines (two headlines that were side-by-side, making it confusing to read), Manbeck would correct me, after literally smacking me on the back of the head.

When the boards were all laid out, they were given to the printers, who made negatives, which were used to make metal plates, and then run off on newsprint. It was also this process that was used for issues four through fifteen of my fanzine, FFanzeen, which ran from 1977-’88. Learning how this procedure worked helped me understand how to create a newsprint publication. I used to create FFanzeen by using computer typesetting, which I learned to do myself, and it became a career for me in the late 1970s through late 1980s. Computerized layouts ended my profession, which was fine as it gave me a leg up on learning computer software.

While I was at The Scepter, it gave me the opportunity to see multiple films before they were released, and to see some exciting live performances and plays (such as Yentl with Tovah Feldshuh in the lead, and the one-man show Diversion and Delights with Vincent Price as Oscar Wilde). It also led me to interview the likes of Tom Petty (the article was eventually published in the first issue of FFanzeen), Marcel Marceau, Rod Steiger (promoting WC and Me), Lynyrd Skynyrd (pre-crash), the Mael Brothers (Sparks), Jim Dandy from Black Oak Arkansas, and Lady Flash, who were Barry Manilow’s back-up singers and had a solo album out; my regret is that I was kind of ignorant, and did not realize that the lead, Reparata, was from Reparata and the Delrons, or I would have chose a bunch of different questions. I also met Jack Nicholson, Jeff Bridges, Walter Matthau, George Burns, Jack Nietzsche, and Milos Foreman, among others at various screenings.

During my tenure at the paper, I did get into a heated argument with another English professor, whose name I will leave out here. He put together a theater production put on at KCC called The Bite of Irish Laughter. This was scenes from a bunch of Irish plays, such as The Importance of Being Earnest. The problem was most of it was done with the actors reading the scripts while stationary on the KCC stage. This took a lot of the humor away as body language was muted, and the audience was obviously both not prepared having never seen this style before, and seemed uncomfortable in the process. I mentioned this reaction in the review, titled “Readers’” Theater Strikes Out: The Bite of Irish Laughter. Apparently, I was the first to pan a production put on by a KCC professor, and he was not having it. He wrote an editorial (that was published) admonishing me, that I did not understand the process, nor that the audience reaction should be considered when discussing what is on the stage. I published my own editorial in the following issue, answering the complaint step-by-step. I became a bit infamous among the faculty for that. Luckily, I never had him as one of my professors, or I definitely would have failed that class. This taught me, however, to not be swayed by my not liking something that I am expected to enjoy, which I would carry over to FFanzeen, and to this day.

Campus now

Sadly, while I was there, one of my classmates, 22-year-old Kim Jarvis, was murdered on campus between classes by an ex-boyfriend. This made headline news in New York, including a write-up in The New York Times.  She was an English Major, but I knew her best as a DJ on the campus radio station, WKCC. While I did not really know her well, it was a shocking event for the entire campus.

Speaking of WKCC, I applied for a job as a DJ at the station, and the record they wanted me to introduce was a Tower of Power song that I was not familiar with (heck, I had never even heard of them before that), nor had any knowledge of the genre, and because of that I had no spiel to describe it. I stuttered and stammered, and naturally did not get the position. But then again, with the time I was spending at The Scepter, it was already affecting my study time, so it was probably best that happened the way it did.

There were two other campus organizations that I joined. One was a Jewish-based one that was pretty well disorganized, so that lasted less than a semester. The other was an Irish Catholic group, the Newman Club, because I had a mild and short-lived crush on one of the members. There was no future for a connexion as she had a rock-steady relationship with a jock who was a football player. A senior in high school, he was her younger man. But she was in my Sexual Health class, which we students referred to, in short hand, as “the Sex class.” One day she did not show up, so when I arrived at the Newman Club the next day, I said to her, “I missed having “Sex” with you yesterday,” referring to the class with absolutely no innuendo intended, and that’s exactly how she heard it; however, sitting next to her, unbeknownst to me, was that boyfriend. He heard it as literal, and took a lunge at me, held back by the other members (nearly all women). I smartly got the hell out of there. The next class she apologized, but I knew I had to leave the club, which I did.

One of the outcomes of my being a member of both the Newman Club and the Jewish groups is that I started to be hounded by the Jews for Jesus on the campus, believing that because I was in these two organizations, I must be of like mind with them. I was not.  Often while walking across campus, they would stop me and try to pressure me to join, or would leave flyers in my The Scepter mailbox. It came to a conclusion when I was invited to an on-campus showing of a ridiculous and cringy heavy-Christian rip-off of The Exorcist called The Enemy (starring Judith Ivey in her very first film!). Even if I was a believer, it was a really bad film; and I slammed it in my review. Rightfully harshly. They stopped bothering me after that.

Don Imus

I had a Sociology professor who was young and cool, who taught me some things that I still remember now, such as that trends tend to start in the poorer demographics, then get copied by the rich demographic trying to appear “cool,” and then by the Middle Class, who are emulating the rich, with the goal to also fit in.

But her claim to fame was when she brought Don Imus (d. 2019) to perform/talk in the auditorium. It was going to go out over the radio (again, WKCC), so she asked him not to curse because they could lose their licence. Since he was a radio DJ himself, he said he understood and agreed to it. He came onto stage to great applause and a full house. There were two microphones taped together in the center of the stage. As he strode up and said hello, he asked, which one was for the radio. Someone told him, and he leaned over it and said, “Fuck all of you.” He then continued on a long, profanity-filled bit which got a positive reaction from the crowd, but you could see the panic on the faces of the administrators, and especially on the Sociology professor, as Imus was her responsibility. Honestly, I never forgave him for destroying that trust. Luckily, at that time, the range of the radio station was essentially two blocks past the front gates, so it went unheard by the FCC. The professor received a reprimand, but was not fired. She was also subdued for the rest of the class.

Towards the end of my tenure at the paper, I received a service award from the College for my contributions, which included a third of the paper. Even my dust-up with the English professor did not stand in the way. However, my grades had started to slip; because I spent so much time at The Scepter and going to free films and theater, I had less time to study. In my last semester, I cut back my non-scholastic extra-curricular activities. I buckled down, and was placed on the Dean’s List. I graduated from KCC in February 1976.

From there, I went to Queens College; Brooklyn College accepted me, but since they turned me down the first time, now it was my turn to do the same. I graduated Queens in 1979. From 1991 until 1994, while working full time, I went to New York University where I aced a Master’s degree in Media Ecology (media theory). For a guy who was truant in high school and graduated with a 73 GPA, I think I exonerated myself and did pretty well.

Vanity Plate No. 5: Queens College and Newsbeat

Introductory piece © Robert Barry Francos, 2012
Main body text and photo by Mark Spector, in Queens College’s Newsbeat newspaper, 1977

For a year and a half in the mid-1970s, I was Arts Editor of the Kingsborough Community College newspaper, The Scepter. In fact, I joined on a Thursday and was elected to the position on the following Tuesday. When I graduated, I figured I would continue the trend and write for one of the newspapers at Queens College, since my work at KCC was such a positive experience, but found it to be a very tricky and painful at Queens, due to their cliquish nature (I have learned since that this is more common than not). First I tried the Phoenix, and wrote two dozen pieces for them, of which they used, in total, one paragraph. After hearing them talk about me when they thought I wasn’t there about how I wouldn’t write about disco so what was the point of my existence, I went next door to the other, competing major on campus paper, Newsbeat. I tried the same tactic of writing first and hoping they would print me, and managed to get about a dozen pieces published, such as LP reviews of Blondie’s first album on Private Stock, Loretta Lynn’s Somebody Somewhere, and Tanya Tucker’s Here’s Some Love. One day the editor, R___ R___, said that he had enough writers (who were his friends), thanked me for my time, and said buh-bye.

This is when I started FFanzeen. I figured, if I couldn’t get anyone else to publish my stuff, I would do it myself. And I did, starting out as a 15-page one-sided ‘zine (though it would become much larger and more professionally printed as the years progressed). I was already somewhat well-known across campus for various reasons, one being I was one of only two people who knew anything about the punk rock scene at Queens; the other was a die-hard Ramones fan, but he was more metal oriented. Another reason was my kicking in the door of the radio station, but that’s a tale for another blog.

The ‘zine and my limited notoriety led to someone from Newsbeat informing me that his editor (the same one who canned me) wanted an article about me and my publication. From the beginning, as he interviewed me in the school’s teacher’s cafeteria (where he also took the photo, above), it was clear that this writer had no interest at all in either me or what I was about, and took as many snarky jabs as he could. He also got a lot of the information wrong, which I will currently comment on via [brackets]. It should be noted for clarity that at the time, the term “new wave” was being used to describe the New York Underground scene, and “punk rock” was the British contribution.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that we were so young then (you never realize it at the time), and therefore had enormous chips on our shoulders. I said some things I look back and feel squeamish about, too. Now, I actually smile when I read this, despite the tone from either of us. We were just in two parallel worlds occupying the same time frame.

At this point I should point out that I did shortly become Arts Editor of a Queens College newspaper, The Globe, which was focused on the Third World politics (many on the paper were Marxists and revolutionaries).

Please note that there is a follow-up to this story at the end of the article! – RBF, 2012

FFanzeen - New Mag for New Wave Rock
By Mark Spector, July 26, 1977

What do you do when the editors of college newspapers frustrate your attempts to publish esoteric reviews of “new wave” Rock and Roll? Well, if you’re Robert Barry Francos, you publish your own magazine and hope somebody buys it.

The first issue of FFanzeen, which sells for $1 at the [campus] record co-op and some record stores in the Village, features interviews with Tom Petty, Blue Ocean [sic], and – are you ready for this – the Cramps. Never heard of any of them? They all have a following that comes to see them regularly whenever they play CBGBs, and Max’s Kansas City.

Francos looks like your typical burnt-out freak who’s trying to keep his brains functioning after taking one hit of acid too many [his insinuation of my drug taking (not something of interest to me before or after his pronouncement) was because I was so naturally thin, at 115 lbs. My aunt cried when she read this part, dude]. His short, skinny frame is clothed with torn jeans held together by safety pins [never have I worn safety pins to hold my clothes together in my life; however, I did occasionally wear a huge laundry pin in my jacket lapel in 1979 after Sid died in his honor] and a Roxy Music tee shirt. In last Thursday’s 104 degree temperature, he was the only person on campus wearing a dungaree jacket. Holes on the sleeves, underarms, and back provided the air conditioning.

But in spite of his appearance, Francos is not heavily into drugs [heavily?!]. In fact, his disfavor for most of today’s popular bands revolves around their appeal to drugged audiences. “Hard rock is for potheads,” he says. “I’m not a heavy pothead” [what I said was, “I am not a pothead”]. He describes new wave music as just basic rock and roll. “If you strip rock to its barest commodities, rip it to its guts, you’ll have new wave.”

Francos first became interested in new wave music, or “punk rock” as it’s sometimes called, in the summer of 1975 while hanging out at CBGBs. The people sitting at the table next to him got up, plugged in their instruments, and started to play. That group was Talking Head [sic]. After they finished, four guys got up and did the same thing. They were the Ramones.

Since then, Francos has amassed a huge collection of albums and singles by groups like Blondie, the Ramones, the Dictators, Sex Pistol [sic], etc. He recites the lyrics with the same enthusiasm and feeling with which teenie boppers in the 60’s [sic] recited Beatle lyrics. But these lyrics are definitely nothing like what would come from the McCartney-Lennon song factory. For instance, one song on the Dictators’ new album goes: “I’d rather slash my wrists / Cut my throat/ Than have to spend a night with you.” [Not only did he get the name of the band wrong – yes, I knew it was Tuff Darts and told him so – but he got the lyrics partially wrong, as well; and as for the “Lennon-McCartney song factory,” what about “Run For Your Life”?] Like any avid fan, Francos knows the meaning of the song and which groupie it’s dedicated to [sic].

Also, like any fan of anything, Francos knows the complete history of the music he loves. New wave music had its roots in England [I said no such thing; it started in New York City and was adapted in the U.K.] where it was known as punk or “dole rock.” Dole is the British equivalent of welfare and most of the original purveyors of punk rock were on the Dole [Under Margaret Thatcher’s government, a large percentage of youth were on the dole, not just punkers].

Punk rock came to America when Richard Hell (that’s right) and Tom Verlaine approached the owner of a small country blues place in the Village and asked him, “Why don’t you showcase rock and roll?” Hilly Kristal liked the idea and changed the name of his club from Hilly’s to CBGBs. Hell and Verlaine were in a group called Television and that became the first group to play at CBGBs. They were followed by Patty Smith [sic], the Ramones, Talking Head [sic], and Blondie.

As punk rock became popular in New York, the record companies came down. The New York Dolls became the first American Punk Rock band to record [years before the opening of CBGBs, Mark]. Neither of their two albums sold very well. The next group to record was Patty Smith [sic] and Francos is certain to point out that she quickly “rose above the new wave.” He explains that many of her followers from the CBGBs days still consider her new wave, but musically she leans toward jazz-rock.

The Dictators’ first album, Girl Crazy [sic], sold only 6,000 copies but their second album, Manifest Destiny, is doing better. Francos insists that “they’re both great albums.” Other new wave bands to record include Television, Talking Head [sic], and the Ramones. “Glitter rock was dying,” Francos observed. “The only thing that was coming out was disco and a lot of people hated disco.”

Francos insists that there is a strong difference between punk rock in Great Britain and what he calls new wave rock in the United States. “In new wave music, the violence lies in the music and the lyrics,” he says. “In British punk rock the groups get physically violent on stage.” English punk rockers are not afraid to throw beer bottles across the nightclub or at each other while on stage. One girl performs with a safety pin through her pierced cheek [I don’t know who he was talking about, and it didn’t come from me].

But still this music is popular. Recently, Sex Pistols released a song called “God Save the Queen.” With lyrics like “God save the Queen / And her fascist regime / She made you all morons / potential H-bombs,” the song was quickly banned from the radio. However, that didn’t stop the song form rising to the top of the British charts.
While Francos was developing his taste for new wave music, disco was becoming popular, and college newspapers refused to print his stuff. At Kingsborough Community College he was restricted to writing movie reviews and he claims that when he came to Queens, neither Newsbeat nor Phoenix would print his material. “When they did,” he charged,” they butchered it up to the point that I couldn’t recognize it as my own.” So, Francos became publisher, editor-in-chief, layout man, photographer, and the only writer for FFanzeen [that was mostly true for the first issue]. “I just figured that if nobody will publish me, I’ll publish myself.”

FFanzeen is a standard fanzine style publication. It consists of 15 mimeographed pages held together by a staple in the upper left-hand corner. Francos hopes to come out every other month and expects to have a larger staff for the next issue. Friends in Boston, Buffalo, California, and Long Island have all offered to write for him.

In the meanwhile, though, Francos has no trouble filing the magazine himself. Getting interviews is easy. “Most of the performers,” he points out, “don’t even take their music seriously. They’re just out to have a good time and they’re easy to talk to [what I actually said was that many bands are more interested in having fun that being considered serious artists].” Francos pointed out that the Ramones still live with their parents in Forest Hills. “The Dictators have a song – ‘(I Live} For Cars and Girls’ [sic]. That says it best.”

Publishing your own magazine can be a big move and if you’re successful you could make a lot of money. Francos’ ambitions are simple. “I’m giving myself five years to buy the Playboy Mansion, kick Barbie Benton out, and replace her with someone else who looks decent” [while I don’t remember saying that last bit, and am a bit embarrassed by it in hindsight, it is a period piece from when I was very, very young…].

2011 Follow-up
As I was preparing this, I managed to find Mark on Facebook, and we had a pleasant exchange about the whole thing. He now runs his own advertising company as a marketing consultant, copywriter, and creative consultant at markspectorwrites.com. There were no hard feelings from either of us, and he seems to have turned out to be an okay guy.

When approached about my reprinting the above, Mark wrote:

Well, Robert,
I'm glad you didn't let that antagonistic and condescending jerk discourage you. It sounds like you had a nice run and a lot of fun with FFanzeen and continue to do so. Very glad to see that! I have no tear sheets (and very few memories) from that period. Though a (big) part of me dreads coming face to face with Mark Spector 1977, none of us are the same people we were back then and hopefully I, like you, can put it in context. I've long since learned to be less full of myself. And congrats on the success and fun you've had with FFanzeen.
Best,
Mark

Bad Interviews: Lynyrd Skynyrd and Sparks

Text © Robert Barry Francos
Images from the Internet

While Arts editor at my college paper at Kingsborough Community College during early ‘70s, named The Scepter, I have had the opportunity to meet and interview some people who were dreams to interview, and others not as much. Admittedly, sometimes it was my own fault, others not. While I am still glad to have had these experiences, I sometimes look back and think, “Oh, crap.”

One example was a 1976 press conference with Ronnie van Zandt and other members of Lynyrd Skynyrd (supposedly named after Leonard Skinner, their high school teacher who hated them, but I secretly harbor the image that it was actually Leonard Skinner, the kid who got ptomaine poisoning after dinner on Alan Sherman’s “Hello Mudda, Hello Faddah”), who were publicizing their new album, Gimme Back My Bullets (I still have my autographed copy).

Being a college newspaper press conference, we walking into the small interview room at the record label, and Skynyrd came in shortly afterwards, and sat at a long table in front. They were being genial and drinking more Jack D. than I had ever seen before. And yet, they remained coherent through the whole jaunty interchange. I have to admit that I was still deep in the learning stage when it came to music – perhaps even way behind. J.J. Cale wrote one of the album’s songs, “I Got the Same Old Blues.” In my ignorance, I asked a question about it, mistakenly referring to “John” Cale. Ronnie rightfully corrected me quite pointedly and I was very embarrassed. After that experience, I started to do my homework on the bands and the people I was interviewing, whether I was a fan or not.

Being knowledgeable and a fan did not always help, though. I’d enjoyed the work of Russell and Ron Mael, the core of the band Sparks, from the time I had seen them on one of the Friday night concert-type series that proliferated the television airwaves in the early to middle 1970s.

Given the opportunity to interview them at the Essex House hotel in New York, (where they were touring to publicize their new Indiscreet album), across the street from Central Park, I showed up both on time and informed, with an assigned Scepter photographer, Mike Cohen. Mike was a jazz hound and did not have much interest in rock. It was a late Friday afternoon and, unknown to us, we were the last interview the Mael brothers were to give before the concert the next night, after an entire week of publicizing and meeting reporters. And they were exhausted.

I walked into their suite with Mike, quite enthusiastic and definitely up, sitting across from two musicians who meant something to me, which was quite the change from most of the bands I had been interviewing. Wanting to start on a high note, I asked a detailed question that was to convey both that I was a fan, and also knowledgeable about their music. The response I received from Ron was, basically, “Uh hunh.”

It didn’t get much deeper than that from then on. Lead singer Russell didn’t talk much at all, trying to save his voice for the concert as he sucked on some tea. Ron did most of the answering, such as it was. But after a week of answering questions by other larger press, they were shot and just did not want to deal anymore. The bottom line was they just wanted us out of there, and I was too zealous to notice.

Not making the situation any easier for anyone, I would occasionally turn to look at Mike in desperation and perspiration, and whenever I caught his eye, he would silently mouth, “He looks like Hitler!” (referring to Ron’s Chaplin-esque mustache). I was crushed.

A week later, when the publicity machine filled me in how we were the last in a long list, I understood, and never held it against the band (besides, I took the opportunity to see them live at Lincoln Center, with the revamped san Ian Hunter – and terrible – Mott). People in the public eye do not realize that while being interviewed is hard, interviewing is also hard. Sparks were tough, but I still managed to get in 40 minutes of questions. Poor boys. But I still have my autographed 8x10.