Spirit of '76 at The End Unit and a Drive-By Disco Party

In past posts, I've waxed poetic about how the madness at 401 Pritchard Avenue kept the Pink House vibe alive, after Jay M. moved in and stayed for eight years. Well, it's now been six years since Mr. Murray left town, and we miss him. But for the past couple of summers, former 401 residents Ellie and Neill have been doing their own part to maintain a relaxed living environment at their Carrboro crib, affectionately known to visitors as "The End Unit."

Party starters at The End Unit, May 2011. Photo by DJ Old-Time Granny.

So it should come as no surprise that as the twentieth anniversary approached of when our original Pink House lease began (8/1/91), they would be hosting a movie nite at their place curated by yours truly. Utilizing the new indoor screening room that just got rolled out within the past week, in part to cope with the ongoing oppressive temperatures of the Great Heat Dome of 2011. And a new, giant wall-sized screen devised by Neill and unveiled for the first-ever time that night!


The consensus flick turned out to be The Spirit of '76, which I first discovered sitting on the living room couch at a Pink House movie nite back in the day. But this latest showing didn't get underway without much haggling and vote-trading in favor of other contenders (since it's safe to say every audience member in attendance was a certified film freak, with Claudio getting special props becuz it turns out he used to host a long-running outdoor movie series in his backyard on Lindsay Street, showing 75 flicks in all). Including another Chez Pink fave, Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, plus Lost City classics like Psych-Out ("Taste a Moment of Madness! Listen to the Sound of Red!") and Over The Edge, and a very recent discovery, I Was A Teen-Age Zombie, which I think sat on our dollar rental shelf for years, although it should have been a store favorite. Based only on the short clips I've seen so far of the Weed-Man ripping some dude's face off, once he's been turned into a zombie by the toxic lake that he was either pushed or fell into when he wouldn't give kids back their "monies" for a refund on the bad "marah-jahooby" he sold them.

Anyway, Spirit of '76 didn’t disappoint, as Leif Garrett aka Eddie Trojan put some kung fu fighting on the CIA so he could get back to "hustling" with Olivia D'Abo, "Downtown" Julie Brown dropped knowledge on Heinz 57 about how Watergate really started with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and Adam 11 aka David Cassidy learned about Tang and all the other good stuff the astronauts did for mankind from Chris Johnson and Tommy Sears, aka Jeff and Steve McDonald from Redd Kross, the coolest kids ever to rock a pair of banana bikes. As our time-traveling heroes made it back safely with the cultural knowledge they'd gathered and turned the bleak future of 2176 into a sunny disco paradise, the credits rolled, leaving us cheering and getting our couch boogie on.

At which point we were spotted by other revelers from the street who decided to come join the fun. Starring frequent 401 traveler and Fly Five sista Alexis (who beat out like, 500 other costumed kids with her amazing sea algae outfit to take home the title of costume contest queen the night before), and her friend Jason, who was celebrating his birthday, plus his whole birthday crew. They were actually politely waiting out in the parking lot for the movie to finish, but busted in immediately after it ended, just like emissaries from a future dancefloor!

Alexis rockin' a past costume contest-winning outfit at 401 Pritchard, May 2004

Then a drive-by disco party erupted, kickin' off with Bobby Thurston's "You Got What It Takes" (a Francois K mix), followed by Suzy Q reminding us to "Get On Up" (during which Jason showcased his mad breakdancing and shoes-on-the-hands air moonwalking skills), continuing on and on via some Trammps and Debbie Jacobs, with Ellie serving up a healthy mix of Sylvia Stripland's "You Can't Turn Me Away" and other Roy Ayers productions sprinkled throughout, and climaxing with the epic 10-minute Alkebu-centric opus known as "The Crown," music by Stevie Wonder mixed with knowledge by Gary Byrd, aka "Professor of the Rap," which Neill found recently in Raleigh. Ellie and Alexis were both Dancefloor MVPs, as they made sure the whole joint was jumpin'.


We were also belatedly celebrating Ellie and Neill's 3rd wedding anniversary, and counting up various cosmic coincidences that kept occurring, so it's fitting there turned out to be three total that evening, the third undocumented until now. That being how the drive-by dance party extended the entire movie nite until well past the midnight hour, so we were all jamming and singing along to "The Crown" exactly twenty years after the modern Pink House era officially began. A "toad-ally awesome," unplanned bonus anniversary jam.

End of a WXYC Era: Thirty Years' Worth of Posters Gone

On this beautiful late spring evening, Ellie and Neill invited me to the opening of an exhibit at the old Chapel Hill Museum on Franklin Street that featured an installation they did in conjunction with their Abbey Court Community Project.

While hanging out there and enjoying the art, some dude came in all wild-eyed, and spread the word that the following Monday, thirty years' worth of posters that had graced the walls of WXYC were going to be torn down. In contrast to WXDU's studios at Duke, which for years have looked like a dingy dump with boring, barren decor, nearly every inch of the walls, windows, doors and even ceilings within WXYC's space in the Student Union were covered with posters, stickers, photos, clippings, and other memorabilia of the station's long history.

The story was apparently that the wing of the Union where the studios had been located since the early 80s was finally being renovated, and to bring it up to fire code all the posters and artifacts had to be removed.

I went home, grabbed my camera, and drove up to campus. Somebody let me into the Union, and then the station, where I hadn't set foot in nearly fifteen years.

Possibly the last time before that I was up there was when N'Gai and myself were guests on a show John Svara was doing circa '97 or '98, which we burst in on after hearing him on the radio and figuring it would be fun to stop by and say hi. He let us pick out tracks for the rest of the night, and it was a legendary broadcast. I should have imposed on Jay to let me crash his show a few times during the dozen plus years he was on air from the early 90s until 2005, but I never wanted to disrupt his sonic art. Jay recorded almost every one of his shows on hundreds of cassette tapes, and it would be great to hear them if he ever gets around to digitizing some.

XYC was a major influence on life at the Pink House, and not just because of the number of jocks who lived there. The dining room boombox was tuned to 89.3 FM day and night for years (when Jay wasn't playing tapes of his shows). I created all the mixtapes for our early parties at the station, crossed paths with Clint (and Ian!) for the first ever time at the 70's dance in 1991, and bonded with N'Gai when he sat in on my show a few times right after he and Dana hung out with Clint and me at the house over Thanksgiving that same year. We discovered Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion during one memorable show that also featured guest DJ Myron B. Pitts, and it remains my pick for XYC's coolest record in the library.

Anyway, the jocks on duty on this June '11 night were super chill.

They had no problem with me wandering around the station for the next few hours, documenting everything.

Other jocks came through to pay their own respects to the posters, including the dude who had tipped me to the situation, and some posed for pics meant to send the message that they would have to go through us in order to tear down all the artifacts! In reality, everyone knew it was the end of an era.

What was so hard to believe about that night was that everything at the station looked almost exactly like I remembered it when I was a DJ and sub circa '91-'93. Very little had changed. It made it all the more heartbreaking to realize after that weekend, it would never look that way again.

Confessions of the Switchboard Operator - Part 1

by Jessica Deltac ('91-'92)

1991. That was the year the Pepto-Bismol house was liberated from the sorority house next door and its real reputation got started. I have an incredible slew of memories of not just the original housemates – Raj, Clint, Lydia, Erik, Shyam & myself – but all the regulars who were always hanging around or just crashed at the house (if you cooked for us honorary status was immediately conferred): Pam, Deepu, Raj, Dana, Kendall, Pedigo, Dave, Ian, Jason, and... Oh, my mind isn't sharp enough to remember any more names – I just see the faces of the friends and the faces of the short-lived boy and girl friend/toys we had too.

At times living at the Pink House seemed like having a part time job that was a cross between Cruise Dir. Julie McCoy and a Switchboard Operator, as everyone seemed to call our house looking for where to go that night or the upcoming weekend. Looming over our housephone was a corkboard overflowing with flyers and handwritten addresses to the best shows and parties! I really am amazed that I got great grades while living in that house. But to me, the aforementioned Social aspects of University life far outweighed the value of my GPA-incented learning.

I have been requested to share my version of the first time the 2nd most mentioned person on Pink House Forever ever stepped foot into our community house. (How is it that he has 29 posts about him, anyway?)


Jay Murray in his (formerly Jess's) room. Photo courtesy of Mel Keister (Lanham).

(Editor's note - 'cuz he's so sexy...plus he stuck around for FIVE YEARS! But Jess is right - to date, only N'Gai has gotten more blog love.)

Well it was the night of the BIG party in October. It was our coming out party if you will, the one that started the all-campus craze. But it was also slated to be a Birthday Party for our Lydia, the soft spoken but willful feminist of the house. And it was also to be the Debut Show of Chapel Hill's latest band with our Dramatic (drama addict) housemate, Clint Curtis, debuting as frontman!


The band name itself had arisen from a heady post-dinner chat with housemates. I don't remember any other band members present beyond Clint. Raj and I pushed the name Dada Veda after our impressive discourse on fusing the untouchable Hindu scriptures that existed for over 4,000 years, the Vedas, with Dadaism, the art movement that questioned the validity of art. With just a name, we were questioning one of the world's oldest spiritual arts, while covertly Raj & I were questioning the validity of the band itself.

And only days before the party, I had designed the T-shirts that would have one day made epic cover art – the back for Dada Veda and the front celebrating Lydia's Birthday. I wish I knew what I wrote on them, but I am being blackmailed to pen this account in order to get one of the last remaining shirts that were made for the party! Sadly, Dada Veda were short lived and never gave me the chance to design their album covers, owing to the typical tragedy of differing musical dreams that most bands experience before any real money is dangled by signing labels. Or maybe it was just because of Clint. Who knows?


So back to prepping for the party. We were all on switchboard duty that week, as everyone seemed to be calling the house to confirm the BIG PARTY. With Erik as a housemate, you know the party had been well publicized. We were beginning to believe the Pink House Party had been Over-Advertised. And we weren't just plugged into the UNC campus, we were plugged into the local scene as well, so there seemed to be no parameters for the invite list! The whole house was starting to get nervous. What was the phrase in the early 90s? We were Buggin!

And that wasn't all. The 100 t-shirts Erik had ordered to help recoup for the beer and what ever else we had spent money on weren't done and the almost full keg we were supposed to get from someone had mysteriously disappeared (that's not so mysterious, is it?). This all led to the serious conversation we had about what if we locked the doors and killed the lights in an attempt to pass on having this party.

In the midst of this somber and yet paranoid mood, Erik brought a big cardboard box into the house that shifted the vibe upward. The shirts were completed and looked great.


Everyone was thrilled. I went out and spent parental funds earmarked for food on four dozen OE's from the bowels of Big Bertha's. Olde English - brewed since the 800's! With no legitimate coolers, I filled up my kiddie pool with ice and water and loaded them all in. If we were anything, Pink Housemates were resourceful. I think there was also an amp issue, (isn't that a given with every band?), but by the time the sun started to set, it was getting squared away. Somehow we got the backyard trimmed too. I don’t know if we borrowed a weed-whacker or what, but it was well groomed by the time we put sofas outside and other suitable furniture absconded from the sidewalks of nearby neighborhoods.

And then with a toast to the Gods, other Housemates, and honorary Pink Housers, the First Pink House party began!

To Be Continued...


Pink House O.G.'s. Photo courtesy of Jess Deltac.

Gorgeous magnolias, purple living room, and gooey mold on the ceiling

By Mel Keister (Lanham) ('93-'95)

Originally I lived in the Mona Lisa room with Sally. Then I lived in the little pink room upstairs, then moved across the hall into Erik's old room. The upstairs rooms were the BEST.

There was an older lady who lived next door. She was the house mother for one of the sororities. She was a sweetheart, and she also asked us girls about our lives. I don't know if she chatted with the guys much.

I was always cleaning that place - especially the dishes. And the downstairs bathroom would get this virulent-looking gooey mold on the ceiling, all brownish-black, that looked like it would drip on you.

Painting the living room purple was a bitch! Looked cool though. I'm sure whoever came after and repainted it was cursing my soul.

I had heard the place used to be a garden showplace (maybe someone else had heard it from a neighbor?), even having been photographed for a magazine. There wasn't much left of that, but in the spring, these odd-looking lilies would pop up in the far back yard, right in the middle of the grass. Like red alliums, but with no leaves - just a big ball of delicate flowers.


And there were these gorgeous magnolias, but they were being killed by the wisteria, so I got Steve to help me save the trees. He wasn't into it, so I promised we could dress up in ridiculous outfits first. Wish I still had that picture!

Oh, God! And those creepy spider crickets! They were always in the bathtub! Jay was so freaked out by them - I used to get the critters for him. It was so fun saving the day for Jay. He was always making those huge pots of spaghetti.

Pink House For Rent...Again!

In a twelve-year rewind, the Chi's have once more (at least temporarily) abandoned their ill-timed plan to sell the Pink House to a deep-pocketed single family, and instead put the place back up for rent.


It's been renovated again, and now features amenities like carpeting on the stairs and hardwood floors nearly everywhere else. When I visited recently, courtesy of the contractors who had just finished re-painting inside and out (covering the Mona Lisa with yet another coat of white), the place was sparkling. But there was clearly still work to be done, because the downstairs bathroom looked as grungy as ever. Leaning over the tub to take a picture, I half expected spider crickets to come swarming out of the air vent.

The current asking price on a Pink House rental? Thirty-two hun a month, or roughly twice what I remember our crew last paying when I moved out fifteen years ago. After figuring in inflation, that's nonetheless a steep rate for a five bedroom (or 4 1/2, taking Jay's room into account) student crash-pad. And since today's kids are less likely to want to share bathrooms than the Gen-X'ers who came before them, and even Chapel Hill's sorority girls who deal a little coke on the side have lately fallen on hard times, maybe it's no wonder the place is still available (as of 9/20/09) six weeks after I first saw the for rent sign.

UPDATE 10/25/09 – As Fall Break 2009 for UNC students drew to a close, I drove down North Street on my way to the Franklin Street post office. Lo and behold, no renters yet.

UPDATE 11/26/09 – The day before Thanksgiving, and I finally got the memo that Hell closed down nearly a year ago. While checking out the debris piled at the top of the outside stairs (including Hell's soft pretzel cabinet), evidence the space is still being excavated, I looked up through the chain link fence and saw a bicyclist zoom through the deserted parking lot of the Phi Mu sorority house. Curious, I noticed the rider was headed for the Pink House. Could it be rented? There did seem to be a couple of trucks parked in the back yard.

No, it was only the blogger next door on his way home. I introduced myself and explained I used to know the old couple who previously lived in his house. He was remarkably cool for being accosted at dusk outside his own crib by a quasi-cyber stalker, and said the place is still sans residents. And he thought Sylvia's initial rental asking price this go-round had actually been $3600, thirty-two was at a discount.

Jay Murray returns for Gerald's 40th B-day

In April, Gerald Bundy turned 40, and Jay made the scene, taking a train up from Davidson to do it. Gerald hung out with Jay a lot at the Pink House and found him a room at 401 Pritchard when everyone got kicked out in '97.

On Friday night, we grabbed some grub at Milltown in Carrboro, then crossed the road to meet up with former housemate Karen Hurka (summer '93) at a free record release party at the Cradle for the latest LP from her husband Ryan's band the Kingsbury Manx. This show sparked even more Pink House memories when we all ran into Grant Tennille and Matt Hedt.

The next day, enroute to Gerald's in Durham we picked up Barbara and Jeff, and did a drive-by on Sam's Quik Shop. I had invited Lydia to come along, but she couldn't make it. Also at the party was Allen Sellars, Chez Pink resident during 1995. Before that, Allen also lived at 401 Pritchard. Many Pink House and 401 stories were told, including the tale of the two hippies who lived in the Pink House driveway. Gerald fed us oysters, wine, and gourmet root beer.

"Jay and I missed getting to hang with you at the birthday party the other weekend. He had a tough night's sleep on our lumpy futon couch, but was good to go after shaving his head on the porch. Here's a photo, the other people are Jay's friend Gerald, Barbara, who used to live at 401 Pritchard Ave with Jay, and her husband, Jeff."

- e-mail to Lydia

While in town, Jay also owned up to various Pink House housemate misdemeanors.

J: I remember once I was making out with my girlfriend at the time Julia, and somehow we ended up fooling around in Steve’s room. Then Steve suddenly came in and cut the lights on, and we were like, oops! Busted! I also remember when Steve took my fan. I came back home one day, and my fan was gone, and I was like, what happened to my fan? And it quickly mushroomed into a conversation about how I wasn't doing enough around the house.

E: This was your fan?

J: It was supposedly a house fan.

E: And there was a confrontation between you and Steve?

J: Yeah, but you were there, backing him up.

E: That was cold.

J: I wasn't the perfect housemate. A couple times, I mooched some of Sally's food, and when she found it missing, she immediately blamed you. And I was okay with that.

E: Fifteen years later, the truth all comes out in the wash.

End of an Era: Jay Murray leaves Chapel Hill

From 1997-2005, Jay kept the spirit of the Pink House alive at his next communal house, 401 Pritchard Ave. While finishing his PhD studies, he and his fellow roomies gave a broader life education in how to have fun to the next generation of UNC's unwashed and unruly college-age youth.

In August, 2005, a few months after graduating, Jay painted his room white, packed up a U-Haul, and left town for a teaching gig in NYC. Chapel Hill hasn't been the same since.

Jay's Graduation BBQ @ 401 Pritchard

Misc. Mugs @ 401 Pritchard, 2001-04

After the Pink House crew was evicted in the summer of 1997, Jay landed two blocks away, at 401 Pritchard Avenue.


From time to time, I'd hang out with him there. I wasn't a regular couch surfer, although I spent a few nights at 401 over the years under various circumstances. But I was a semi-frequent visitor, first downstairs, then upstairs, too, after Barbara Berry and Andrew Pearson moved in. As the years went by, Jay became the most senior 401 resident, just as he had at the Pink House. He continued his long stint as a WXYC jock, filling the airwaves with a weekly dose of choice, obscure cuts. It was hard to think of Chapel Hill without him.

The Pink House vibe lived on at 401. It wasn't just that Jay's first room looked like an exact replica of his tiny nook at Chez Pink. (Both rooms were about the same size, so he didn't have much choice.) It wasn't just that he and his housemates eventually painted all the rooms in different day-glo colors, reminiscent of how the Pink House living room got made over in bright purple, or that they threw huge, out-of-control house parties at the drop of a hat, or that bands also practiced in their basement. Of course, the basement at 401 took things to another level, big enough to host slamming DJ sets, rock shows, theater gigs, and dance performances by the Fly Five. I can't imagine what Pink House parties would have been like if we had that much space to play with.

It was something deeper than that. With the glaring exception of MC Paul Barman, nearly everyone who I met there over the years added something positive and creative to the mix. Featured here are a few of the more memorable mugs from the early 00's.


(Among other dates, photos are from Halloween party, 10/27/01; post-Valentine’s Day bash, 2/23/02; Isaac Trogden’s senior art show opening, 4/11/02; 401 Tag Sale, 5/22/04).

For more scenes from the 401 Pritchard era, see online albums like THIS ONE from Meredith, and the ones HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE as faithfully archived by Ellie, including a photographic record of Fly Five performances.

Loud music at a 401 Pritchard party?!

Chapel Hill Police Report, 2003

2003-10-05 21:04:00

401 PRITCHARD AVE

LOUD MUSIC/PARTY

Kyle Spencer Goes Country

In 2002, our former Pink Housemate and favorite globe-trotting journalist Kyle York Spencer published her first book, She's Gone Country. It was a fish-out-of-water account of her experiences as a twenty-something "lost soul" (courtesy of the book jacket) born and bred in Manhattan who wound up working as a reporter for the Raleigh News & Observer during the mid-90s.


Jay and I came out to represent at both her Triangle readings - McIntyre's Fine Books in Fearrington Village and The Regulator on Ninth Street in Durham. Rolling down 15-501 South to the McIntyre's reading, it was an extremely hot June afternoon, and the air conditioning in my recently acquired vintage (aka falling apart) Volvo wagon gave out for good. That sucked! I also remember that Kyle and I had a long conversation with the manager there about trends in bookselling and retailing, recent books, authors, the writing and editing process, and the book industry in general.


After Kyle signed books for her fans at the Regulator, where I met ubiquitous scenester Dave Graedon for the first ever time, we caught up with some of her N&O pals at George's Garage and kicked back over drinks.

Rosemary Street runs through it

I was driving back to the store today and happened to turn onto East Rosemary Street at Boundary, so I passed by the house where I lived during the summer of 1990, and that got me to thinking about how central to my life Rosemary Street has been over most of the time I've lived in Chapel Hill. The Pink House was a block behind East Rosemary on North Street, the second national SEAC office was on East Rosemary, the MOVE office & the first Lost City location overlooked West Rosemary, and the second Lost City is at 402 West Rosemary Street.

Even the side streets running off Rosemary Street have been important. Ericka Kurz lived on the corner of Church and Short Street, a block from Rosemary. Jyoti & Swati's Plastic House was right behind La Rez on Pritchard Ave., one house off Rosemary. I started running my used furniture business working out of Chris Pedigo's apartment on Pritchard, also storing stuff at the Plastic House, inside the Pink House garage, and throwing yard sales at both Pritchard locations. And of course, Jay Murray has kept the Pink House vibe alive for five years on the corner of Pritchard and Carr.

Behind the scenes on The Pink House movie set

It was August 1, 2001, and ten years to the day from when our original Pink House lease began. Jay called me because Ian had invited him and any other former housemates he could round up to drop by the set where they were making the Pink House movie. They were planning to film the movie's big party scene that day, and the idea was for real housemates to join all the other extras. I had read an early copy of the script, and of course was curious to see how the shoot was going.

Especially since it was all happening at Clay Boyer's former pad on 15-501 South, the Starpoint house, which I remembered fondly as the spot where Melissa Swingle told me I had an "old soul" at a glam rock party sometime around 1998. The nice Christian girls then living at the real Pink House had refused to let them shoot inside the house, so Ian and company had to find a stand-in location for the interior scenes. I swung by the Teeter to buy a few bottles of Boone's Farm, without which no Pink House party would be complete, drove downtown to pick up Jay from 401 Pritchard, and we made our way out to the set.

The Pink House movie set, aka the Starpoint House, August 1-3, 2001.

Ian welcomed us with open arms, and immediately resumed his directorial duties, leaving us both with all-access ability to hang out as long as we wanted. Greg Humphreys and the rest of Hobex were there, including Kai, who would shortly leave the band, but had spent the past couple of years playing keyboards with them after his stint in Dag ended. Stephen Akin showed us some dailies. We met Zack Ward, who played Murray, the film's lead, based on a hybrid of Jay and Ian. He was very cool and down to earth. We met Rick, the art director who was also cast as the head neo-Nazi who N'Wal ends up dosing with acid. And other crew and cast members, including Omar, aka N'Wal, the doppelganger of N'Gai, and Pilar, the Spanish actress who played Zola, who I gathered was based on both Zia and Jiffer. Plus a ton of extras. Everybody was super friendly. And it was very exciting to see Ian and Tessa making a bona fide feature film, even more so since it was about the Pink House.

Jay had his own liquor of some kind, and we were sipping all afternoon. Which meant by the time the party scene was filmed, we were the only two souls who were actually a little buzzed, since everyone else had pink cups full of water.

Then, we came back either the next day or the day after that to chill some more. During the times we were there, Karen Hurka stopped by, and Lem, and Chip. I took a bunch of photos, exactly 130 of them, as it turned out later. Which I thought was a good omen. And then we went home and started looking forward to when the film would be completed, so Jay and I could be discovered by Hollywood poohbahs as the extras who shone brightly enough to be given their own talkshows, or something. Assuming our scenes didn't end up on the cutting room floor.

The Lost City

From April of 1997 through October of 2003, I could often be found tending shop at the Lost City, Chapel Hill's most underground music and video outpost. Lem and I opened the store in 1997, in the basement of the Ogburn building at 412 W. Franklin Street (the building that houses the Mediterranean Deli). We quickly discovered that friendship and business don't always mix.

My other Lost City business partners over the years included Uzoma Nwosu (Uzi), Bill Berzinskas (Billie Blaze) and John Lomanto, and Bryan Boggs, aka DJ Sploo. In 1999, Lost City moved across the street to a spacious, one-story house with a lot of character at 402 W. Rosemary Street, where it remained until we closed our doors on October 31, 2003.

Many friends visited the store while our doors were open. Sometimes a camera was around, more often not, because I had a business to run! But here are a few shots of Pink House denizens at the Lost City.

(Jay swung through to shop for the latest fashions on 7/9/00, Matthew Dan Stewart came all the way from San Francisco on 4/22/01, and Jenny taught her niece Kelly how to play Tron on 2/24/02).

Mel back in town, Jay heads to Berlin

Do you realize I don't even have your new phone number? Are you really back in town, or is that just an illusion?

Information still gives out your old Pittsboro #, 542-5805, so that's no help. And on a night like this (Saturday the 20th), when I was trying to call you to invite you to a going away party for Jay Murray (he's going to Berlin for like six months) at his house so you could hang with lots of fun people, it poses problems (I would have tried to reach you about this before, but I've been out of town a couple days this week and just found out about it myself in the last day or so).

So step up, girl, and give me a call or something! Otherwise your slack ass is gonna be in heap of trouble!

- e-mail to Mel

Jay was a bass mechanic

alt.music.chapel-hill, 1/22/99

From: cat...@email.unc.edu (George J.A. Murray III)
Subject: Re: Bass stuff for sale!
Date: 1999/01/22
Organization: Chapel Hill Music Lovers
Newsgroups: alt.music.chapel-hill

In related news:

Ibanez RB800 bass for sale. Pearl-white finish, active electronics, very
playable two-octave neck. Very Berklee-style music-school bass (which is
why I'm selling it). $400 with hardshell case OBO.

Jay Murray
967-8969

Jay on the bass in his room at the Pink House circa 1994. Photo courtesy of Mel Keister (Lanham).

Jay gainfully employed at Besa Mi Burro

Last night I was out on the town with my friend Trish hand delivering invites to this party next weekend. And we went by the place where my friend (and former roommate - you met him in Boston that one time) Jay Murray works, this really cool Mexican restaurant called Besa Mi Burro. I hope it stays open. They had about four customers in there besides us and nine employees including Jay running around trying to act busy.

It's ultrafunky on the inside, you sit at the bar in these big creaky chairs, there's weird Mexican shit hanging everywhere, like right in your face, crazy dim colored lights everywhere, obscene hand-lettered Spanish signs, you drink the margaritas out of gigantic, heavy glass bottles, there's a guy dressed like a friar sweeping the floor, and everyone else in the place is wearing funny hats. We also know the bartender, and he's crazy.

- e-mail to Carolina

Sad to see the Pink House go, but everything has its cycle

What's the deal with the (718) area code? Are you living in Brooklyn now? And which other Pink House alums are up in New York?

I really only saw Jess for about 10 minutes, but the paintings she showed me some photos of looked really good, like she's definitely matured as an artist. She said she had stuff up in several galleries.

...

Business at the store is definitely picking up, but I won't be satisfied until it's booming. We just hit 500 video memberships this week. More of our tapes are renting on a regular basis. We finally got our adult section out on the shelf. We're trying to get a Lost City catalog produced so we can drum up some mail order business.

And the underground lounge we're running (the 333 Lounge) is going strong. This past Saturday we had 75 heads roll through from 11 pm - 4 am (actually this particular event was still kicking at 5 am) who paid to get in ($3 each). That was the highest amount we've done at the door yet. It would be really cool if you end up coming down this fall on a weekend when we're running one, so you can check out the rebirth of Club Zen before we get shut down by the Chapel Hill fuzz on some wack pretense.

Ok, enough about the nuts and bolts of my shady plans to become a wealthy high-roller and destroy the entire foundations of capitalism from within.

What I need to do is send you a copy of this article that Ian Williams wrote as his "farewell column" for the Independent, where he was writing a bi-monthly column that was pretty good. It was all about his finally leaving Chapel Hill, and about the Pink House simultaneously reverting to a renovated rental property suitable for lease to sorority chicks. Seems the Pink House was the very first place Ian went to an off-campus party when he arrived in town as a freshman back in 1985, so it held a special place in his heart that made it all the more fitting for it to end up as the last place he'd live before finally leaving town. You'll like this article, I'm sure.

...

I told you that N'Gai moved in with me, right? Oh my god, I just remembered him telling me that he now works with Shyam Patel, who just got a job doing graphic design alongside him at the Chapel Hill Newspaper. Crazy. I haven't talked with Shyam in like eight months, but I guess he's still in town. Incidentally, Jay had the Pink House's final number switched over to his new house, on the corner of Pritchard and Carr streets (his friend Gerald's place).

...

Yeah, it was sad to see the Pink House go, but everything has its cycle. Denizens like the ones we knew will move in again sometime in the future. Anyway, it was time I stopped feeling like I could flow through the Pink House every time I was downtown or bored and wanting to get into some trouble. Not that I've really been doing that sort of thing lately, mind you.

The only really fucked up things about the house's demise is that (a) they ripped out every shred of vegetation in the entire back yard, all the way back to the chain link fence, and put down gravel so the new dumbasses wouldn't have to park their freaking cars on the street, god forbid, and (b) some miscreant painters that Jim Lilley (Sylvia's current property manager) hired to do touch-up work and paint the ceilings goddamn painted over the Mona Lisa.

We initially figured it was the crew of spaced out UNC students and their girlfriends who Jim Lilley brought in to paint the majority of the house, inside and out, and who were in there painting for two weeks, taking breaks every day to smoke bowls on the roof outside your old room. Then one of them came through the Lost City the other week and when I asked him why they'd done it and under whose orders it was done, he acted totally freaked out, and swore up and down that they hadn't done it, that Jim specifically told them not to paint over it, since it was one of only two murals by the artist left inside houses in Chapel Hill, and it must have been the other painters who came in after them.

This tragic occurrence serves as the focal point for Ian's article, where he concludes it was such a typical thing to have happened - in Chapel Hill, anything (or anyone) that stays around too long gets painted over.

When are you coming down in the fall? If you want to crash, you're welcome to sleep on our futon. Let us know...

- e-mail to Lydia

The Tree House

After the Pink House's demise in the summer of '97, N'Gai moved into the Tree House with me in Chapel Hill, and our adventures continued for another year.


Our couch was always open for traveling Pink House refugees, as well as other itinerant characters including Rooster, before we pawned him off on Alex Shumaker, some girl who kept us up all night with her enthusiastic screaming, and a dope who crashed in N'Gai's room one morning by mistake. Discovering the scene, N'Gai was not pleased.

Then N'Gai moved to Winston-Salem, but still came back to visit for special events or touring jazz performances, like Sonny Rollins at Duke, or when Archie Shepp came to SECCA. Shepp delivered a flawless set, highlighted by a haunting version of "Mama Rose," and we were there sipping wine in the front row.

So sad that we lost the house

Thanks for the nice long letter. I called you at the "Lost City" but they said you were away, goofing off somewhere.

It's so sad that we lost the house. When Jay was up here a few weeks ago we went to a concert in central park and there were about 10 ex-pink house denizens gathered together, all now living in New York. Anyway, it's definitely better for the place this way. It really does need to be renovated, or bulldozed. What does Sylvia expect the house to look like after five years? Did she think it would renovate itself while she was away?

Your store sounds really cool, Erik. Tell Lem I said hello. How's his little girl doing? Give my congrats to Jenny for surviving law school. I can't believe that you ran into Jess. What did her paintings look like? I'm dying to know.

- e-mail from Lydia