The Day the Earth Tried to Swaller Me Whole

Chet Week continues with the fulfillment of a Chettish request, i.e. posting photos from a long-ago incident wherein my car nearly plunged into a sinkhole. Chet was there (that's him kneeling on the right, barely visible between two standing band dudes), along with several others, not to mention my favorite band at the time, the Sugar La Las. Yours truly is the topmost of the two heads leaning out over the kneeling girl. Click on the pics for larger versions. To recap:

Back in the days of yore known as 1992, I was but an innocent lad made of sticklike limbs and frizzed hair, and I had some of the worst musical taste imaginable. I was only just beginning to emerge from a unilateral diet of (also frizzed) hair metal. One of the first local bands I ever had a group crush on was the Sugar La Las, an art-pop assemblage fronted by a large Eurofreak named Mats Roden, and a pixieish temptress named Carole Griffin. Plus a drummer and percussionist and bassist/keyboardist whose names escape me now. They were a fun, wacky band, and they had the good fortune of being generally good musicians. Roden wrote most of their songs, and he was a medium genius at coming up with great pop guitar hooks and catchy lyrics. Plus, they did face-melting covers of "Shook Me All Night Long" and "Delta Dawn" among others.

Anyway. The Sugar La Las, though nominally based in my ole home town of Birmingham, would occasionally come southwest to Tuscaloosa for shows. They did so one Sunday night at a dive called the Ivory Tusk, off the University of Alabama's now largely dead Strip. Great show, much fun, etc., with several of my local pals in attendance, La La converts all. Since it was a Sunday night, the bar had to close a little early, and there were fewer people than normal. Which meant I got to skeeze on the band a bit, which no doubt led to some awkward "I love you guys" booze talk. Can't really recall those details ...

What I can recall is that another associate, who we'll call Magoo, wanted to buy a T-shirt but was out of cash. I agreed to drive him to an ATM to re-fund himself. We staggered out of the bar to a campus parking lot across the street, now empty except for my gleaming 1988 Chevy Cavalier. We piled inside, I reversed out of the parking space, and then the car made a crashy-hitty-impacty sound.

Not good! Perhaps I was a little tipsy, officer, but I was pretty sure there were no cars or foreign objects nearby. But I gingerly put the car back into drive and eased forward. The car did not move, though it shuddered a bit. WTF, I thought, years before that acronym became popular I might add. Did I get hung up on a parking barrier or something? Magoo exited the vehicle to check, then frantically beckoned for me to join him.

Outside, we saw this. The pavement had collapsed beneath one of my front tires. It doesn't look like much in this photo, but this opening was only the top entry to a large, bulbous chamber, about fifteen feet deep and  thirty feet across. My car was essentially perched on nothing but a thin crust of asphalt.

We scampered back to the bar to summon help. Calls were made. The Sugar La Las at first refused to believe us, but they and the few remaining barflies came out to spectate. Cops appeared with truncheons akimbo, disappointed that this was an actual geovehicular emergency that required them to help rather than harm us. They sprang into action by distributing orange plastic cones around the perimeter, which had the desired calming effect.

Band chick Griffin was overcome by the scene and was barely restrained from hurling herself into the depths of Hades. Eventually a sort of Gobot tow-truck was called, and it managed to extricate my car from the brink for about a hundred bucks. Later it was revealed that the sinkhole was actually an ancient, long-disused, unmapped water main from bygone times that had finally collapsed. This became a key detail, since the University blamed the city of Tuscaloosa since it was their old water main, while the city of Tuscaloosa said it was a University parking lot. End result: Chris pays for his Gobot truck assistance. The hole was excavated, filled with dirt and gravel, and paved over within a week. Had my car actually fallen in, I and Magoo would likely be down there still.

As to the Sugar La Las, they were a classic case of bittersweet almost-making-it. Always on the brink of a record deal, artistic principles and band infighting finally split them up. Last time I saw Mats Roden, he was a waiter at a Thai restaurant. I heard that he later died of an aneurysm or embolism or something. Carole Griffin went on to become a successful baker and restaurateur. I drove the Chevy Cavalier to Spokane, Washington, and then back to Alabama two years later, but that return trip finally killed the poor beast, and I sold it for a few hundred bucks. The end. Excelsior!

Comments

[Enrique Bana]

I understand Thai restaurants in Alabama have very stringent hiring standards. Kudos to Mats for his (albeit brief) step up in life.

[Chet]

Sigh.

[Karsten]

Chris, that is some fine, luxurious hair.

[John M. Hicks]

          Those photos were a blast from the past! Many of the folk pictured now sponsor big beer guts. As do I. Some folks wonder why American cars aren't popular anymore. If two cross-country trips can kill one, it's no wonder it's a Toyo-zan-da-Mer-BMW world these days...

JH

[chris m]

Enrique, I have INS on the other line, something about a Mr. "Sam House"? transferring...

Don't fret, Chet. Ha! Chetfret! Just be glad those photos hadn't faded to sepia due to age.

Karsten, you should see some of the hair-shots in my other photos. Including your hair. I shall take great pleasure showing you and the wifey a few choice pics this weekend ...

John, those photos are hazy, but I don't think you know any of the pictured people ... other than Chet and myself and the aforementioned Magoo, they're all Sugar La La people. What misty presence from the past did you detect?

[John M. Hicks]

          Well, what the heck, I'll blame it on my bifocals. It seemed that:

A: The sideburned dude in the white T-shirt on the right was Mr. Palindrome, and perhaps (I know I'm going to catch some shit for this one...) the guy leaning over (also on the right) with head stuck out did resemble another Mohney other than your esteemed self... I need to stop drinking Irish whiskey on my off-mornings!

JH

[chris m]

Mmm, or perhaps more whiskey would do the trick. No Palindrom nor elder Mohney I'm afraid ... just more band scum. Good ol' band scum! How I miss them.

[Magoo]

Holy pits of despair, Batman! Somewhere or another, I've got those negatives. Unfortunately, as you have now outed said photos, I guess I'm not going to make any money off you when you run for office. Dang.

[chris m]

On the contrary, I will be the one making money off you. You may have the negatives, but I prefer to accentuate the positive.

[Friend of Mats]

Thought you'd be glad to know that you heard wrong about Mats Roden: He DID have a stroke awhile back, but thankfully survived and is still living in Birmingham.

[chris m]

Really! That's great to hear, in the still-alive sense (sorry to hear about the stroke). Please let Mats know that I was and remain a big fan of his music, and consider my slavish attendance of La Las shows to be a highlight of my misspent youth.

[David Kilmer]

I'm the guy with the glasses in the white tee shirt (band scum! indeed!) on the right. I was the keyboardist/second guitar. I am not surprised that I have no recollection of this incident whatsoever. You'd think a car-threatening Hellgate opening up in a parking lot in Tuscaloosa would have made an impression, but those were heady heady times and the bizarre became commonplace to the point where it stopped being filed by the synapses (observed, processed and sent straight to the shredder).

Mats continues to write and produce here in Birmingham, despite having lost the use of his right side. I hadn't seen or heard from him in two years, until yesterday when I got a message from him about some studio work. Carole's bakery and restaurant are close by and extraordinarily successful. She still pops up and sings periodically, always to the betterment to whoever's on the receiving end.

Thanks for the, uh, memory.

David

[scott]

i was trying to remember the best concert i ever saw and did an internet search for "sugar la las". I saw one set in a large bar in birmingham 1993ish. The place was packed. Someone was recording it on a camcorder. There was a huge fan base. They opened with "over the rainbow", dropped blood on the cute and petite leadsinger from the rafters, and transitioned smoothly into ACDC's "back in black". I was stunned and amazed, wondering if they could keep it up for a whole set. They did not disappoint, as I was entertained so far beyond my ability to feel that i was numb within an hour. I was saddened as the night wore on, knowing that i would never have such a great evening again. Their skill was far beyond typical. Somebody has a good video of it.