Fall of the House of Alice

[David Alexander]

Dr. Hernandez: Hello, David, how are you today?
David: Good, doc, really good.
Dr. Hernandez: So, what's on your mind?
David: I think I'm ready to talk about Harold and Alice.
Dr. Hernandez: Are you sure? You don't have to if you don't want to.
David: No, I'm sure. I want to talk about it.
Dr. Hernandez: That's fine, then. Go ahead.

In Bloomington during the 80s, it was not uncommon for houses, households really, to have names. The House of Raging Women and the Studbarn have been mentioned. I won't attempt an exhaustive list here, lest anyone feel left out, but I must mention one of my favorites: the Jim Jones House. Kent Berglund & Andrew Wagner lived in an absolutely filthy portion of a house that was, according to local folklore, the residence of the Right Reverend Jim Jones when he attended IU. True or not, we were pleased to believe it.

And then there was Harold and Alice. Located on the corner of two alleys that had been named after the children of the man who built the house, this was my home for about two years. Drew and Irena Calinescu, Mike Whybark, Ethan Miller, Jack Reidle, and I were the official tenants. The actual denizens of the house were beyond number. People came and went, and often on the furniture. HNA was notorious for its parties. Actually, to say it was a non-stop party sounds unbelievably trite, but there was always always something going on. Here are a couple random memories:

Someone swiped a fetal pig from biology lab. It went into the freezer, where it lived for a couple weeks, peeking out from behind the ice trays. One stewed afternoon, Drew got it out and drooled, "I'm gonna go out and throw this." Now I had grown attached to the little guy, and this seemed like a waste, so we decided instead to fashion a noose and hang it from the Harold/Alice street sign. It hung there like a piece of jerky for a month.

One afternoon, we were draped around the living room like absinthe drinkers, and lo, on the television they broadcast the Elvis "One Night With You" session from the '68 comeback special. All these snotty, bitter, cynical hardcore kids were blown away.

New years eve party, 1986. What better theme than "No Dicks in '86"? I put up little emblems everywhere: a penis with a line through it. Then at midnight, a drunken posse went through the party and targeted people for ejection: You! Dick! Out! Looking back, seems kinda harsh.

A sculpture evolved in the front yard. Largely the creation of Mr. Whybark, it was basically an old TV console and a bunch of other crap with paint drizzled on it. A multimedia piece. Our landlord, a beefy, sunburnt, balding, red haired ol' boy whose name I can't remember came to task us about our rent. "And that thing has got to go," he spluttered as he left. The dust had not settled in his wake before "Let's Lynch the Landlord" was played loud as could be.

We kicked Joey Santo out one night for just being an asshole. "Fucking HOOSIERS!" he bellowed again and again.

The upstairs tub was inoperable. The basement shower was a slimy, moldy painted cinderblock enclosure. One stood on a wooden pallet while bathing, and if one dropped anything, one merely got on with one's life.

For a time, it was definitely the place to be. But some of us had to stumble into the morning-aftermath of every party. I was into it, as long as I could retreat to my room with it's mauve walls and gold shag carpet. After awhile, I was increasingly given to fits of intense misanthropy. I feel I treated people badly from time to time. I am sorry.

One night I was fixed up with a girl I'd seen around. She had gone to the other highschool, was part of the scene, we had many common friends and acquaintances. After coming back from a scary party--where, I have, and had, no idea--several of us sat in the darkened living room of Harold and Alice and watched part of Apocalypse Now; the girl, Kim, and I slunk upstairs.

Um. That's about all I can remember.

Dr. Hernandez: All you can remember? That's rather...convenient, David.

David: I'm done talking. Anything else you want to know, ask someone else...

Dr. Hernandez: As it happens, we are out of time for today.

[mike whybark]

Two years? I thought it was just one - a very hyperactive one, of course, but was it really two?

(I'm ganking the pics and reuploading via Photos for easier repurposing). Looks like you are beating me to it. Great pix.

Did you see the Fred Curry story? Needles, blood, etc? I forget where on here I posted it.

[Matthew N Sharp]

Holy crap, I lived in the same room... I lived at Harold and Alice, upstairs, the room at the end of the hall, during 1988 and 1989. The housemates were all different, but the nature of the house was the same. I also un-fondly recall that the only functioning shower in the house was a long haul on foot through the kitchen, over roaches, down the stairs, into the basement, past more roaches, broken beer bottles, and months-old half-full beer cups with gratuitous mold, into the half-wall stone "shower" next to the scariest toilet known to man, which I'm pretty sure was a direct gateway to hell.

Good times, good times...

[mike whybark]

Did you live there when Cyndi Elliott lived there? I remember Sine Nomine and FRSC practicing in the basement after we were gone. There were some other people I knew from Collins around then too, names long washed away...

[mike whybark]

David, do you remember how we learned that the house's builder had named the streets after his kids?

I was bummed about a decade ago when I swung by and the trailer and melon patch were gone - I guess our neighbor died.

[mike whybark]

AND oh yeah - Did you ever see the thing Steve did in Tussin Up after the end of the litter box? He also began it with "The fall of the ..." and covered both HNA and the Litter Box.

[Matthew N Sharp]

I'm not sure she ever actually lived there, though memories are sometimes vague, at best. Thom Holickey, Tom Cardis, and a score of those improv folk were there the year prior to me, though, being part of FRSC, I am pretty sure we did practice there.

Undoubtedly not as much as we should have practiced, but hey, that's why Baby Jesus invented whisky.

[mike whybark]

right, it must have been the year Hollicky lived there i was thinking of.

[Rev.Seth Maxwell Malice]

Things I learned from Harold and Alice;

1) taught me how to cook spaghetti, perfectly
2) that beer with a german sounding name didnt always mean that it was good beer (rheinlander?!?)
3) Mike Whybarf was 1% man and 99% Puke
4) Kate didn't punch like a girl (ala bare-knucles brawl with Glenn Danzig)
5) Kate turned beer into a fashion statement

[David Alexander]

Ah, the spaghetti incident. If you are hungry AND high, then it is a toss-up whether it is better to eat the pasta or to throw it all on the kitchen ceiling and watch it stick. And harden. And stay there for months.
Rheinlander vs. Wisconsin Club. Another toss-up. Aheh. At $5/case, it hardly mattered. Usually went with both. Except during one week when Big Red Lickers had boxowine on sale, and Happy/Thrifty Jack proclaimed "Wine Week" at H'Alice. A different quality drunk than we were used to. More hostile, yet less energetic.
I think Danzig went through his bulked-up phase due to the mental scarring he sustained at the hands of our hero.

[David Alexander]

A year, two years...it looms large in my cluttered psyche. Yeah, the Fred-the-Head story is what kind of got me thinking about HNA. It is incredible to me that I lived there and a) held a job; b) stayed in college; and c) started dating my wife. How in gods name?

[mike whybark]

goddammit, somehow this thread has gotten bifurcated - it looks like there may be two pages of replies or something. Fucking HNA twilight zone!

[mike whybark]

Here's the other set of replies:

http://www.musicalfamilytree.net/forum/topic/show?id=2000984%3ATopi...