Hello Roman, It's great to see photos and read of friends from 50
years passed, reminded of great times. Here are a few fuzzed
recollections:
"The highcountry has mosquitos say Pete's dingleberries"
"Moonrise on Half Dome"
The Vulgariphone saga; concept, search and demise (maybe not).
"Are you accusing us of eating INSENSIBLY", Phil Jacobus in full
stentoria to dining room suit in the manager's office at Jackson Lake
Lodge.
First and Last (?) annual Mohonk weekend. Burt doing summersaults down
the hall clothed exclusively in a red Terray type down jacket.
Jack Dornan runs Phil and Gerd, Dirty Beatnik Mountain Climbers, off
at gunpoint.
Electric late night searches for trash pies and a Manhattan expansion
joint.
Frenetic gathering and burning of all barrier logs in the Climbers'
Camp.
"The Bulgarian Connection"
Mid 60's Art Gran and I are working for Doug Tompkins at his North
Beach NF store. Wee hour blitzo coffee shop hustle the waitress
conversation about some folks she knows called Vulgarians. Cups later,
when she asked me if I knew where she could get some smack my brain
sorta cleared (huh?) and I realized she's been talking about
Bulgarians the entire time. What she said about what I had thought
were mutual friends made, for some reason, a lotta sense so I hoofed
it back to Art's and sacked out on the kitchen floor.
Fred Wright
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Roman: You've outdone yourself. This is the best history of New Paltz I've seen
yet. Huguenots? Huh? Congrats on preserving a great (and true!) history,
Tamar
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Great idea, Roman, and about time. I think I would concur with others about exercising restraint in the debunking of myths, which, after all, become reality after a while.
Richard Goldstone
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All right guys,
The Bugaboo account is something I wrote back when, following a
reasonably drunken debauch cum dinner at my place attended by the usual suspects
(2007?), it was decided to start a Vulgarian website, where old timey stories could hang out. As I recall either Wick or Wick jr. was going to handle the site. Anyway I wrote up a bunch of stuff, including the Bugaboo piece, sent a bunch of old slides that Bloom had and that I scanned (still have too) and sent it in. (BTW: they're in that SuperTopo article). The only other folks who participated were Wick and Al D and maybe Clawed, anyway things kind of disappeared into the usual misto fog and all was quiet again on the Western front. Long story short, I have no idea how Geno got that stuff. For all I know, even though I don't know the guy, I may have even sent it to him., but too many of my memories are becoming dream sequences to stand up in court. BTW: FFbear, I believe I sent copies of all this to you on a CD. However, that said and looking at this email thread of recent vintage, raging against the night or something, I think everyone should take a deep breath and relax. So someone else wants to tell our story, what are we J.D. Salinger or something? BFD. We tell ours they tell theirs, it's history man. You know, Rashomon at best. Anyway if you guys are really concerned then send your stuff to Roman and/or give him some help. Stop complaining and start writing or whatever. It was a great time to be climbing and we were incredibly lucky to be there and it ain't ever going to happen again.
pete (Geiser)
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FFBear
Trad climber
NY
Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 24, 2011 - 03:23pm PT on Super Topo
A new website called The Vulgarian Chronicles has just been constructed about one week ago by FFBear (aka Roman Sadowy) with the aid of his fellow Vulgarians. The purpose of this website is to gather all of the Vulgarian legend in one place instead of having it scattered all over the web (lot's on Supertopo actually). There are many articles about us on the web, some fairly accurate & some with glaring errors. We will debunk the articles with errors but I can guarantee you that the truth about the antics of the Vulgarians is much more interesting than fiction. However, I have encountered some articles based on real events that are so well written & amusing that I can't resist publishing them, sometimes with an accompanying article that is as close to the truth as our memories will permit. Also, there are some stories that are so interesting that they are not fit for public consumption, but I will push the envelope as far as I can.
So those of you that are interested in Vulgariana, please visit our site. We welcome your comments, suggestions & stories if you have any.
Responses to this post on Super Topo are Below:
Tony Bird
climber Mar 24, 2011 - 03:30pm PT
Northridge, CA
c'est amusement--i love nonsense. but if you're a real vulgarian, you would be contemptuous of accuracy.
scuffy b
climber
dissected alluvial deposits, late Pleistocene
Mar 24, 2011 - 04:03pm PT
Some gems in there, Bear. Thanks.
Why does everyone keep going in and out?
scuffy_b
climber
dissected alluvial deposits, late Pleistocene
Mar 24, 2011 - 05:16pm PT
Some of the text is obscured by the photos in the Kichatna article.
( Thanks for the heads up) I fixed that 3/28/11 -FFBear)
Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
Mar 24, 2011 - 09:04pm PT
I like vular--------rians.
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Mar 24, 2011 - 09:22pm PT
Also, there are some stories that are so interesting that they are not fit for public consumption
whoa, that doesn't seem to be a Vulgarianesque statement!
but thanks FFBear for the link!
MH2
climber
Mar 24, 2011 - 09:58pm PT
"as close to the truth as our memories will permit"
In hopes of jogging or creatively permitting memories
in 1972 I house-sat the near-Poughkeepsie home of a Vassar Brothers Hospital Ob/Gyn surgeon who, at 6'8", was the pride of his group practice and the dismay of rivals because, well, because surgery is a macho profession
and the wife of this surgeon said that she had climbed at the Gunks with this cute guy Roman Sadowy
Morgan
Trad climber
East Coast
Mar 25, 2011 - 07:28am PT
This is a timely thread. I was always wondering if there was any connection between the name the Vulgarians and the country of Vulgaria.
Here's a classic clip of Curly from the Three Stooges, in Vulgaria, trying to deal with a belligerent oyster in his chowder!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK2X--p9smg
hobo_dan
social climber
Minnesota
Mar 25, 2011 - 04:58pm PT
It's 1983 and I am in summer school trying to grind through my Physiology class. In preperation for a MQ I am reading Roper/Stecks 50 Classic climbs and my professor takes it away from me and informs me he used to climb with Jim McCarthy. I take the test while he reads my book.
(I think he took the photos from the Alaskan Cathedral Spires-I remember his name was Bloom so it was probably the same guy)
ZachW
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
Mar 25, 2011 - 05:58pm PT
Awesome to see a little history of my (now) local climbing area.
happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
Mar 25, 2011 - 06:00pm PT
Will scans of the Vulgarian Digest eventually be included?(Or pehaps offer PDF's, downloadable for a fee, which can help cover the costs of the site hosting and work.
Good luck!
Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
Mar 25, 2011 - 08:05pm PT
Great stuff - thanks for sharing!
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Roman,
I think that's an excellent point re the Yosimite guys and Roper's book vs. Vulgarian not so seriousness. I totally agree that it should be much closer to Wolfe's book. However I also think that it's important to somehow weave in that we were the last young folks to live in the pre-Interstate America and the only ones that spanned the transition to the Musak. I know this sounds a bit on the serious side but there was and is a huge difference between our time of endless two lane blacktops and the whiz of the Interstate prison.
Homogenization!
No pain access to the secret places!
Cars that don't break down! Helicopters in the Bugaboos!
Smooth transitions to the eternal manifestations of beauty!
The defiling of mystery.
The last death throes of the frontier.
We were there.
Pete (Geiser)
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Nice! Especially number 4.
Helene Schneider
(I think she means ASS #4 - FFBear)
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Hey Roman,
A worthy project!
Joe Kelsey
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I can't wait to check it out on the big screen when we get home from Utah. We skied Alta yesterday and LOVED it. Today we are at Snowbird. Nice area, but it is snowing with low visibility. No powder to be had due to warm temps the past few days. A bit hard and chunky today.
Tomorrow we will ski Brighton.
Will check in next week!
Xoxo
DIL
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Hey Roman, glad to see you're back and kicking, I wish you all the best with this effort.
We had so many great experiences together, I often recollect some of the fun times. I do remember a bit of this one time going to an empty apartment where we took off our clothes (can't remember who's idea it was), we joked around, some guy was watching us from another apartment window, don't remember much else, not even two girls I picked up???, you'd think I'd remember that! This is why I think it's very important to not rely on single person memory of events, needs corroboration, imagination can get out of hand fairly easily especially after a beer or two or three or......
Any way, I'll be happy to contribute what "I think I remember" .
RAVEINGLY yours,
Wick
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The site looks great!
Sasha Sadowy
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Why would you want to clear up all the rumors and disinformation about the Vulgarians? A famous newsman once said something to this effect…..When rumor and truth conflict ….” Print the rumor”.
This way we could be really cool guys with lots of followers and groupies and movie deals instead of just a bunch of old folk. Also I , for one , would like to know what happened in that room with the naked guys and the two chicks, also maybe a synopsis of what Al De had for breakfast. If we don’t make things up how are you going to describe those nights that no one remembers, or the moments seriously compromised by fear or pharmaceuticals .
BC
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yes
YES
this will be THE
COUNTER TWEET
an underground , under the counter
anti-establishment ANTI-GIANT-COMMUNICATION/COMPUTER/CELL PHONE/FACEBOOK/ASSBOOK/ TWITTER/TWATTER industry
rage against the little tiny electro-mechanical machine super human mega-hubris
long drawn out
big verbiage assault
on contemporary sensibility and mores
!!!
clawed
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Roman,
VD revisited, Great to see another go at it.
I remember the party at Ben & Gwen's. I think John Russon was there and played a major part in instigating the nudeness. The two chick part went as follows: I was living in Washinton hHeights and had a female aquaintance named "Alice", quite pretty, Dick was going to pick me up to go to the 9th st party and I asked Alice to bring along a friend for him. We all four piled into Dick's TR3 and drove to 9th ( I think that is what happened) when the clothes came off the chicks freaked and so we walked them to the subway station and returned to the party. Dick, is that you recollection as well?
RP
PS: Raivo - I know your friend Alice well as I once spent an entire evening at my/Claude’s apartment in Washington Heights trying to get into her knickers. I'm not sure if i succeeded but we remained friends. Also, I was the first one at Gwen & Ben’s party & suggested that we take our clothes off & greet everyone in the nude.
FFBear
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As either Hudson or Ken Kesey or someone (maybe me?) said "it's the truth even if it didn't happen" and after all, the "Truth shall set you free!".
pete
Not you Pete, see Ken Kesey Quotes
FFbear
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everything is really shaping up nicely
I think I will e-mail the link to my daughter in law now
and she can notify her parents OR NOT --ha ha
Jean-Claude will be proud but fearful of his Commanding Officers finding out - ha ha
ho ho
how to get back at your kids for when they tried to embarrass us when they were weee little brats - ha ha ho ho
Clawed
