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.

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.

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

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

Consequences of the Pink House implosion

So hope everything in your life is on a positive track. I was thinking about you this week for several reasons. One, as of August 1st, "our" chapter in the history of the Pink House will have closed. Those knuckleheads couldn't keep the place in good enough shape to get the lease renewed for next year, so it's c-ya. Sylvia Chi is going to have the house renovated (good luck) and then try to rent it out to a single family. You know Larry Short is about to cum all over his pants with joy.

Anyway, this development has several consequences. First off, N'Gai, who moved back into the Pink House last summer, and was living in your old room (you knew that, I think), is moving in with me at my swanky suburban pad.

Jenny, of course, is moving to Greensboro where she'll be working at a job with a corporate law firm. I think Jenny and I are both kind of like, well, let's see what happens with the relationship after we put some space between us.

Until then, I'm ready to be a bachelor again. N'Gai, already being a bachelor, is more than psyched to start things swinging. Nightlife is picking up in town lately, too, especially because I'm throwing lounge nights once a week at the record & video store that Lem and I opened in April. It's like the second coming of Club Zen, and we're in charge! Word.

Did I tell you about having opened a store, Lost City Music & Video? Lem and I are partners, and Uzi is sort of our third partner because he's selling records there. You knew Uzi, right? The phone number there is (919) 933-LOST. We rent weird videos, sell underground hip-hop, house & techno vinyl & CD's, carry funky clothes, accessories and underground comic books, and display art.

It's great, because it's not only the funkiest, coolest looking place in town during the daytime (I'm serious, we're totally rocking it!), but the space is flexible enough to completely convert into a laid back, chill little dimly lit lounge where we have live hip-hop MC's and underground electronic and house DJ's come to perform until 3 or 4 in the morning, on alternating Thursdays and Saturdays. We charge a $3 cover, and lately turnout has been a solid 60-75 heads, which is about all the place can frigging hold!

O.k., more consequences of the Pink House implosion. Jay Murray is being forced to move out. He's hating it. He is moving in with a friend of his named Gerald, who lives in some undisclosed location "off Airport Road."

Ian Williams is finally leaving Chapel Hill! Talk about the end of an era. I guess he finally got tired of trying to live the undergraduate social life while working at being a serious writer. He is a good writer, and I genuinely like him as a person. He's just very cynical and needs to find a more positive vibe. He's moving to San Fran, where I'm sure he'll find a thirty-something bohemian social scene that he'll feel right at home in and be much happier. As long as he can also find some guys to play basketball with him.

I went over there the other day looking for N'Gai, and lo and behold, not only was nobody home who lived there, but who was standing in the hallway gabbing on the phone? Jess Deltac. She was just passing through town and stopped in to see who was around. She showed me her portfolio, and it was clear that she's been hard at work on some amazing art. I was like, whoa! Talk about a six year time warp. That's how long it's been, can you believe it? It was exactly six years ago this week that you guys must have gotten back to Chapel Hill and moved into the place. Wow.

- e-mail to Lydia

It's been a time warp

You know about my latest project, right? I think it was under development the last time we spoke. Lem, Uzi and myself opened up a music and video store. It's called Lost City Music & Video - I'm usually on duty from 12-5 most Mondays through Fridays. We've been open for business since April 14, and things are going good! Which hopefully means we'll blow up when school gets back into session, 'cuz right now this town is el-dead-o.

Other news: Our mutual friend Mr. N'Gai Wright is moving into the Tree House with me come August 1. Until now, N'Gai's been living in your old room, which is currently painted in weird shades of yellow and red.

The Pink House kids have lost their lease for next year! Everyone's getting evicted! Talk about the end of an era. Oh well, you wouldn't believe what a shithole the place has deteriorated into. But it's been so strange - Kyle Spencer moved to Raleigh when she got a job with the News and Observer, and she's been at every party they've had there this past spring. With her, Jay, N'Gai, and myself in the same room at a party, surrounded by characters like Ian Williams, Scott Bullock, Lindsay Bowen, and Greg Humphreys, it's been a fucking time warp.

- e-mail to Lydia

Fuck Jesse Helms!

Sounds like things in your life are upward bound, which is cool. How'd you get to meet Diana Ross, and why are you speaking in eighty languages a day?

...

All I can say about the outcome of the elections in North Carolina is Fuck Jesse Helms! That bastard managed to locate 1.3 million dumbasses who were willing to vote for him. How does he do it?

Anyhow. At least if Jesse dies within the next six years then Gov. Hunt can appoint Harvey to his seat. After all, he is 75 years old. Actually, I'm even happier about the fact that now I can fundraise against Helms for at least another 6 years. Whether I'll be down here that long is another question.

Oh, and we did manage to beat two backwards-ass Republican Congressmen, former Rep.'s Fred Heineman and David Funderburk, who represented the two districts covering Orange, Durham, Wake, Chatham, and a bunch of surrounding counties.

Overall, we registered more than 10,000 young voters through MOVE, plus distributed 20,000 additional voter registration forms and 50,000 voter guides around the state.

There's a Pink House party tonight, and I think Lem's going to be DJ'ing. You should see his little girl Donya, she is so adorable. She's almost two years old now, I think.

Speaking of mutual friends, I also talked to Derek Shadid the other day, he called me up earlier this week to offer his condolences about the election. I'm definitely going to make a road trip out to Oklahoma City to see him around January or February.

When I went up to DC for the AIDS quilt recently, I stayed with Caroline Philson, who just started this year at Howard Law. It was good to see her, except that she's living in a really fucked up part of town, and there were four gunshots across the street from us while I was there.

- e-mail to Lydia

Dave made some housemates "nervous"

You know, it's funny that I just read your e-mail right now, because today I had to go over to the Pink House and track down N'Gai, and some character who's been living there comes up, all pissed off, because (1) he has to move out tomorrow (everybody else banded together and kicked him out, his name is Dave, by the way, he makes some of them "nervous"), and (2) he's currently locked out of the house.

Well, I also had an ulterior motive to get into the house, so I climbed onto the porch and bum rushed through your old window, into N'Gai's current room! Thus I was thinking about you. It's crazy, too, because half the furniture in his room is stuff I've given him, including the blue, orange and red rug I had in my room for the longest time. So I feel even more deja vu'd than I normally would whenever I'm over there.

- e-mail to Lydia

Could you tape Clint's Stabbing Westward video?

Hey Erik,

How are you? Everything here in New York is just great.

Give Jenny, Jay, and N'gai my love.

Please write soon.

P.S. If you get a chance to could you tape Clint's video for me.

Bye for now.

(e-mail from Lydia)

Everybody pursuing their own destinies

It is Tuesday, June 14, and I am staring at a huge pile of your mail that has been collecting in our house for God knows how long, probably since the last time I sent you your unforwarded mail. Wow. I assume your first year at Harvard has gone really well, since knowing you, you're astounding everyone with your talent and intelligence. As for myself, I graduated last month, hon! I snuck through right under the wire, but I'm finally done and I'm psyched as a motherfucker. In another month I'll be moving out of the Pink House...the end of an era...and in with Jenny, who since late April has been my fiancee! Yay! So I'm engaged now, too. Seems kind of unreal.

Jay Murray will still be here, the only one left from our year together, working to finish his Masters. Then he plans to complete his PhD, but maybe he'll get tired of living with undergrads by that point. Jay also recently cut his hair off - equally big life adjustment. Oh yeah, Scott Bullock is now living with us and will also still be here next year - Jay's friend from Duke who liked to sleep on our couch. He also just graduated.


Firas, N'Gai, Erik, Jay, Pat, Scott, Kyle, Caroline, Michael, and Lydia outside El Rodeo, Spring '93

I haven't talked to Kyle in nearly a year, so tell her I said what's up. Even though Michael now lives around the damn corner from us, I've probably seen him twice all year. I've hung out with Pat several times, though, until he left to tour Tibet a while ago. Lydia is in Australia now, living with her aunt, working, enjoying herself. Her address is... N'Gai Wright is doing some intrepid traveling in Japan, of all places! He was supposedly staying with Dai for a while, the kid who crashed with us for a couple of weeks last spring. But I haven't spoken to him in a month, so I hope he's not buried. Before that N'Gai was working in New York City all this past year.

I still see Michelle Sinott around town, though - her boyfriend got out of the Marines and they're living together now. Remember Lem? He's finishing school next year, but for the past six months has been spending lots of time being a mega party host and DJ at happening Pink House functions and various other locations around town. Do you ever see Erika Gantt in Cambridge? She and Dana are living together in an apartment in downtown Boston for the summer starting June 19 while Dana works at a law firm.

Looks like everybody's pursuing their own destinies, huh. I am currently deciding whether or not to do grass roots fundraising work for SEAC or work for NC-NARAL until I can begin to fundraise for my own voter registration/grassroots media projects. I will be living, working and organizing in North Carolina (and maybe Virginia, to try and stop bastards like Oliver North) for at least the next three years, while Jenny attends law school. I wish you all the best with everything, and maybe we'll see each other in Boston sometime. Take care of yourself, follow your dreams, be free...

- Letter to Caroline Hall

Christmas Cocktail guest list

Guest list

1-2.      Lydia Craft / Mary Anne

3.         Mike Thomas

4-5.      Firas Amad (+1 Jason)

6.         Derek Shadid

7-10.    Jyoti Argade (+3 Amy J. / Hadley / Matt Frish)

11-13.  Swati Argade (+2 Mary / Dana / etc.)

14.       Trent McDevitt

15-16.  Chris Lee / Scott

17-18.  Chris Pedigo / Brandon

19.       Lem Butler

20.       Sophia Sacks

21.       Chris Lyn

22.       Clint Curtis

23.       Zak Bisacky

24.       Derek Elliott

25-28.  Ramah / Dina (+2 Leigh / Tamar etc.)

29-31.  Sue Busby / Jenny Shippen / Cristina Perez

32.       Michelle Sinott

33-36.  Lindsay Bowen / Dana Terebelski (+2 Shea / Kate Smith)

37.       Mel Benner

38-39.  Penny Bakatsias / Tina Bakatsias

40-43.  Clay Boyer / Matt McMichaels (+2 Ian Williams / etc.)

44-45.  Bryan Ellerson / Allen Copeland

46.       Yvonne

47.       Kevin Harris

48-49.  Evan / Renee

50.       Heather Reilly

(Note from 2014 - A few days before Thanksgiving '93, and I must have already been in the holiday spirit, because I drew up my invite list for our upcoming Christmas Cocktail party. I'm sure there would have been substantial overlap between my list and whoever Jay planned to invite, but this was my preliminary assessment of the roughly fifty heads I thought had Pink House VIP status at the time. Obviously, it would have included all former housemates, but only Lydia, Clint, Bryan Ellerson, and Michelle Sinott were still in town.)

Tribe and De La Soul at Memorial Hall

On Wednesday, I went with my friends Derek, Lem, Lydia (she was my former housemate) and Dana (who was in town for two days as an official law school recruiter for Columbia Law School, where he's in his second year) to see A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. It was a phat double bill, right on campus, all for just $13. I was psyched. They each played about an hour, amazing vocal interplay, the crowd jumping around off the tops of seats, rushing the stage, that sort of shit.

- Letter to Jared, 11/7/93

Kyle hops a plane back to Paris

Kylie, what's up. How you doing, hon. Hope this letter reaches you before you've hopped a plane to Paris to be with that Frog boy.


Olivier and Kyle, Spring '93

I am writing to you because I didn't want you to miss out on your chance to win ten million dollars. Don't forget to return the winning entry before September 3rd.


Kyle got one like this, too.

Jay and Lydia tell me that tricks with you are good, that you've had a good summer and all of that. I am so disappointed that we all didn't get to go to Block Island together, but hey, it'll happen someday. That Monday, Jenny and I got up around noon and both felt really sick. We decided to stay home and rest all day instead of coming to Watch Hill, because we were driving back South the next day. So hope everybody didn't worry about us being buried somewhere.

It was a fun visit in Rhode Island, though. Jenny got to know my family much better, and we did things together like going to a Native American musuem in Bristol, visiting friends in Boston, clubbing at Club Babyhead in Providence, going out to the Cape, and attending this fundraiser for Save The Bay at Senator Pell's summer house in Newport.


Jenny at Pink House, Spring '93.

That was fun. Totally catered, free drinks and food, hobnobbing with the politically active high society crowd and having power chats with all four of my congressional representatives before the night was through. We even sneaked into a cocktail party thrown for donors who had given $10,000 or more. Mike Wallace and his wife were the guests of honor. He looked like an old motherfucker.

So, anyway, hope that you drop the Pink House a line from Paris every once in awhile. N'Gai will be in New York next year, as will Dana, and Rashmi, and this friend of mine John Hamilton Palmer, who is up there working for Hearst magazines again. We met him when he was on an internship for Vogue in Paris, right after you had left town. Thus, I will have many reasons to visit the city, and perhaps our schedules will coincide at some point when you fly back in for the weekend to buy bagels. That ten million you've got coming will probably lead to many life changes for you, I have a feeling.


Jay and Olivier, Spring '93

Say hello to Olivier for me, and take care of yourself, hon. Be especially careful of old men who sit muttering to themselves wearing long, dark coats. These men are chronic masturbators and are probably lying in wait for you.

- Letter to Kyle

We had such a fun year

How are you doing, this is your devoted pal Erik. Somebody just had a roll of film developed, and there are beautiful pictures of you and me and Penny and Jay and Lydia all over our refrigerator. So how could I help but think about you every time I reach for some bodily nourishment. Besides, I was coming around the corner of North Street today and out of the corner of my eye, who did I spy but Michael. He appeared to be moving into his new house.


Caroline, Erik, Lydia and Jay at 210 Ransom Street, early summer '93

So you see, I really had no choice but to write you this letter today, sitting at my one a.m. desk with John Coltrane in the background, songs from 1962. I just returned to Chapel Hill from Rhode Island. I was there with Jenny for ten days or so, hanging with the folks, visiting my grandma, sharing Northern romantic experiences with my sweetheart.

I heard you were busy with an audition on the day that we were all planning to go to Block Island. Hope it went well, as I hope everything else in your new Boston life is cool, but I really have no doubts that things are going extremely well and positive for my friend the next Shelly Long. When do your classes start? You know, I heard that at Harvard, the best way to gain a professor's respect is to spit in class every once in a while, on the floor or atop a desk or somewhere. It shows you're not intimidated by their Ivy League teaching styles. You should try this sometime.

Anyway, enclosed is some of your mail. By the way, people are constantly stopping me on the street these days, ashen faced because they've realized that you've graduated and are forever gone. I just tell them that you're attending classes at some drunken driving school up in Cambridge.

Caroline, I miss you and hope you'll be in Boston and our schedules will magically coincide sometime this year whenever I get up that way. We had such a fun year. N'Gai is leaving for New York in a few days, and it's got me kind of nostalgic about the last couple years, and everything - and I'm not even done with college yet myself.

One other thing just came full circle, too. Last Wednesday, I got my hair cut. Really short. The last time I did that was two and a half years ago, right before our road trip up North for Spring Break, you, me, Kyle, Dana, and Clint.

Hey, I gotta go. Time to wash the dishes and do battle with ants. Take care of yourself and have a great year, o.k.?

- letter to Caroline Hall

Life is hedonistic and lazy in Chapel Hill

Whassup wit you, homegirl? How's small town Rhode Island treating you? I am writing to you from Chez Pink, upstairs at my desk on a hot, hazy mid-summer Monday afternoon.

Or should I say I'm currently perched in the Tree House, since that's what the Pink House has become this summer. Passengers and fellow travelers heading in and out the doors, coming from all directions, at all times. Two-legged animals everywhere, new and different ones every day.

Jenny and I will be coming up north to Rhode Island for the first ten or so days of August. Jay has mentioned coming up there with Lydia around the same time. It would be fun if we could all get to do two things while we're there – hang out with you and go out to Block Island for a day, and visit Caroline in Boston.

And have you heard about the MTV Beach House that's in Hyannis, on the Cape? It's this big beach house that MTV has rented, and they're filming in it all summer long. Sometimes it's like an outdoor version of The Grind dance show, the one hosted by that obnoxious kid Eric from the first Real World. We want to show up there and crash the scene. As long as you look like a funky beach clubber, they'll let you on the show.

Life is hedonistic and lazy in Chapel Hill. Last night I went to the Power Company in Durham. On Saturdays this summer it has become the mecca for fun loving straight people who are down with the dance scene. I was hanging with friends who are working for ADF this season, and dancers from one of their visiting companies were there at the club with us, mostly beautiful gay men in half-drag. Cute women friends of my friends thought I was just the sexiest straight dance god they'd seen all night.

N'Gai has set about to fill the Tree House with mysterious music at all hours. He's bought a flute, cello, keyboards, and now congas and drums. Other miscreants drop in for sessions with trumpets, guitars, microphones and amps.

Speaking of N'Gai, he may or may not be headed for New York in August. The project he's working on with Tony Deifell (and Ian Williams, who signed on to do some editing) keeps generating job leads in different places. I hope that you'll still be working in Westerly by the time we get up there to Rhode Island, so I can find out where you'll be in the fall.

I've enclosed all your mail that's come to the house so far. In fact, it was the postcard you got about this tropical vacation cruise you've "won" that finally motivated me to sit down and write. Please send us a postcard from Tahiti.

- Letter to Kyle

Instinctive travels up and down the East Coast

This is your main man Erik the revolutionary guru, coolin' in Chapel Hill at the Pink House. What's up! I got your eminently digable letter that youse sent me from Jerusalem. It sounded like you were up to positive tricks as usual, causing trouble, skeezing on bodacious cuties, fighting the IMO powers that be in occupied Palestine.

It's now Friday. You know what I'm going to do tonight? I think Derek Shadid just got back in town from his internship in New York. Maybe I'll give him a call. You wouldn't believe what a treehouse the Pink House has been this summer. Numerous random passengers are along for the ride at all times. People breeze in, slide out. This shit happens constantly.

I myself only got back to town about a week ago. In fact, I read your letter my first night back, up real late with Lem. It was a trip. We were listening to some very psychedelic Hendrix at the time, a song called "1983...A Merman I Should Hope To Be," from Electric Ladyland. At one point the song talks about giving a shout to all the friends who aren't around, and I had dragged out a picture of you, just to enhance the letter reading experience, so it was cool. Remind me to show and give you copies of the pictures I took at the Inauguration when you get back in the fall. They turned out very satisfactory.

Before returning to Chapel Hill, I had spent nearly the entire month of June traveling instinctively, all up and down the East Coast. My journey began when out of the blue, I heard from a friend of mine named John Hamilton Palmer. This is a cat I met in Paris last summer. He was working for Vogue magazine at the time on an editorial assistant's internship, hanging out with supermodels and DJ's at cool clubs all over the city. He traveled with my brother Jared on to Amsterdam and then to Milan, Italy, where his Dad lives and works in the fashion industry.

Anyway, this friend of mine John returned to the States at the end of last summer, and has been living with the rest of his family in Savannah, Georgia, ever since. So then he calls me up, and tells me that he's headed to New York, where he's going to be working for Conde Nast again, the publishing company that owns Vogue. He says he's leaving in a few weeks, so on the spur of the moment, I decide to take a little road trip down to visit him.

I convince Chris Pedigo to come with me. At this point, Chris was getting ready to leave for Middlebury, Vermont in a little while, where he's taking summer Russian classes.

We roll out of Chapel Hill on a Wednesday afternoon, and make it to our first destination, Myrtle Beach, S.C., before 10 pm that night. See, the Digable Planets were playing there.

(We met) this woman (who) knew Myrtle Beach really well and after chilling with me and Chris for awhile decided she'd take us out and show us around town, meaning all the remaining after hours bars and clubs. Cool! Her name was Jean, and we went with her all over town. Everywhere we went, the scene was the same. Young, horny kids, lots of women wearing sexy summer beach clothes, everybody essentially looking to get laid.

The next day, we get on the road by late afternoon and drive southward, towards Savannah, Georgia.

That night, we hang out with my friend John. Chris also knew him from last summer in Paris, so it was like a mini-reunion. Anyway, he took us out clubbing. We got into two clubs for a couple of dollars, free drinks because he knew the bartenders, and split our time between both all night since they were totally within walking distance. A fun night.

The next day was Friday. We got up, chilled, and got on the road, bound for Atlanta. Blew into town late afternoon, and headed directly for Little Five Points, which is sort of the Greenwich Village of Atlanta. Very funky. Here we collected club flyers, local magazines, and other information about the nightlife that evening.

Then, we sped all around the city, scouting out all the nightclubs where we had free passes to get in for the night. Some people in Little Five Points stopped us on the street and thought my friend John was so beautiful (he used to be a male model) that they put us all onto the guest list at one joint. We hit four clubs that night and had many adventures.

...

Damn, man, I'm not even half done telling you about my instinctive travels of the last month. Maybe in a future letter I'll pick up the narrative. Just to give you a taste of stories to come, from Atlanta, we took John back home to Chapel Hill with us, chilled for a week, then I drove him back down to Savannah. During that week at home we threw a mad party at the Pink House, attendance levels approaching six hundred or so. Then I headed north, stopping in D.C. to hang with my friend Dana for half a week before continuing on to Rhode Island. There, I saw friends and family, and spent a particularly adventure-filled long weekend in Boston before coming back to Chapel Hill. Swung through D.C. again on the way down to chill further with Dana. I had planned to head further south to Miami for that weekend (this was this past weekend), and hang with this woman Rashmi Airan, but at the last minute decided that the journey had to end.

So here I am, back in Chapel Hill.

I think that in early August, Jenny and I are going to travel up north to Rhode Island for one or two weeks. Lydia and Jay may come with us, and we'll chill with Kyle at some point, who's working at a community newspaper in a small town on the Connecticut-Rhode Island border. When I was going through D.C., I found out that Erica Salmon (the one we stayed with) is living on campus at GWU this summer, trying to do some painting. I'm glad you had time to write, and please write back. I'd love to know what's up with my boy Firas and his many adventures in Jerusalem and the surrounding environs, dealing with Israeli security forces, hooking up with chicks from Duke. N'Gai just received your letter, too. He says hello. You know what? We were just watching Yo! MTV Raps and a video came on by Pete Nice and Daddy Rich. Pete Nice used to be with 3rd Bass, and everybody in the room was like, yo, check this motherfucker out! He looks totally like Firas!

- Letter to Firas, 7/3/93

Map to Lydia's house at 210 Ransom

The Bamboo House, the Purple House, and the Russian House

The Pink House tried to give back to the community by running exchange programs with a few other group houses in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. We hung out at their cribs, they hung out at ours.


Flyer for party at Bamboo House, 1993

Two of our faves included the Bamboo House, aka 108 Kenan Street, where Susan Comfort, Sarah Davis, and other SEAC veterans lived (and Caroline Hall used to, and Caroline Philson lived for a semester, with Deidre Campbell and her then-boyfriend Chuck up in the attic, who would later hook up the anti-Jesse Helms cause with TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS worth of free copies while working the 3rd shift at a local copy shop), and the Purple House at 220 McCauley, home to Ian Williams, Clay Boyer, Matt McMichaels, and Lindsay Bowen.




Invite for Purple House Halloween Crawl, 1992

And then there was 120 Mallette Street, where Tony Deifell set a standard for off-campus house parties that we later tried to live up to at the Pink House, by hosting such events as The Furious Party. It was the first off-campus bash I went to at UNC when I got to campus as a freshman in the fall of ’89, a party so historic it had its own t-shirts.

Later, Tony’s younger brother Dave took over management of the spot, and it survived throughout the mid-00's as a refuge for anarchists and beatniks. When local DJ and then-manager of Internationalist Books Darren Hunicutt lived there, touring noise bands from around the country made the basement space at 120 Mallette a regular stop on the underground house party circuit.

Also 505 N. Greensboro St. in Carrboro; the house on McCauley where Caroline Philson lived; 210 Ransom Street, where Lydia Craft moved when she left the Pink House; and the amazing Russian House, where Chris Pedigo held court in a spooky, decaying, UNC-owned mansion surrounded by woods on a hill overlooking the Dean Dome.


Erik, Chris Pedigo and Pam Hartley at Russian House, 1992

In 2003 or 2004, UNC finally developed the tract where the Russian House stands, also known as the Baity House. The surrounding woods were replaced with a new married student housing complex, Baity Hill. The Russian House was preserved, and became the complex's office and community center. If those walls could talk!


The Russian House circa 2007.

Pink House East Coast Road Trip, Fall 1992

C: You remember stopping at the Dunkin Donuts on our way home?
E: No, not really.
C: They were giving you a hard time about using the bathroom without buying anything. And you really had to go.
E: But somebody else was buying stuff, right?
C: Sure, but you weren’t. So when we finished up and went outside, you walked around to the drive-in window, and we were all like, what is he doing now? Then you peed in the speaker.
E: No way. Seriously?
C: I was there!

- Caroline & Erik, 2009

Pink House circa Summer of '92

I drove back down to Chapel Hill. Got here around the end of June. First of all, the house was a mess. Looked like a fucking band of gypsies had been living here! Next, I found out there were several vacant rooms in the Pink House that needed to be filled with people, pronto, otherwise I would have been up to my eyeballs in debt from having had to pay close to nine hundred dollars in rent myself.

So that's the sort of things that have been occupying my time for the past few weeks. Mark, I have not yet gotten involved with any voter registration campaign...in fact, I haven't even been in touch with Kate Lowenstein since I've been back in town. I think I'll call her tomorrow. Caroline, you would never guess who I saw tonight...Alec Guettel! He was drinking beer with me and about twenty other National SEAC people in the Forest Theatre. He's been living in New York and working with SEAC, but this summer marks the end of his involvement for right now. Isn't that sad to think about, in a way? Seeing him brought back lots of old memories of what it was like for all of us, you, me and Mark, when we were just becoming involved with SEAC our freshman year. There's a National Council meeting going on this week, and many people are in town for it. Many of them are also sleeping in our living room downstairs, right now.

Joe Herzenberg called me on the phone today, and I ran into my friend Termain Kyles outside the TEP house this evening, and Deidre, of all people, came by this morning with my housemate Lydia to wake me up, and SEAC people like Eric Odell, Ernesto Guzman, and Todd Thomas were dropping by the house, all of whom I haven't seen in a couple months.


Ernesto & Todd, Spring '92

Last night I heard Uzoma Nwosu (you know Uzi, right?) on air doing his hip-hop/dance show on WXYC, so I called him up at the station and we're going to get together this week. Plus, on this past Tuesday night Lydia and I went to the Cradle to see Arrested Development, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and Me Phi Me perform. Finis Dunaway was there, among a cast of hundreds. Preston and Richard are around, working at the Varsity, haunting Franklin Street and Papagayo's. We've discovered a swimming pool that's at Northampton Terraces, just two apartment complexes behind North Street. It's the new Pink House pool...we go there to swim every day. See, these are all just some of the things that make me happy to be in Chapel Hill again.

- Letter to Caroline (& Mark Chilton) in Kenya