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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 23, 2015 - 11:34am PT
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'The Spewmasters, Proud Mary, and the Bald Rock Bar'
It was many years ago around 1981 when I began climbing with a group of climbers from Chico State who called themselves the Spewmasters. Their name, an obvious dig on another group of climbers of much renown from my home ground whom I was well aquainted with, referred in part also to the Spewmasters proclivity for extreme partying. This trait, it would seem, is not an unfamiliar pastime to most climbers in their formative years. I was first introduced to the group by my friend Rick, who I had begun climbing with the year before in Tuolumne. Later, when I moved to Sacramento and I was living with my girlfriend Cathy, Rick began inviting us to some of their wild parties in Chico. That I don't remember all their names or exactly when some things transpired is not important. It was our friendships, our hopes and dreams of things to come, and our rites of passage that linger most in my memories. It was back around the fall of 1982 and we were convoying in a few cars up the mountain road to their favorite haunt, the Little Bald Rock bouldering area.
Rick and I teamed up a few years later on Mescalito, my fourth El Cap route. A wild tumbling pendulum while following a traverse for me and many days of awesome climbing with a great partner sealed our bond of friendship for life. And Mescalito was my favorite and most memorable route on the big stone, where we practiced aplenty the Spewmaster mantra of our throat wracking pterodactyl cries that pierced the primordial surroundings of high exposure on the golden granite cliff.
But back on that autumn day in 1982 or thereabouts as our cars careened up the road to Little Bald Rock, the white storm caps laced the eastern horizon over the sierra crest, and we stumbled out of our cars after the long drive. Empty beer cans and bottles littered the ground where our packs sat as we pulled on our climbing shoes and swapped lewd trash talk and vulgar jokes. Our sh#t talk and bragging was up to now being ignored by the girls in the group and it escalated until one dude began telling a salacious tale of debauchery during a sabbatical involving a French whore and a wine bottle until a shoe deftly flung by a girl in the tribe glanced off the back of his head. After the assault the talking subsided and we sauntered about the boulders to scope the problems while the grit scraped and crunched on the granite slab under our feet.
We worked our way down to Hackie Sack Crack and the top rope came out of the pack. Talk quieted again to occasional barbs as each made our bid at the off size hand crack. After numerous flailing attempts I lowered off and untied to examine the weeping gobies that peppered the backs of my hands. As I sighed in defeat Cathy consoled me but Eric, Steve, and Rick were less conciliatory. These were the strongest climbers in our group and Ron, myself, and the others brought up the rear. As we winded our way around the lower part of the slab, climbing some of the lesser boulders, the beers came out and we worked our way back up to the parking area. At the top of the wide flat dome of Little Bald Rock the pipe loads were passed and the boots came off as we sat with the setting sun and were sate in our blissful state for a time.
The highway wound down into the dusk and the neon sign of the Bald Rock Bar beckoned to us half drunk and stoned travelers to park and enter. As the parking lot was full and we parked on the side of the highway, that there was a cover charge for the normally deserted and out of the way bar seemed an ominous warning. Unheeded, we grouped at the bar while the crowded dance floor was serenaded by a rocking country western band and we ordered rounds of beers and proceeded to drink and reminisce on our day of clamoring. Several hippie climbers and few of their girls in a crowded redneck bar in the Sierra Nevada foothills, what could go wrong? As we recounted our ascents and attempts at our favorite Boulder problems like Hackie Sack Crack and Spoge Bucket, I was oblivious to the bikers and hillbilly logger types with their icy stares at us unwanted climbers and their drunken leers at our girlfriends.
Always the romantic, when the band struck up with a favorite Creedence Clearwater Revival tune, 'Proud Mary,' I urged my girl to dance. Cathy hated dancing, but did not refuse me as I began to swing her about in a manner to which she was by now accustomed to enduring. As the words to the music rallied my enthusiasm, my immunity to alcohol faltered, and I became completely unaware of my proximity to the band as I swung my girl in concert with the music. Then suddenly, as I tripped backwards over a wire on the floor, it was no surprise to the drummer, who jumped up and out of the way with sticks in hand as I fell ass first onto the drum set with my girl on top of me. The music had stopped, the silence was deafening as she pulled me to my feet, and I turned to help the drummer sort out his drum set. I fumbled to straiten the bent stand on a cymbal set as I made my sad apologies. The room was still hushed as I looked about, all eyes on me and my gal, and I looked up at my friends as they stood at the bar, frozen with their mouths open.
"Tim, we better leave right now," is all I remember Rick quietly saying to me as I joined my friends back at the bar, some of them already out the door. I'm sure we all laughed about it later, but right then as we left that bar and piled into our cars and heard the music starting back up, we knew our very survival hinged upon a hasty retreat. As we sped down the mountain highway and away from that place, we had one eye on the road and one eye in the rearview mirror, wary that a band of pickup trucks full of redneck type Deliverance brethren would not be following us. For my Spewmaster brethren, they we're both loyal to and wary of me if my beer count was up from there on out, but my loving girl would admonish me long before they ever did.
-Tim Sorenson
04/23/2014
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couchmaster
climber
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Apr 23, 2015 - 12:19pm PT
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Excellent story Tim, it's like the "Otis Day and the Knights" thing that still cracks folks up in the Animal House movie, but both real and much better written. Thanks for sharing!
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Apr 23, 2015 - 12:27pm PT
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Spewmasters!!
Good one man!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 23, 2015 - 01:24pm PT
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Great story Tim!
Did Spewmasters even figure into a route name along the way?
Who were the rest of Crew Spew?
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 23, 2015 - 01:46pm PT
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I do believe that Spewmaster is a boulder or boulder problem at Bald Rock that they named.
Of course, some minor embellishments have been added to my story for effect.
My apologies for outing any here that are not so inclined to be named but if memory serves me they were;
Eric Mayo
Rick Harlan
Dave Caunt
Rob Settlemeyer
Steve Schneider
Ron James
Jim Thoen
If you were there chime in if I forgot you and you wish to add your name to the list.
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john bald
climber
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Apr 23, 2015 - 08:11pm PT
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Nice story Tim!
Hacky Sack was my favorite problem at the bouldering spot.
Glad that the access has been cleared up on the dome.
No more dodging the unsavories on top.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 24, 2015 - 12:19am PT
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I can't believe I left out the greatest Spewmaster of all, Jack the Dog, my big red curly golden retriever who made every aproach he was allowed and waited faithfully at the base of every route he went with me to. He was sitting in a hot springs with me and my family in Yellowstone one time and when we got back to the car, this ranger was writing me a ticket for having my dog in the back country in a Nat. Park. I told him we wouldn't have enough cash to get home if I paid the fine and he gave me a pass when he saw the donor sticker on my drivers license. Jack was so cool, he even tried to save a life or two when he thought people were drowning. They weren't, but still he would stir from a nap and go right in to save them when he thought they were in distress. I even taught him to count the fingers on my hand by barking the numbers. Smartest dog I ever knew. 'Ol Jack has been gone almost twenty years now since cancer took him. I sure loved that dog. He was a loyal friend and an alpha male with a heart of gold.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Apr 24, 2015 - 09:26am PT
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Enjoyed that story, Tim, thanks.
Mucking about on boulders and in scruffy bars are the common landmarks of our misspent youth.
Recently had a chance to revisit the former Boom Boom Room in Joshua Tree. We were amused that the bar's management requires you to hand over a credit card before you order. Apparently, they have had long experience with patrons dining and dashing!
That prompted me to remember that one climber we knew named the practice after a prominent track star who I had forgotten, but five seconds on Google recovered it.
"Hey man, let's Ivory Crockett".
Ivory Crockett (born August 24, 1948) is a former sprinter who, for a time, held the distinction of being "the world's fastest man" when he broke the world record for the 100 yard dash in 1974.
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