Lori Owens 02 - The Complex Legacy of Ted Owens

Lori Owens 02 - The Complex Legacy of Ted Owens

There were different times. I think we had a drum set when we lived in Seattle. I don't know what happened to it, but he probably sold it. My father was very generous, and he would give the shirt off of his back to everybody. I just heard a little click, so I'm going to check if the tape maybe stopped. It's in the next room, and then I'm going to turn it over, so I'll be half a minute. Okay.

So it's fine. So he was very generous. Uh-huh. And it wasn't a surprise to me that if he didn't have, well, he expected generosity in return. Sorry? He didn't expect generosity in return. He did or he didn't? He did. Uh-huh. But, you know, he just had a different concept, I think, of. What kind of concept would you reckon he had? Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

But back to the drumming, what kind of music did he drum to? What kind of music did he like? He loved jazz. He loved jazz and the big band there. It was fun to watch my mother and him dance in Seattle. My stepfather was gone and the little ones were put to bed. And we went over to visit. I think we had dinner, or it was somebody's birthday. I think it might have been my brother's birthday. It was my dad's birthday. I can't remember whose birthday it was. But she actually had a cake. This is, I think, after she adjusted to the idea that we were in town and Rick and I were going to see each other, whether they liked it or not. And so we were invited over to her apartment.

And the little ones were put to sleep. They were asleep. And Rick and, it was the only time I really remember the four of us, you know, my mother and father and Rick and I. I was about, I think I was about 12 or 13. Probably, I think I was about 12. Yeah, I was 12. And Rick was 11. But we had, it was so much fun because we saw our parents together and they were laughing and having a good time. Jitterbugging. What's jitterbugging? Jitterbugging is jitterbugging. Jitterbugging is the kind of dance they did to the big band in the 1940s during the war. What did it look like? It looked like what do you call it? What did it look like? You know the rock and roll where they dance together? And they did the swing kind of thing? That's what it was like. But, yeah. And they kind of take these little hops and they twirl and spin each other around. They had a good time.

That's the only way I can describe the jitterbug, I guess. It was sort of, you know, when you, I forget what else you call it. It's a good name. But most of the people in the 1940s from that era, this was before Elvis Presley, and that was where they had the big bands. The dance that most of them did to the big bands. Yeah. Do you remember any specific big band or conductor that he really liked? Oh, gosh. I remember 'In the Mood', the song 'In the Mood'. And I don't know too much about the big band era, although I enjoy that song because it reminds me of him and just reminds me of the fun that they had dancing. Is it Harry James that did that? I can't remember.

Harry James and his band? I'll look it up. So was there fun a lot, or was it often strained later on? I mean, you described this as sounding really nice. Oh, yeah. And then we moved to, let's see, I moved down. We were, let's see, how did that work? Washington, D. C. was when my brother and I were finally, my mother sent for us. And my grandparents actually, My grandparents actually took care of all the extra expenses for my mother so that my brother and I could live with her. These are the grandparents from your mother's side? Uh-huh. And we went to live with our mother. I was about almost 15. Almost 16. I was about 15 and a half and Rick was 14. We went to live with our mother.

And that was basically, our dad didn't want us to go. I think he was really torn up by the whole thing. Taking us to the airplane, he tried to make us miss the airplane. Well, actually, we did miss the first one. Or they had to actually transport us out to, the plane was getting ready to take off. And they stopped the airplane to get us, because we were minors. He was upset with you leaving. Yeah. He didn't want us to leave. He tried to stop us in every way he could. Let's have a fried chicken dinner. No, Dad, we've got to get to the airport. And actually I didn't, you know, so I didn't see him again until I was 22. Yeah. Yeah. We sort of kept, you know, we kept in touch.

But, you know, he did come and visit me when I was, I moved away from my mother when I was 18. I left. And I was on my own since I was 18. I still had a half a year of high school to finish. So I know he came and visited me at my little apartment, but I had actually just left. I was in between apartments and I was staying with some friends until my new apartment was available. So I missed his visit. I don't, you know, I really wanted to see him. But then after, when I was 22, I was married. I got married when I was 21. And we sent him some money to come and visit us. And I was very excited to see him.

He was supposed to fly out, but he, do you know about his gun? No. Oh, you didn't know about his gun? No. What's with the gun? Huh? What's with the gun? Oh, yeah, he always had guns. Uh-huh. And he, well, he used to always brag that when I was a baby, he was cleaning his gun and it went off. How lucky we were. And then when I was about 10 or 9, 9 or 10, not 10, he had an accident getting out of his car. He had a sports car and he got out of it and he forgot that. His gun was in his pocket. Uh-huh. And it blew his kneecap off because he was bending over. So actually he was lucky his knee was in the way. Mm-hmm. Saved his life. And so, but, you know, when I was 22, at that point I had forgotten about his gun. I really had. I mean, that wasn't a part of my life. Mm-hmm. So when he said he couldn't fly because of, you know, the gun. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah,

take care of the expenses for my father to come out and visit. He hadn't met my husband. So he showed up a day early, and I had arranged to take vacation off, and I was working in a bank, and I had arranged to take some vacation time so that I could spend some time with him. But he came a day early, so I still had to work one more day. And during that time, my father, let's see, the first night, he wanted to go out and he wanted to go to a bar. And, you know, there was Bo, and I still had to go to work the next day, and he said, 'Let's go to your favorite bar.' And my husband didn't have, we didn't have one. We didn't go to bars. We would go out for dinner, maybe, and have a drink or go out with some friends, but we didn't hang out in bars. So instead of doing that, we went out. I got Bo a sleeping bag for the car because I knew he'd probably need it. It was probably a great adventure for Bo. I forget how old he was, maybe about seven.

I don't know, my dad was really excited about his book and he wanted me to read his book. But, you know, it was getting late. Oh, and my husband had gone off to a Thursday night poker game with the guys. And my father was really upset with that. He didn't like that at all because it reminded him of his father who had gambled. And so he said, well, you have to be careful because that's not good. My husband happened to be a pretty good poker player, too. He won quite a bit of money in the service. He would send it to me. So I built up a really good savings account. But, you know, it was just a fun poker game. Yeah. But it upset him very much. It did.

It really did. And I was really, really tired in the excitement of having him show up. And, you know, I'd worked all day, and I knew I had to get up and go to work the next day. So I just kind of wanted to kind of reacclimate myself and just kind of get to bed and, you know, take things slowly. And I was really tired. I turned into a pumpkin. And I knew I had to go to work the next day. I said, 'Well, I'll read your book, but just maybe not tonight.' And so I got up the next morning, and he was drinking a highball. I was 22 years old. I didn't understand why he was drinking a highball. Number one, it didn't make any sense to me.

And I got ready for work, and I went to work. And after work, my dad was busy making pirate stew. He took my whole oven apart and put pirate stew in my oven. He was just sort of taking over, you know, as was his way. I don't know. Then we got into some kind of a squabble about, we were going to go see my mother-in-law for dinner the next night, I think it was. And we got into, he mentioned his gun. He was going to take his guns. And I said, no, no. No, you're not. You're not taking guns over to my mother-in-law. Oh, of course I have to because I take my guns everywhere. So we got into a real, we got into kind of just a real squabble.

It was really bad. Or no, before that, he wanted to have a pretend duel with my husband. Just a pretend. With real guns. I said, uh-uh, I don't think so. No, Dad. Nope, we got into it. It was just, it was bad. So unfortunately, that was all within one day. We had, this was all within one day. He had managed to turn our lives upside down in one day. And that was the last time I saw him. How did he leave? Did he leave on his own accord, or did you send him away? I think the next day he wanted to, he tried to communicate, he tried to apologize, but I somehow just, I just realized that, you know, if I was going to have my own autonomous life, that it wasn't going to work.

He wouldn't have liked anybody I married. He promised me before he left he was going to behave himself. And he didn't. He behaved very badly. Yeah. And it just, you know, I just realized it just wasn’t going to work. If I was going to have my own life, it wasn’t going to work. Because he just is so dominating, and he had become such a, such a, just impossible to deal with for me. Was it also because you were older and more independent that the differences took out more? Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. And I was probably the only one who really, You really gave them such a hard time. Mm-hmm. Well, maybe Jeff did, too. I don't know. But I definitely gave them, you know, I was mostly respectful.

I really was. And we had a great relationship. But, you know, it brought out too many emotions in me, I guess. I wanted to live my life in a certain way. Mm-hmm. He could turn anybody's life upside down. He would just show up. And he just didn't take into consideration other people's lives. Always. He was a character. What would you say his most characteristic feature for you was? The thing most typical about him? Excuse me? The most typical thing about him? Yeah. For you? Smoking his cigars. Sorry? Smoking his cigars. Uh-huh. Did he have any, like, were they the big ones, or what kind of cigars did he smoke? Oh, the big ones. The big ones. I believe they were Cuban at the time, anyway, when I was with him.

They came in a silver tube. He was something. And did he have any kind of expressions that he would use a lot, like words of wisdom that were very important to him or funny expressions? When I was really young, he really taught me many of the lessons that I live by today. He was really a wonderful daddy to a little girl at the time. Things changed as I got older and he was remarried and more preoccupied. But when I was a little girl, we were very close. He taught me a lot of wise things, like you are who your friends are. He also indirectly saved his granddaughter's life in a very indirect way. When I was a little girl, he instructed me. If he ever yelled for me to stop, to stop.

You know, maybe from a car. Yeah. And so I taught that to my children. And our children are 11 years apart. So nothing happened with my son. I did teach him that. You know, if mommy ever says stop, you stop. Like, you know, my dad said. Well, with our daughter, she's been such a challenge for us. From day one anyway, uh he, she, you know I taught her if I ever if I ever say stop, Courtney, stop and we did have one incident where I didn't hear I didn't see the car but I heard it and I yelled for her to stop in the car; she stopped on a dime, don't ask me, it was the weirdest thing. She stopped on a dime, and the car went whizzing by us. I mean, just inches. It saved her life, and I thank my father for that. It just sort of happened, and it wouldn't have been the driver's fault, and it was just such an unusual

circumstance, really. It wouldn't have been the driver's fault. It wouldn't have been anybody's fault. It would have been a terrible, terrible, tragic accident. So I'm always grateful to my dad for that. He was a wonderful parent. And I was always grateful to him. And grateful in an odd way for the childhood, which was certainly a very interesting childhood. I hear my son moan and groan about what a boring childhood he had. But he made up for it later. He has a little bit of his grandfather in him, too. He turned into a sort of Indiana Jones kind of guy. He did. He went to college, and he majored in anthropology. Actually, when he was younger, he went to Japan with his father. And my husband was raised in Japan. He's Japanese.

And our son went to China for a month with a Tai Chi instructor and an interpreter. And he stayed there for 30 days with the Chinese National Tai Chi Team. He also took two trips to the Yucatan. He went to Jordan on an excavation dig. Went to London, Paris, Egypt, and Israel. But he made up for his boring childhood. Oh, yeah. I was also wondering, how is Rick now? Rick passed away. Uh-huh. All right. Yeah. He'll be two years in July. Mm-hmm. Did you stay close with him? The last 10 years of his life, I was his guardian. Mm-hmm. We were very close. In fact, when I happened to see the pictures of Jeff, one of my favorite pictures of him, he was a great friend.

All right. I think that's a lot of information I have now. Yeah.

My mother said the family was traumatic for me, and she was right. I'm so sure that it was one of their faults. I just didn't want to communicate with either of my parents. They were both very eccentric. My dad's first wife, Patricia, she was just as eccentric as he was in a way. She was a little bit more conventional. She did end up leaving the world a little bit better, but she was an academic genius. So she was very, very smart. And she loved beautiful music. The thing is, I think I would do anything for my wife and my husband. I try to communicate my love and support to them. I don't think that was really communicated by anyone like her. Past a certain point. My dad just wasn't so much into his own world. By you know, by the time I was a teenager. And maybe all along he was so much into his own world that, you know, making sure that, you know, your kids have what they need is showing that, you know, it's showing your love and support. Yeah. You know?

So they were locked into their own lives, more or less. Very much in their own heads. And when I was really young, my father seemed to have a social life, but as he got older, aside from his work, his social life was really nilly-willy. And the love and near relationship is saying something. Probably because he accepted my father's virtues and his faults and just accepted them for who he was. It came to my mind and I wrote it down. Yeah, yeah. No need to rush. My father didn't conform. He didn't conform to society. Not even a little bit. No concessions. Had he been a little more conventional and used his talent positively, he might have succeeded with all of his aspirations. But maybe he's succeeding now because of his eccentricities.

It's because of his eccentricities that make him more interesting to history than if he'd been a conventional person. Yeah. Do you not agree? Yeah, definitely. All of us, you know, live a more conventional life. It's the colorful people like him that make good stories. And, you know, and that's probably what will help get his message out. Whereas if he'd been a little bit more like the regular, like the regular person, it would have been a little bit maybe harder to get his story out. Yes. So I think posthumously he's living what, you know, this is what he wanted. Uh-huh. And he paid the price for it. He paid the price for it. High price, I'd say. Well, a high price. But I still, see, I believe in spirits.

And my father's visited me on two, well, I know he has, on two occasions, about ten years apart. In fact, I'm pretty sure, I haven't gone through all of my diaries, but I'm pretty sure that it was about 1987, it was. It was after he passed away, I think, that I was working one night and the other night, and I was typing, and I just felt this overwhelming feeling of being that child again and feeling him; really strange. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then, of course, I think it was a few years ago when I had the same feeling during the day, and I was striking again. So I know his spirit, and I've also been contacted by him through other people. So I know he's out there, and he's really orchestrating, in my opinion. And that just happens to be mine, that he's orchestrating, helping everything to come about. But then I believe in spirits. And I believe my brother still is very much so. I think it just depends on what your belief system is.

We had strange things happening here with water pipes breaking over archives. Water pipes breaking where? Over the archives of the files, just before I got here. The water pipe broke in the storage. Well, that's not being helpful, though, is it? No, but then you getting in touch just now, that's very helpful. Well, we'll have to shake our fingers at him for the water pipe. Yeah. That's a real big no-no. He's just complicated, Jeff. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Right? So it's the same thing. You're going to create hurricanes, you're going to create earthquakes, and you're going to create lightning. What if somebody gets, you know, they come from there? I don't know if he really, truly understood what he was dealing with. You know, he kept his super ability. But he needed to be super responsive. Yeah. He was too human to really, to be able to be all that visualized. Yeah. I thought it was very interesting. Sounds like it. So tell me a little bit, are you going to be, How long are you going to be in the United States? Until next Monday morning. Oh, really? Yeah. What are you going to be doing? Well, for now I'm just copying the files, or at least a lot of them, actually scanning them into a computer so they're also digitalized at the same time, and listening to some audio tapes that Jeff has.

Yeah, so mostly that. Filming maybe a little bit here in Las Vegas surroundings. Are you just going to be in Las Vegas? Yeah. You're not going to go around and see the site? No. No, I think the stuff that needs to be scanned here, it's quite a lot, and it's very little time. Oh, okay. So, yeah, I'll probably be just here and taking a look, of course, inside Las Vegas for a day or so. And then it's time to head back. Oh, gosh, I wish I could meet you. Maybe one day, or if you want, you can send me an email that has my email address. Yeah, he gave it to me, and I will send you an email in a bit with just a link to the website with my work.

I would love to stay in touch with you and hear from you and see the work. Yeah. I understand you have expeditions already arranged? Yeah. That's right, for the coming fall and the coming winter. In where? In the Netherlands, one in Amsterdam. That's very probably going to be the beginning of 2008. And one in Groningen, my hometown. It's a bit of a smaller town in the north of the Netherlands. And it's about 300,000 people living there. So there's a show there. And we have two hours radio broadcasting time in September. Also for the project. And I will definitely make sure to send you just proper documentation of all of that so that you know what it was like so that you can have an idea. That's very kind of you.

That would be really nice. Yeah, I will definitely do that. And I'm really looking forward to seeing you. You haven't done the arts yet. I haven't done what? No, not on TED, no. Not yet. So you're just trying to formulate ideas for what you're going to do there. Yeah, and the thing is I'm usually working very language-based, so since there is so much writing by him available, that makes him a very good subject also for me. So I'm just reading through the files now and scanning them and just looking for how he uses language and what of it I could use. Do you do portraits? Or do you do modern art? Conceptual art, yeah, modern art. Yeah, text-based. But I'll send you some images so that you can look at it for yourself.

I'd love to see it. I’d love to see it. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for helping me. It's been really nice to be here. I’m doing my whole life history here. It was fun. I mean, it was just different. Now I’m certainly different from the rest of my entire family. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate him. It was different. It’s unusual, yeah. Yes, yes. All of my family members from my maternal side. And I didn’t know anybody on my father’s side, really, except for him. And I met my uncle, his brother. And his uncle, Jack, was the only person in his family that I met. Well, no, no, no, I take that back. I did meet Queenie.

I did meet Queenie when she was a little girl. Grandmother, right, or stepmother? She was grandmother. Yeah. And she's named Eva. Yeah. But really not too many. I had a quirky family, believe me, from all sides. Mm-hmm. My grandmother and grandfather were probably the most, and my mother's brother, my uncle, to relate to them a little bit better. The rest of them were characters, all of them. And my brother, of course. But he was the biggest character. So it was really nice talking with you. Yeah, you too. And thanks enormously for my visit. Oh, sorry? Say hi to Jeff. Sorry? Say hi to Jeff. Sorry, once more the line is going bad. Say hello to Jeff. Yeah, I definitely will. Okay. Thanks. Take care. Yeah, and I'll send you an email shortly. Thank you. Thanks a lot again. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.