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BBA
Social climber
West Linn OR
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Mar 20, 2010 - 09:18pm PT
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As Art Gran used to say, "Mother whore it's Layton Kor, Colorado's finest climber"
Gran also changed it to "Foott and Kor, Da Valley's finest climbers"
Layton didn't particularly like it and would often say "F*ck you Gran".
We just liked to hear Art say thirty third and third street with his accent.
Suhl was nonpareil for eating leftovers in the cafeteria.
Craft had a dildo on his mantle in his dump in Oakland. He told me his wife who was a teacher would sometimes talk to parents at the Craft home and some had a hard time either looking at the dildo or stopping from looking at it. He asked me what I thought about it, and I said, "It looks like the Lost Arrow." Dave really liked that.
Vulgarian meanderings...
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jstan
climber
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Mar 20, 2010 - 11:56pm PT
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I believe toity toid is a street in nork nork.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Having a good laugh over my cup of Earl this morning. Bump, Bump, Bump of Earl!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 31, 2010 - 12:27pm PT
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Vulgarian Dictionary...?!?
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Dec 31, 2010 - 01:50pm PT
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hahah - Suhl lives on the road near where the cabin I have the honor to stay in is, and I would see him riding his bike often. He also did a day of trailwork which was how I met him. SO hard to imagine this kind gentleman as a young scoundrel like the OP story!
But I guess most of us mellow out after a few years of wildness. It's the ones who can't wield the wildness when their young enough to withstand the payback that we have to worry about.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 31, 2010 - 02:19pm PT
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Well, you wouldn't pick Dick Williams out of a lineup these days either!
During the organization of Gunks Reunion 2008, someone phoned Claude to see if he would participate in a panel discussion. "Are you Claude Suhl, who used to be a Vulgarian?" came the question. "I still am!" came the response! LOL
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Dec 31, 2010 - 03:48pm PT
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And anyone who heard Claude perform his poem at that Reunion would understand the appropriateness of his response.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 31, 2010 - 11:51pm PT
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Thanks guido!
I've just spent an hour listening to Sha na na and Buddy Holly. What a lot of memories are attached to those songs!
What amazed me about so many of the early rock and roll hits, as with Duke of Earl, was the discovery years later, that the artists were black. As a kid growing up in the heartland with no television (they couldn't transmit it through the mountains before cable), we only heard them on the radio or records and had no idea.
Just as well, even with the white guys. My mother would still have a heart attack if she saw those Sha Na Na guys prancing around in their tight gold lame´ suits! Still, as the song goes, Rock and Roll is Here to Stay!
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2011 - 06:52pm PT
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CONTINUATION ON THE THEME!
The current Posting , “Busted on El Cap,” got me in the mood to fire up the old Duke of Earl thread. Coincidentally, Foot just sent me a wonderful write up that Joe Kelsey had done for Oakley and her soon to be released film “ Portrait of the American Climber,” destined to become a classic!
“A few years ago I supposed I'd outgrown (finally) celebrations of childishness. Now I'm old enough that celebrating childishness seems to be the most soul-gratifying pastime left.” JK
Descent into Delinquency
“I believe it was fall 1970, though it might have been 71. It was the fall after the Stoneman Meadow riot, wherein hippies threw stones and bottles at mounted rangers. We returned to the Valley after summer in Wyoming to find hostility between rangers and climbers (and anyone else who looked disrespectful of society’s norms).
The Valley wasn’t as multinational then as later, but there was a colony of Brits, and they gathered nightly around a campfire and sang. Most Yanks thought singing to be not macho, but Claude Suhl and I got into it and learned the songs. One night two rangers appeared and did that bullshit routine of formally stating, three times in quick succession, “You are an unruly mob. You will disperse.”
This was the Vietnam/Civil Rights era, and the Brits were intimidated by American authority in general and the possibility of deportation in particular, so they nervously scattered. However, the rangers cornered a few, and I felt valorous enough (inebriated enough) to come to their rescue. One ranger was unnecessarily bullying them. It being the Vulgarian way to throw curve balls, I calmly, soothingly lectured the rangers, as if they were children, about addressing climbers not confrontationally but politely. The Brits disappeared into the night, and I was requested to produce photo ID. When my New Jersey license failed to provide a photo, I was under arrest.
Claude appeared and was perceived as interfering with an arrest. I took the opportunity of this diversion to explain that my bladder was bursting, the arrests conveniently taking place just outside a bathroom. The kindlier of the rangers told me to go ahead, in fact to get lost, it was Claude they were really after. Claude always looked more like trouble than I did, no matter how hard I tried. The next guy out of the bathroom had my hair and mustache. When I emerged, he had become me and was in custody, and I had to re-introduce myself as the perp.
Claude and I were escorted into a paddy wagon that happened to be the same vehicle used a week before to transport us to an El Cap rescue. We departed Camp 4 serenaded by a mob chanting “Fascist pigs! Fascist pigs! Fookin’ fookin’ fascist pigs!” No sooner had we been booked, fingerprinted, photographed, and incarcerated–after they took our shoelaces so we wouldn’t be tempted to hang ourselves–at the correctional facility (behind Yosemite Village, near the soothing sound of America’s most beloved waterfall), the Fookin’ Pigs chant could be heard outside. Shortly, Rob Wood, a Brit living in Vancouver, was thrust into an adjacent cell. As luck would have it, it was a Fri night, and we were told the wheels of justice would not be turning till Mon. So we were duly astounded when a ranger appeared Sat a.m. to say our lawyer had arranged for our release for the weekend, provided we left the park.
How, you may ask, did the likes of us get legal representation? It’s certainly what we were asking. It turned out that the accidental impostor who emerged from the bathroom before me had graduated #1 in his class in law school, before deciding to do something less detrimental than practicing law.
The baddest thing I did during this episode I did as we were leaving the correctional facility. The mug shots sat on the corner of a cluttered desk by the door. No one was looking, and I couldn’t resist a unique Yosemite souvenir, classier than a rubber tomahawk.That’s how they became preserved for posterity, or at least for the sort of posterity I’d prefer them to be preserved for.
We and a dozen or so fellow travelers (two VW buses full), including a few chicks who surmised that we were a happening cadre, obeyed neither the letter nor the spirit of our release by going to Tuolumne for the weekend. We didn’t spend the weekend paying our dues to society.
First thing Monday morning we were outside the courtroom, with our lawyer and perhaps as many as 100 Camp 4 residents. Our lawyer wisely suggested everyone else wait outside while he went in and introduced himself. Shortly he and the judge came to the door. The judge asked if they all witnesses, and our lawyer replied, “They could be, your honor.” So judge and lawyer retired back inside; the judge asked the lawyer to describe the events of Fri night and told our lawyer he suspected such miscarriages of justice were going on, but too many youths were afraid to talk. Our arrests were “expunged,” meaning we were not only found not guilty but even the fact of our arrests was supposed to be eradicated. Which didn’t happen–last I knew I could be pulled over for a taillight out, and the cop, after running my ID, would look at me knowingly and say, “I hear you’ve been disorderly.”
The kindlier ranger was fired; the mean ranger, who turned out to be an ex-Marine officer, became a pianist in the Ahwahnee bar. Could I make that up?
Well, thanks for giving me the opportunity to reminisce about the days when life couldn’t have been sweeter!
I only hope that you’re identifying that wayward youth in the mug shots as Fred Beckey.”
 Joe Kelsey
You can find more of Kelsey’s clever writings in such classic and ill-reputed publications as “The Vulgarian Digest” and The Climbing Cartoons of Sheridan Anderson as well as the current & upcoming edition of the Wind Rivers guidebook and possibly, quite possibly, in the narration of The Last Wild Mountain!
Rob is not as generous as you in celebrating childishness but at least I got some contribution:
Joe,
Like I said I'm not too comfortable gloryifying drunkeness but here's a modest version.
In the aftermath of the Yosemite rangers having recently summoned the assistance of every available cop in California to help them beat out the San Franciso hippies who has invaded the Yosemite meadows with the stated intention of liberating the park, naturally this event had excacerbated the "us agaist them" feeling that already existed amongst the freedom loving climbers. This came to a head one night in Camp Four when a group of us were drinking, singing and and having a good time as usual.
Although it was late at night, it was also late in the season and there were few if any other campers around to disturb who were not already present. Suddenly the rangers showed up and started pushing people around , handcuffing and searching. Outraged climbers tried to protest, demanding an explanation.
"Singing after quiet hours " was the reply.
Apparently there was a bylaw limiting noise after ten oclock at night. When I asked how many decibels we were allowed to make and how many had that truck made that just went by, I found myself handcuffed and thrown in the squad car too.
While three of us were being processed inside the tiny jail a crowd of climbers had gathered outside and to my delight were singing "we shall overcome someday".
As well as being stripped naked, fingerprinted and mug shot, we were ordered to "bend down and open our cheeks!"
At this point Claude Suhl bent down and opened his mouth wide with his fingers.
We spent the night in jail, were let out next morning but had to appear before a judge a few days later. Fortunately for me he was decent enough to let me off with a dismissal from the park. Bugs(McKeith) and I left next day for Canada."
Joe,
"Having a hard time relating to all this virtuality although I agree a good story should stand whether it ever happened or not.
In that vain you can blog me or flog me or whatever turns your crank Frank or Wank.
Now you 've got me into it whatever it is. In for a nickle in for a dime .
I would like to say boo to Clawed especially since I did manage to remember his name. Kelsey too. Was it Claude or Joe that opened his cheeks? What was the name of your sweety whose daddy saved theday?
I agree things are more oppressive now and we were righteously bucking the thin end of a god almighty or more likely godless security wedge. Climbers drunk and disorderly playfulness in a public place is relatvely minor compared to the institutionalized violence of the Rangers.
It's a dark and stormy night here so Joe lad, why don't ya tell me another story.”
Rob
“You probably don't remember but my squeeze at the time was Carol Ottonello and yep her dad was the judge. I met Carol via Footski who use to hang with her older sister Sue. So if it wasn't for me you three would have cooked your silly asses in the poker until mon.
After you were allowed back in the Valley we had you up for dinner with the Non-Hanging Judge and we all set around the table with the never empty wine cow and talked and talked about how messed up this Viet Nam thing was and how things have to get better and how climbers are really not that bad as the Non-Hanging Judge, good old Geno Otonello had two daughters in relationships with climbers and we drank more wine and solved more problems.
Geno Ottonello was a beautiful man. He use to drive the girls out to Utah for high school each year. Driving along in his old Cadillac he would often have a beer between his legs, a 45 pistol next to him on the seat and his Federal Magistrate Badge pinned to his shirt. Told me, "yep, I have all the bases covered."
He was an Assistant DA in Oakland during WW2, mainly prosecuting draft dodgers, had a kidney removed and his Dr told him to get a less stressful job. Magistrate job came up in, 1942 I believe, and off he went to the Valley
Feeling better now Rob?
Now, I have to say this last bit you posted to me sounds more like the "Rob of Old". The guy that use to partake in some rather risky vehicle escapades where lads would hang off the hood, pardon me, bonnet, of cars that were screaming down circuitous mountain roads hanging on literally for dear life.
Ah but I bet you are warm in your lovely house with real the insulation and you no longer have to save any and all newspapers to shove into the walls to keep warm.”
So there you have it lads, another glimpse into the murky pages of history and a good example of how time and memory can jog even the best of us Shanachies.
Oh Claude Claude, Where Art Thou?
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Feb 11, 2011 - 08:00pm PT
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Woohoo! Thanks for assembling that Guido! And thanks to Joe Kelsey for that wonderful tale.
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scuffy b
climber
Three feet higher
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Feb 11, 2011 - 08:12pm PT
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Hot stuff, Joe.
Thanks
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Mimi
climber
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Feb 11, 2011 - 09:17pm PT
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OMG, what a story. Guido, you fine seafarerer. Great addition!
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 11, 2011 - 09:35pm PT
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heh.
nice thread.
in 1979 (?), when i was making my teenage transition from sports/hunting/scrambling to technical climbing, i took a couple country parks courses on mountaineering to climb mt. baker.
at various points, i got stuck climbing with a couple "old" guys: mort hempel and jeff foote.
wish i'd known the "duke of earl" backstory then.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Feb 12, 2011 - 10:43pm PT
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GREAT GREAT stuff Guido!
You are indeed one of the kings of the great shanachie around here.
Gotta love it!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Feb 13, 2011 - 02:39am PT
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Awesome! The Group W bench clearly provides some good company.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
bouldering
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Feb 13, 2011 - 03:26am PT
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What the hell are you wearing(?) - a plunging neckline with "L" on the collar.
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Feb 13, 2011 - 09:01am PT
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What a great thread! I saw Claude at the gunks reunion a few years ago, and was almost shocked that he looked so good. It was as if he hadn't aged at all!
Thanks for the great story Joe!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Feb 13, 2011 - 10:02am PT
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Guido the Shanachie!!!
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