A Punk Rock Memoir: Face It by Debbie Harry

By Michael Hooper

Debbie Harry's autobiography Face It is a fascinating read through the 1960s and 1970s New York City. This woman was at the right time in the right place to perform music with people at CBGB's the famous punk rock alternative rock hangout in New York. Blondie achieved fame in the late 1970s and early 1980s, selling millions of albums, with hits like Heart of Glass, Call Me, Rapture and The Tide Is High.

Blondie performed alongside the Ramones, Television, the Talking Heads, Iggy Pop and David Bowie.

She worked as a waitress at Max's Kansas City and served as a Playboy Bunny at the Playboy Club. It was hard work, harder than at Max's, and the clients were mainly businessmen, suits, she wrote.

"You got treated well but really it was just another job and not as much fun as the last one," she wrote.

Her book is an odyssey of her life and memories. She says she wishes she would have kept a diary or a journal and then she would have remembered more.

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, co-founders of Blondie, were lovers and partners for 14 years. He took a lot of photographs of Debbie. He made her feel confident and sexy. Sometimes these photo sessions would lead to passionate loving making. He later moved on and married and had two children, but he and Debbie continued working together. They put out a new album and toured the world.

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were friends with Andy Warhol. Andy painted a picture of her. Andy took some photos and showed some to her. She picked the one she liked. And he made it. She still has the original.

Nevertheless her memories are very vivid from her fascination with the television set as a child, watching cartoons and wrestling. She met Andre the Giant. 

Her sense of fashion is legendary. Designers created many outfits for Blondie. She wore a striking double edge razor blade dress that hugged her body yet all these razor blades have been softened to prevent injury.

Debbie Harry says, "I was playing at the idea of being a very feminine woman while fronting a male rock band in a highly macho game. I was saying things in the songs that female singers really didn't say back then. I wasn't submissive or begging him to come back, I was kicking his ass, kicking him out, kicking my own ass too. My Blondie character was an inflatable doll but with a dark provocative and aggressive style I was playing it up yet I was very serious."

There are some really dark and hard things like when she and Chris got attacked and she was raped, or when they quit the band in the '80s while Chris was sick. But hey the two are still alive today and they've seen a lot and done a lot.

I find that amazing because they were drug users for a long time. She discusses their drug use in the book. Heroin was a popular choice. Chris Stein would grow cannabis on their deck at the apartment in New York City.

She just loves NYC. She dreamed of living and working in NYC when she was a teenager. She was adopted, she discusses this in the book. Her childhood seemed middle class, her parents did well but were not among the wealthy.

Her childhood included Girl Scouts, ballet. She changed schools, met new friends and began dyeing her hair blond. She wanted to be platinum blond like Marilyn Monroe.

The fan art in this book is great. I love the photo of these women artists:

Debbie Harry has engaged with some brilliant artists over the years. I'm fond of Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde and Siouxie Sioux. Very powerful artistic women!

In conclusion, Debbie Harry's book is a wild ride through the 1960s, 70s, 80s and beyond. She has lived an extraordinary life. She worked with some great musicians over the years. She also performed in multiple movies.

Blondie is a class act.

Heroin's Wrath: Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan

By Michael Hooper

Mark Lanegan's memoir Sing Backwards and Weep is a gripping story of a heroin addict/musician struggling to find his way out of darkness.

Lanegan was the lead singer of Seattle grunge band Screaming Trees and a prolific solo artist and collaborator with other musicians including Isobel Campbell and Moby. He was involved with Queens of the Stone Age and Gutter Twins. His solo work could be described as a haunting Leonard Cohen. He is America's equivalent to the French poet Charles Baudelaire. He is influenced by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Velvet Underground, Gun Club, David Bowie, the Saints, Joy Division and Lou Reed.

Lanegan died Feb. 22, 2022, at age 57, of undisclosed causes. He had struggled with Covid-19 and wrote a book about his experience called Devil in a Coma while living in Ireland with his wife.

In Sing Backwards and Weep, published in April 2020, Lanegan is stripped bare, he seems to hold nothing back. The book was so compelling, I read it in three days. At various times in his life, Mark Lanegan was a porn addict, a whore willing to have sex with just about any woman, he suffered multiple sexually transmitted diseases, he was a liar, a cheat, a thief, a drug dealer and a man driven by revenge who fought with his own bandmates and with strangers who pissed him off and sometimes with other musicians. He seemed heartless yet there was a deep profound sorrow and agony at moments in his life when he realized how many people he had hurt.

His voice is so throaty and damaged, he sounds like he is going to cry when he speaks.

He shares the needle with Kurt Cobain, of Nirvana. One time Kurt and Mark Lanegan went to an ATM together and Kurt withdrew several thousands of dollars from various accounts, kept a couple hundred dollars for himself and gave the rest of the money to Mark. Another time Mark needed a fix in Denver where he was stuck in a snowstorm. Kurt sent him some heroin inside a coffee bag but the snow storm prevented quick delivery.

Mark Lanegan grew up in Ellensburg, a small town in Washington State where he started drinking and became an alcoholic by age 12. He had a terrible relationship with his mother. His father let him do whatever he wanted but warned him that his rebellion was going to lead to a life of struggle and hardship.

Mark did all kinds of drugs but used heroin to get off of alcohol. In 1984, he joined guitarist Gary Lee Conner, bassist Van Conner, and drummer Mark Pickerel to form Screaming Trees. He saw the band as his way out of the small town.

He often fought with members of the band about the direction of the music and eventually won out as their lead singer and main songwriter. They moved to Seattle and became relatively successful but never as big as Nirvana, Soundgarden or Alice in Chains. Nevertheless Screaming Trees performed at concerts and festivals over the years, often with other grunge bands in the United States and Europe.

Perhaps the most challenging thing in his life was finding heroin in order to avoid dope sickness. Without a fix a heroin addict gets really sick and starts throwing up and suffers diarrhea as the body works to eliminate all its toxins. The only way to stop the dope sickness is to get another fix. Lanegan was given a limit of $200 a day while on tour and he spent most of it on heroin. I'd say more than a third of the book is devoted to his struggles to score drugs.

There are so many missed opportunities in his life. He turns down a chance to provide the music for a movie in Massachusetts because he is afraid he can't find heroin there.

Perhaps the most harrowing tale of scoring drugs is when he's in Europe and he's suffering from dope sickness and needs a fix in Amsterdam. He goes out at 2 a.m. to a square where drugs are sold. He buys some dope but when he returns to his hotel he finds out it's fake. So now he needs more money. He pounds on the door of the merchandise sellers and asks for money and they threaten to call the cops but finally give him two 50-pound notes for his share of the merchandise. He then goes back to the same square to buy drugs but two people rob him at knifepoint and take all of his money. You would think at this point he would give up, but no, he takes a cab back to the hotel and fights with the cabbie over his lack of cash to pay him. Inside the hotel he finds out at the front desk that he's been authorized to charge up to 500 guilders on a credit card so he takes the money, pays the disgruntled cabbie, grabs another cab and goes back to the same square to try to find heroin. No one is there and he begins wandering the streets of Amsterdam. A strange person riding a bicycle comes toward him. He asks if the cyclist has any heroin and sure enough the guy does. Lanegan needs to do a shot right now. The Dutchman locks his bike up and sees an unlocked bike and steals it and takes it up five flights of stairs. When they enter his apartment he throws the bicycle on a pile of bikes. Lanegan is by now full of dope sickness and vomiting with diarrhea. The Dutchman prepares the heroin for him to shoot up. While sitting in the stranger's toilet he shakily finds a vein and shoots the heroin into his bloodstream, and for the first time in over a week he starts to feel well.

The book includes a story about a Swedish fan who is pompous and entitled. He partied with her and her friend but didn't like her at all for her better-than-thou attitude. On a second occasion, he was doing heroin with a couple of friends. They had washed needles in a tall glass of water. When she burst into the room, she said she was thirsty and saw this tall glass of reddish water and guzzled it down in one full sweep. It took all his might to keep from bursting out in laughter.

The book includes his encounters with musicians like Bernard Summer of Joy Division and New Order, Johnny Marr of The Smiths and encounters with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.

Courtney Love pays for much of his rehab in California.

The book ends with the news that his long time friend and co-drug user Layne Staley of Alice In Chains has died from a speedball drug overdose.

In the book's dedication Mark writes, "For Tony (Anthony Bourdain) and all my other absent friends."

I never did heroin, but Mark Lanegan's life reminds me of the drug addicts I knew as a teen-ager. They seemed like loyal friends when we would score a bag of weed together, get high and listen to music. But sometimes they would steal from me. Or one time, Mike Hughes beat me up because I didn't get him high. As a drug dealer, Mark would sometimes burn his source, steal the dope and keep it for himself. One time his source threatened to kill him. I learned the hard way, I had to get rid of these lying druggie friends to find people I could trust.

I am also greatly disturbed by all the self-torture in the book. He's throwing up, he's cold, he's got the chills. One time his arm swells up from an infection, at one point doctors considered cutting off his arm. All of this self-torture says one thing, stay away from heroin.

Sure Mark was the exception in terms of production. He wrote and performed high, and seemed to do all right. But his life was a living hell. And most people are not productive on drugs.

Here's some of the lyrics from Mark Lanegan's song, I Wouldn't Want To Say

I wouldn't want to say, my friend
So I’m not saying anything
You say you'll fall, I'll fall lower
A love letter was what I meant
A bullet to the heart was sent
The way my body lay here bent
In the freezing exposure and frozen to colder
I wouldn’t want to say
No, I wouldn't want to say

Get out while you can, get out while you can
I will bring bad luck and misery to you, man
I'll paint this shadow across your land
While putting something graveyard dark
Straight into your hand
I wouldn't want to say
I wouldn't want to say

Finally, there are some sad haunting sounds generated by Mark Lanegan. Search him out on YouTube and you will find his music. I learned a lot from this book, mainly what it's like for a heroin addict. It is a frightening experience.

Midway Wholesale Sold To Beacon Roofing

By Michael Hooper

Midway Wholesale, a Topeka-based supplier of building and roofing supplies, recently sold to Beacon Roofing Supplies, a Fortune 500 company.

Midway Wholesale has 170 employees and $130 million annual sales in 10 stores in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Founded by Kenneth Daniel in 1970, Midway Wholesale was incorporated in 1974 at 218 SE Branner, Topeka.

Beacon is a publicly-traded company that distributes roofing supplies and building products in 400 locations in 50 states. The company's stock is traded under the symbol (BECN). 

In a press release dated Nov. 1, 2021, Beacon said, "Midway Wholesale has built a strong reputation for quality and reliability serving customers at 10 locations across Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. With annual sales of approximately $130 million, the acquisition deepens Beacon’s already strong presence in the Midwest."

“The Midway team looks forward to joining forces with Beacon. Our business has grown successfully since incorporation in 1974 by providing customers with superior service and taking care of our employees,” said John Ossello, Vice President, Midway. “We look forward to the investments Beacon will be able to make that further our partnership with customers and develop our team’s potential.”

The same press release includes a statement from Beacon's CEO, “We are pleased to welcome Midway’s employees and customers to the Beacon team as we help build the next chapter of the company’s story,” said Julian Francis, President & CEO of Beacon. “Expanding our depth of service in the Midwest will bring Midway customers the opportunity to benefit from Beacon’s digital solutions, TRI-BUILT product line and OTC® network. With this acquisition, our strategic initiative for growth takes on a new lever, adding a high-quality team and key locations to further drive our performance.”

I interviewed Ken Daniel multiple times over the years. He is a founder of the Topeka Independent Business Association. He supported efforts by small businesses to increase access to health insurance.

Ken Daniel was elected to Junior Achievement's Topeka Business Hall of Fame. He is widely regarded as one of the sharpest minds in business. Lisa Loewen wrote a story about Ken Daniel for TK Magazine March 2020.

I tried to reach Ken Daniel for this article but have not been successful yet.

Ken is a personable man who excelled at sales and management. He hired the right people and promoted them.

But in the beginning, it was just Ken Daniel in a tiny office at 218 SE Branner. He told me he started in 1970 as a manufacturer's representative in Topeka, a position that grew into forming his own company.

One time, Ken actually took me inside the tiny room, where he got started. It was a dusty old room with gray walls, more of a storage area when I saw it. He said as business got bigger, he took over more and more space inside the old building, eventually acquiring the entire building. Midway Wholesale's Topeka operation is next to the BNSF Railway tracks. To expand operations, Midway Wholesale purchased some land from BNSF.

In 2008, Kenneth Daniel, chairman, retired as chief executive officer at the company's annual stockholders meeting. Bruce H. Myers, president since 1999, was elected chief executive officer and president. John D. Ossello has been vice president since 1999.

Midway Wholesale originally started out as a roof coating business for the elevator industry. The business transitioned into a commercial roofing distributor. And later expanding into construction materials. Now the company sells products for both residential and commercial properties. "Buildings can now have Midway Wholesale materials all the way from their foundations to their rooftops," the company says.

Midway Wholesale's other locations are in Lawrence, Manhattan, Garden City, Overland Park, Salina, Wichita, St. Joseph, Mo., Joplin, Mo., and Grand Island, Neb.

Beacon Roofing Supplies is a gigantic company with more than $7 billion in annual sales. The company was founded in Charlestown, Mass., in 1928. Corporate headquarters is now in Herndon, Va.

Beacon said the deal to purchase Midway Wholesale valued the company at $28.7 million in goodwill, and $38.5 million in tangible assets, for a total of $67.2 million, according to a Beacon SEC filing dated May 6, 2022, said David Tangeman, Houston accountant.

Pay Down Debt at KPERs With Surplus

 

By Michael Hooper

Kansas has a surplus of $2.9 billion in tax revenue. The Kansas Legislature could go on a spending spree and buy all kinds of things and start new programs, offer tax breaks, maybe give money back to taxpayers.

Or the Legislature could do something that would be very wise; pay down the debt of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERs).

The disturbing trend at KPERs in recent years has been its habit of borrowing money to invest in equities. More than $1 billion in borrowings has been used by KPERs money managers to invest in assets that they hope earn a higher rate of return than the interest expense on the debt. So far this strategy has seemed to benefit the KPERs system, but they've had the benefit of a long and prosperous bull market that began in 2009. What if there is a serious correction in stocks and a subsequent bear market for years? This happened in the 1970s when there was high inflation. Well guess what? We're having high inflation right now. And domestic stocks are overvalued.

What if KPERs’ investments start losing money in a bear market. The investments, purchased with borrowed money, may end up being worth less than the debt used to acquire them. This is called being under water, sort of like owing more money on a car than what it's worth. This bear-market-case scenario could be disastrous for KPERs. 

And this is the public government employees retirement system for goodness sakes.

I've been an investor for many years, I don't borrow money to buy stocks. It's too risky. Margin calls are real. 

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt recommended using surplus funds to pay down at least $1 billion in debt at KPERs, WIBW reported.

Schmidt said aggressively prepaying $1 billion will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in debt service, more than $400 million over the next five years.

On September 30, 2021, KPERs had $25.4 billion under management. The portfolio was up 10.6% year-to-date through September 30 and has been up an average of 10.6% for the last 3 years and 10.5% the last five and 10 years. I would say those are pretty good returns for a portfolio of this size.

A picture of the portfolio shows that 26.2% of assets were in domestic equities 24.8% in international equities, 9.6% in fixed income, 5.7% in yield driven assets, 10.5% in real return assets, 9.5% in real estate and 10.2% in alternatives.

On Jan. 6, Gov. Laura Kelly announced plans to pay off over $500 million in debt at KPERs, using surplus funds.

The Kelly Plan to restore fiscal responsibility includes paying over $500 million in debt off early and avoiding future principal and interest costs. It will also include re-amortizing the legacy unfunded liability of the KPERS fund. Re-amortization has been previously proposed by Republican state lawmakers to help ensure long-term viability of the state employee pension system.

“We must act decisively to meaningfully reduce state debt, rebuild the state savings account, and protect Kansas’ ability to pay its bills in the long term,” the Governor said in a press release.

Celebrating Gigantic Creativity

Eiffel Tower, oil on canvas board, by Michael Hooper

A gigantic wave of creativity is a sweet release from pain.

I do not eat, I do not sleep, I do not stop to rest. I am so in love with this new project, this compelling image in my brain, which I'm trying to put on canvas. Each stroke is so liberating, so gigantic and so maddening.

Gigantic madness is a form of coping with pain

Pain is a universal language, we all understand it. I try to avoid it, yet pain always finds its way back.

Nobody wants to hear about pain, yet it is always there.

We should never say I'm sorry for our pain. Yet I still feel guilty for sharing it with someone because I'm afraid my story may bring them down too.

Escape away. Dive deep into that book. Start a painting. Create a legacy of color. Shapes and shadows, figures and trees, these are the symbols of my tender existence.

Without this gigantic madness, I might not survive. Pain would shut me down. Yet somehow I have this imagination that transcends my agony.

Don't cry in front of anyone. Cry alone. Perhaps God will take pity on you.

Big sky holds the clouds of darkness and light. There is sorrow and shadow, with a glimmer of hope.

Madness is out-of-control creativity, a continuous raging rant runs into a brick wall and falls asleep.

Burn burn burn. Run that brain as high and hot as you can. Hyperconsciousness drives my vision on the canvas.

I paint big swaths of purple and blue, green and black. I hope this creative wave never washes on shore, because all I have to go back to is a sea of pain.

So let's hear praise for gigantic madness, maybe there is another Van Gogh painting in there.

I risked everything to capture this image. The journey through hell on the way to heaven is my reward.

As my creative energy slips away, I fall back down into the pit. How long must I be here before I can climb out? 

When will I see my gigantic maddening friend again? Until then, I remember all of those precious moments when I created the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.

--Michael Hooper

Dec. 30, 2021

Kohan Retail Investment Group Buys West Ridge Mall in Topeka

 

By Michael Hooper

Kohan Retail Investment Group, of Great Neck, N.Y., has agreed to purchase West Ridge Mall in Topeka.

Mike Kohan, founder and CEO of Kohan Retail Investment Group, confirmed that his group is buying West Ridge Mall for $6,025,000. 

Kohan, reached by telephone, said his group owns Town West Square in Wichita.

"We try our best to revitalize these properties," he said. "Sometimes they are beyond our capabilities but we always try to improve through leasing and development."

He said he will know more information about plans for West Ridge after closing on the property occurs on Jan. 14th 2022.

WIBW's Kimberly Donahue first reported yesterday that Kohan Retail Investment Group is the buyer of West Ridge Mall. Her source was Topeka city councilman Mike Lesser.

On its Web site, Kohan Retail Investment Group, says, "We will continue to invest in local communities by purchasing shopping centers and working with local employees to revitalize the malls and envision a new future for them. The retail landscape has changed, but many shopping malls have not. We believe the future of these large indoor spaces will be more of a hybrid of entertainment, food, and retail than the past model where retail reigned supreme. With the closing of many large anchor stores around the country in the past decade, those large spaces offer unique opportunities for venues of all different types: galas, expos, concerts, arcades, miniature golf, and others have found their homes at some of these spaces at our malls. This is a great time for businesses to consider large spaces that can be transformed into localized shops or venues at affordable prices."

Kohan Retail Investment Group owns hotels and malls around the country. The company's web site lists 52 malls owned by Kohan.

On Dec. 1, Kohan announced it had purchased Temple Mall in Temple, Texas, Triangle Town Center in Raleigh, N.C., and Montgomery Mall in North Wales, PA.

Future of West Ridge Mall Uncertain

By Michael Hooper

A Topeka commercial real estate professional says he did not bid on West Ridge Mall because he couldn't figure out an angle for the space.

Ken Schmanke, president and CEO at K1 Realty, says he could not figure out anything that would fit in the 411,000 sq ft that was sold on December 15th.

West Ridge Mall sold at auction for $6,025,000.

"This property is in escrow. Once escrow has been closed, the auction details will be made available upon request," according to Ten-X, who handled the auction.

Only 37% of the 411,000 sq ft is occupied at West Ridge Mall.

An income statement in October showed the property had $479,432 in net income for the first 10 months of the year. That would amount to around $575,000 annually.

If there is that kind of income, Schmanke expects the new owner will try to collect that income as long as they can.

Schmanke has worked in commercial real estate in Topeka since 1988. In 2020 he purchased Townsite Plaza and Townsite Tower for about $1.5 million. At the time occupancy in those downtown buildings was below 60%. Now there is about 80% occupancy. The Plaza has 90% occupancy and the Tower 70% occupancy.

"It has exceeded our expectations," Schmanke said. 

When asked how he purchased the property, he said, "The stars lined up, the price was right. I looked at it and decided somebody needs to do this and I thought I was a pretty good fit for it."

More than $10 million in total will be invested after all the renovations are completed on the Townsite properties. Schmanke painted the Tower building, which includes a line that looks like modern graffiti art.

Schmanke said that when it comes to old commercial real estate, you have to invest in capital improvements to attract new tenants.

Will the new mall owner take the steps necessary to make it a viable mall? he asked. Will they invest additional money into the property to attract new tenants? Or will they just bleed as much money as they can out of it?

Henry McClure, a commercial real estate broker with MCRE LLC, said West Ridge Mall was always overbuilt from the very beginning.

The mall was constructed in 1988 by Simon Property Group, but Simon sold the mall in 2014. By that time, the mall had declined substantially and many tenants left. Washington Prime was the new owner but eventually that group went bankrupt and West Ridge ended up in the hands of Wells Fargo Bank.

There are many possibilities for the future of West Ridge Mall.

McClure said the best buyer is the end user, somebody who will actually use the space. One of the challenges with the mall is all the separate ownership of various tracts of land. Sears, Dillard's and JCPenny and Furniture Mall of Kansas all own their own land and buildings. The total mall area is about 1 million square feet.

McClure said that it's possible for the new owner to work with the existing owners through a reciprocal easement agreement, a treaty between the owners.

Amazon has been purchasing malls and converting them into online distribution centers. That is a possibility for West Ridge, but McClure says there's probably a higher and greater use for it.

He said the entire campus could be converted into a senior center with medical facilities and housing but he doesn't see retail space growing at the mall.

Shopping habits have changed. People buy online. People drive up to a store and go through the front entrance and leave that way. 

Other options for the property is a convention center, entertainment center, with hotel and gaming areas. Or perhaps a medical campus with a new hospital, plus offices and leisure.

Certain malls are recycled and others are scrapped all together, McClure said. Some commercial space is easy to convert. McClure said he is working on renovating the former Gordmans store into a light industrial space on South Topeka Boulevard.

A search on the internet for mall redevelopment will bring up all kinds of stories about malls. The Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Va., is going to be torn down to make room for a new hospital and other development.