20 Years Ago...

Okay, Umlaut will jump on the bandwagon and chime in about the 20th Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. For the newbies: It was the biggest earthquake to hit the San Francisco Bay Area since 1906.


On October 17, 1989 I was working at a bookstore in Cupertino in the heart of Silicon Valley (A Clean Well-Lighted Place For Books... R.I.P..) and was just finishing up my shift at the front counter. A couple had just come up to ask me a question when a rumbling sound started at the back of the store (the south end). The rumbling got louder and the lights went out and what happened next was like something out of a movie.

Looking towards the back of the store, books were literally flying off the shelves and the rumbling got louder and louder... Books kept flying off the shelves as The Quake moved towards me... It was like watching a huge wave of books moving through the store. The couple who I had been helping hit the floor and I grabbed onto the counter as the rumbling got deafening and I felt the ground lift up and move under my feet.. Then the rumbling moved behind me on its way North and soon subsided. According to the USGS the quake lasted no more than 15 seconds but, to use a cliché, it felt like it lasted an eternity.

What followed was complete SILENCE... It was amazing. It was also amazing that I was standing no more than 15 feet from a wall of plate glass windows that made up the front of the store, but the glass didn't shatter and shred me. At that point I remember looking around the store and there were books and debris everywhere... I think several of the 8 foot tall shelves in the middle of the store fell over, but no one was hurt. Obviously the power was out, so the only light came from the sunlight coming in through the windows.

Then something happened that I still think about: A guy came into the store as if nothing had happened, walked right up to me at the counter, and asked if I could help him find a book. I stared at him and simply said "NO...." I always wondered if that guy was in shock or just clueless. He seemed completely oblivious to the chaos around him.

It's amazing how those minutes are still vivid in my mind.

Afterwards, my co-workers and I huddled around a car parked in front of the store listening to the chaotic radio reports... The Bay Bridge had collapsed... The Marina was in flames... The Cypress Freeway was destroyed.. Downtown Santa Cruz was in ruins. Chaos. As we stood around in a daze, the store's Assistant Manager went to the deli next door and bought some beers for us. Eventhough it was a Coors (funny that I still remember the brand) it was THE BEST beer I've ever had.

That night I attempted to call friends in San Francisco but no calls were going through or getting out. It's hard to remember what the world was like before cell phones, Wi-Fi, The Internet, etc. but that was the reality 20 years ago; if the phone lines were down you were fucked. Of course, I didn't suffer any real hardships from The Quake of '89... I did know families whose houses were destroyed... people whose lives were changed in a bad way... but not mine. Thankfully, of course.

Then the next day was my birthday!

Four days after The Quake I saw R.E.M. at Shoreline Amphitheatre; the venue was maybe half full when in normal times it probably would have been sold out. When the band launched into their hit song 'It's The End Of The World As We Know It' the crowd went nuts during the opening line "That's great it starts with an earthquake.." I think it took the band a second to remember the meaning of those lyrics at that moment to that crowd... but after that it was a pretty cool concert moment. No, it wasn't Metal... but it did the job that week... and for years afterwards a great conversation starter in a bar was "Where were you during The Quake?"..

For those who care, here's some of the local news footage:


Twenty years gone... and it still sucks that the A's swept the Giants in the World Series.

When The Lights Go Down In The City

The sad sequel to The Great Crown Books Robbery.

After The Great Crown Books Robbery, Umlaut found himself working at an indie bookstore: A Clean Well-Lighted Place For Books (ACWLP... It's from a Hemingway story, dude..). At its zenith, ACWLP had 3 locations in Larkspur (Marin County), S.F., and Cupertino (Silicon Valley). I was employed at the Cupertino location, off and on, from 1989-93. The pinnacle of my power at ACWLP was when I was a book and periodical buyer. Good times.

In hindsight, ACWLP was without a doubt the single most influential place I've ever worked. It was there that I was exposed to authors, books, and music that set me on the path I find myself on today. It was also because of ACWLP that I had many memorable experiences... Such as:

• The Cupertino ACWLP store moved from its original location in The Oaks shopping center (where it had been for around 15 years) to a larger space on the other side of the same center. On the final night in the old space, one of the last customers was Dave Meniketti, lead guitarist / vocalist for Y&T. Music Geekness ensued on my part.

• On Fridays and Saturdays the store would stay open until midnight. In order to clear straggling customers out we would put Einsturzende Neubauten on the stereo and crank the volume. To their credit, the vast majority of customers always got the message.

• A surreal night that began with an in-store event with author William Kennedy that ended at a bar in San Francisco's North Beach and included close encounters with Kennedy, Francis Ford Coppola, Don (Father Guido Sarducci) Novello, AND Tim Roth.

• October 17, 1989... 5:04pm. I was just about to finish my shift when a couple came to the front counter to ask a question. Suddenly, there was a rumbling sound and the entire building started to shake. The rumbling seemed to be coming from the back of the store. The power went out. The rumbling got LOUDER and as I looked up EVERY book was flying off the shelves and crashing to the floor. The couple who I had been helping hit the floor; I grabbed the counter with both hands. I felt the floor lift up under my feet. The rumbling moved on and it became eerily quiet. No one said anything. As I was just comprehending what had happened, an elderly woman entered the store, approached the counter, and asked me if I could help her find a book. I looked at her and said "The store is closed..." She looked around and left. After we ushered the remaining customers out, my co-workers and I stood around a car parked in front of the store and listened to the radio reports. The assistant manager went to the deli next door and bought some beer; it was Coors. It was by far the best beer I've ever had, before or since.
  

Those are but a few ACWLP memories that I could remember off the top of my head.

The Cupertino location closed well over a decade ago. Sadly, it was announced this week that the last remaining ACWLP location in San Francisco has been put up for sale by the original owner. It's the end of an era for sure, like, totally.

Click HERE for the complete, sad story.