Dangerous Dave, Bill Keenan, and Top of Ten Tom

These three guys are totally old school and original members of my Snowmass Possie. Cruising the Burn. Looks like Bill's new girlfriend is on tellies cool to see them holding hands about halfway down. Up top it cracks me up hearing Tom talking to Dangerous about playing the Dragon later that night! Anyway cool little clip of a casual little romp into Mic's Gully!

Seventh Hour Rich Man

How's does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?

Maybe your a rich man maybe your a rich man maybe your a rich man too?

Wow! In the previous post the clip of Suzy and Henry it's hard for me not to believe I was one of the riches men in my community. I was too blind to see it. So broke I couldn't afford a lift ticket, but the love in my little, brand new family and my friends and the life I lived for twenty Saturdays, maybe I was one of the beautiful people, maybe I was a rich man too.

Suzy and Henry 1999 / Fresh Out of the Box

Don't think you can really hear her, but Suzy says your annoying him. It was the first words captured in Twenty Saturdays. Prophetic words. It is with sweet sorrow I view this clip. King Henry Honeybutter Keith is no longer with us. He was the best dog ever. Seriously. All my dogs have been special, great even, but Henry, hands down the best dog ever. And Suzy, so beautiful, so young, her smile literally melts my heart and steals my breath. How I didn't spend every minute of those Twenty Saturdays with her, my new bride, the love of my life, the future mother of my children, boggles my mind. I guess I was scared. Scared and foolish. Scared, foolish and still a little wild at heart. 

Henry's annoyance at being filmed should have been a sign I read more seriously. This little project of mine would seriously annoy my wife. Now, eighteen years latter, if I had to do all over again I wouldn't. Don't get me wrong I am really glad to be doing what I'm doing now and believe I really needed my twenty Saturdays back then to be me here right now. Reworking Twenty Saturdays as a blog instead of a movie is something I could never have foreseen. Sure in 1999 I had a computer and I was online and I was rebel enough to go with Yahoo instead of AOL. But I had no idea I would someday own www.andykeith.com and I would blog for fun and it would help deal with the loss of my father and sister and help me come to terms with my past. 

Common Sense at Aspen Highlands 2000!

Skinning up the Aspen Highlands was a lot harder than my usual hikes up Snowmass. But when I got there to the mid-way lodge it was a total party. It was Wonterskol, but the weather makes it look more like Spring. This clip is a good representation of the fun being had that day at the Aspen Highlands. I would ski later in the day and hook up with my friend who ripped in a mono sled and latter would achieve fame in the Xgames and In the  Olympics, when that footage is found I will surely share.

The Chairs Are Y2K Comliant

Pretty excited about this new video capability! Will call this test Y2K.

Corby Poupon

Breakfast with Corby Poupon at the Wildcat Cafe December 4, 1999.

Sammy Dog

Sammy D didn't make it to 20 Saturdays, but I can safely say without Sam I would not have made it to 1999. His crazy matched my crazy that's why we were so good together.

Sammy dog said

I took a long walk today and I really must say things are going our way 

I took a long walk today and I really must say things are going our way today

Everything's going to be 0K Today come walk with me and see

So I took a really long walk today and I really must say things are going our way

Sammy dog said Sam I am Sam I am can you please give me my green eggs and ham

Sammy dog said Sam I am to the end my friend Sam I am Sam I am your friend

So I took a long walk today and I really must say things are going our way

Today

Suzy my bride

March 22, 1999

Suzy I love you Suzy I care

Together forever for ever I swear

For richer or poorer In good times and bad

When we are happy and when we are sad

To me you are everything and this you must know 

I'll follow you anywhere where ever you go

Suzy I love Suzy I care 

Together forever for ever I swear

Our kids will have kids

Someday when we're old

I just want to tell the about the love that we hold

So I write this song down and pray I can sing

I look forward to life with the love that you bring

Suzy I love you Suzy I care

Together forever for ever I swear 

Happy 18th Anniversary Suzy! 18 down forever to go! I love you so much! We love you so much. 

Love,

Andy, Kayla, Chloe, Mary, Emma, Tyler, Tucker❤️👍☘️🌈☮️

Seventh Hour on April Fools 2000

Odie Anderson and I are friends on Facebook and knowing him now is as cool as it was to know him then. Lift operator during the Winter. Smoke jumper during the Summer. Odie had a little brother Corbie who also lived in the Valley in 1999 and he worked at Grassroots TV. On my first Saturday on the hill I met Corbie for breakfast at the Wildcat Cafe and he turned the camera on me and asked some great questions. I hope to find that clip and I will post it when I do. I Remember hoping to team up with Corbie on this project and "borrow" one of Grassroots digital cameras to shoot some high quality action shots. We skied that day I think and must have shot some footage, but high quality it never was or would it ever be. Ended up only being me and my little 8mm video cruising around on Saturdays asking my friends what day it was. Here on April the 1st 2000 I asked Odie what day it was.

I get a little shout out from Seventh Hour! John Carlin I think says welcome to Andy's Saturday Tape and Tom says yoooo! I think we're up to 17th or 18th Saturday...I was kinda like a groupie. Cool band of guys John Carlin, top of Ten Tom Van Amburgh, John Hause ripping the drums  and Tom on base. Tom Tom John John I told Tom that should be their name and he said something like yeah it should if it wasn't so gay, fagot! You had to know how close we were to know that that was really funny. He liked to give me the finger at random times and it would always crack me up. Any who check out this short shout out!

Because of my friendship with Top of Ten Tom I got to see Jerry on his last tour. We road-tripped with Lionel in Tom's pick-up truck. We caravaned with a butch of people, Sabrina and the soul sisters and hooked up with most of the posse when we got to Las Vegas. Three shows in Vegas, my last three shows of the Grateful Dead. Sucked when Jerry died. Hard to explain the loss I felt or feel when another person I love dies. As I get older seems to happen all the time. A few years later my dad would die. A couple of years back I lost my big sister to cancer. I'm still struggling with being normal with that. 

Well shoot I didn't mean to bring down the vibe, but the truth of it is I'm sure everyone has lost someone since 1999. I would bet there are a few people who were caught on the Twenty Saturday tapes who are no longer with us.

One of the first posts on this blog was to dedicate this work to King Henry Honey-butter Keith the best dog ever. He will make an appearance soon. Also would like to dedicate my efforts to Sammy dog. Sammy-D and me moved to Aspen from Maryland together. I wouldn't have made it without him, seriously. He loved it here. He'd say all the time, "Aspen beats the shit out of Baltimore" right up there with  him saying, "I freaking hate the UPS guy!" Sam talked. Sam listened too, but only to me. He died in 1999. Friends said he threw himself under that bus after we made him move out of the Red House to live in Basalt with me and Suzy. He was not for the wedding, bitt Suzy twice, peed on her pillow, called her bad names. When I was out of town he took matters into his own hands. It was pretty rough. Suzy was devastated. 

I put him in the back of the rig and tookhim up  to the top of Basalt Mountain and buried him there. It was harder than it sounds. At one very low point in my life Sam was all I had. Literally. Without him I wouldn't of made it.

 

Seventh Hour

Top of Ten Tom was a very special old school friend from lifts. His nickname came from the position he held with Snowmass Lifts as the top operator of the Elk Camp lift, T10. He'd been driving that lift for a while before I started on '93. I got lucky early in my first season while working the bottom of the Big Burn. The top operator, who's locker was next to mine, said dude I'm moving to ski school and I could hook you up and recommend you for the top of The Burn. Said it was the best job on the mountain and for me at that point in my life he was right. I'll elaborate later on this later, but for now this post is about Tom, Tom Van Amberg.

One of the critical jobs for top operators in lifts was to disseminate information from ops, ski school, patrols, anybody really who needs to get a message on the message boards of all the lifts. The call would start at the top of Elk Camp and Tom would call four top operators and we would call our bottom stations and call 4 more top operators and so on until every lift top and bottom got the message. So many times a day my phone would ring and I'd answer, "T4 Andy." And he respond, "Hi T4 Andy. It's Top of Ten Tom!" With maybe the nicest, friendliest, calmest, sincere, authentic and smooth voices you can imagine. He skied like the wind. Played guitar. Was friends with anyone he ever met. He was a music lover and had an amazing sense of humor. At the time I was a bit of a joey from the city and a rookie skiing in a bomber jacket and jeans and still he let me hang out with him. He was one of those guys who by being his friend made you instantly cooler. Because I was friends with Tom I easily became part of the Snowmass Posse most notably Bill & Justin, Dagerous Dave, Crash, Yo Bro, Just Torre, Lionel, Odie, Taka. Proz, Adam, Josh, Keaton, Sabrina & Sussie...just to name a few.
So anyway, Top of Ten Tom joined a band called Seveth Hour and they played a lot during 20 Saturdays. I will share a short clip of Tom singing at the Acme to give you a sense of his talent. 

Proz

Not sure the date on this one, but definitely a Saturday. Skinning up to the upper lifts was the only way I could afford to ski while filming 20 Saturdays. I brought a bunch of credit card debt to our new marriage and could tell my wife was disappointed her husband was so undisciplined with his finaces and even more so when I charged a couple hundred more dollars I didn't have for the video camera and tapes for this project that made no sense. I remember a conversation that went something like if you buy a lift ticket for each of your precious 20 Saturdays that will be another $2,000 we can't afford to make payments on. So I committed to stop spending money we didn't have. I broke out the skins and started walking up to the upper lifts where SkiCo didn't check lift tickets. I wasn't going to let a little thing like having less than no money get in the way of my dream.

I had worked for SkiCo for six years and the four mountain pass that came as a benefit was sorely missed. But the life experience as a lift op, the friends I had made, the mountain knowledge I had picked up was invaluable. I was cash poor for a long time and very poor in every way since arriving in the valley so not having any money was not something new. When you're a local in Aspen you learn there are more things more valuable than money. The barter system amongst friends was a lively economy. Being the F&B manager at the Hotel Jerome opened a lot of doors and filled a lot of glasses for me. Working lifts in Snowmass got me fresh lines in areas hidden from most Joeys off the street. But seriously it was the constant generosity of friends that raised the standard of living to immeasurable heights.

The hike were long hard and awesome.This route from the Top of Wood Road took me straight up to Sheer Bliss and by chance I ran into my old friend and mentor Robert "Proz" Proznitz. Almost the senior most experienced lift op in Snowmass. He usually worked the dark side but had like more than twenty years in Snowmass Lifts and the dude knew what he was talking about. And he was funny. He was a friend to everybody but always took most of the rookies under his wing and show the the ropes. I think he did it because he genuinely liked meeting new people showing them the tricks of the trade. And they way of the mountain,

Here's Proz cutting some powder on the Bliss.

Proz's friend obviously a new rookie in Lifts was struggling with the foot of fresh powder that had fallen the night before, Proz will get him in shape, but mentions there are no friends on powder days when he almost takes us out. 

Proz mentions that we are by the tree. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The tree that killed Rick Hemple. I had never seen it. I was working that day and had breakfast with Hemple that morning, breakfast burritos at the Uhllerhoff and he was so excited to be finally working ski relief. Hard to believe a few hours later he'd be gone. When the call came on the radio I followed it to the patrol channel and it sounded horrible.Collided with a gnarled and ugly tree that took his life. Bad day for Snowmass. Really bad day    for Proz he and Hemps were really close.

Proz shows what he's made of on Powerline is tough line in good conditions this day it was a little rough,

Took Big Burn up again with Proz. Mel was working my old ski relief route. I was wondering if he'd be on T4 to end the day. Makes for a good long run to end the day. 

He's there and looks a bit surely, but it's Mel a consummate lift operations professional so I pull out the camera and take a shot, 

Mel is the man. Says it's Saturday. Says he got fresh tracks this morning before anybody! A skiing lead lift operator's work is never done.

This post is dedicated to the memory Richard Hemple who died on duty skiing relief for Snowmass Lifts Operations in 1997. God bless and keep him, Amen.

So in almost every way for nearly 20 years I've been totally alone on this whole 20 Saturdays thing. I did win over a bunch of friends and well wishers along the way, but it was obvious to everyone except me that nothing was ever going to come of it. This next clip will make my point. The first clip of this post was me skinning  up on one of the first powder Saturdays Thought it'd be a great shot, but this clip illustrates how pathetic and futile Keythink's one man production company really was.

Dr. Evil

20 Saturdays was about life. If it was about anything it was about the people I called friends. Most of whom were living life large. Living large wasn't always easy. Many of my friend captured on video for 20 Saturdays I am still in contact with today thank to Facebook and other such means of social friending miracles. One of those guys is Taka aka Dr. Evil. Here he describes the consequences of big air and sticky snow. How many people do you know who can rattle off those types of injuries sustained a few weeks earlier with a smile and then walk down the side of a ski slope back to work. Well Taka wasn't just tough he was cool. A music lover and now thanks to Facebook I can attest he is also a great dad.  Something I aspire to. Taka and I worked lifts together in Snowmass and he was there my rookie year making it look easy so quite fitting to get to see him on my last Saturday.

20 Saturdays Real Music

20 Saturdays was about life. Nightlife was a big part of it. The best part of nightlife in Aspen was the music. Tony Furtado was by far the best music of 20 Saturdays. 8mm video doesn't do him and his band justice, but the twang and graininess and the homieness of the clip puts the reality of Aspen nightlife on display. Nothing fancy, but face melting rock n roll all the same.

Writing Snow

In the previous post I played a clip of the video of me writing the song Snow and describe the difficult emotions I felt viewing it after so many years. I was indeed a troubled young man and the effect is heightened by the poor quality and graininess of the video. This still that I pulled reminds me of the picture of Brando in Appocolyps Now. I was in a sort of a self imposed excille in the jungles of suburban Boulder desperately holding on to my old life and the rapidly dieing dream that was 20 Saturdays. 

The painting in the background was a borrowed Gino Hollander. Gino was an eccentric 1st Mountaineer Ranger WWII Vetran abstract portrait painter who lived in Aspen. We commission a portrait of Suzy by buying it at a silent auction at the Bartenders Ball in Snowmass for a couple of hundred bucks. He asked for 5 pictures and a chance to meet his muse. Suzy and I met Gino and his wife at their home on the Roaring Fork in Aspen and had a couple of glass of wine. He showed us his artwork around his house and we got to know each other a little bit. We learned he and his wife had had five kids after the war and he moved them all to Spain where he learned how to be an artist. His wife was an accomplished author and beautiful person. Each of his 5 kids were also artists all in different mediums. Later in Boulder we would see his daughters horse statues almost everywhere we looked. He took the pictures we'd brought and asked us to come back in a few weeks. When we came back he hadn't finished the portrait of Suzy, but we had more wine and visited again and he and his wife showed us more artwork and told more great stories and I realized these two were the coolest old people I had ever met. I told Gino we were moving to Boulder soon so he gave us a "loaner" painting to take with us and if we came back in a few months we could trade it in for Suzy's portrait. It was really cool and this still does not do it justice, but here it is pulled from a grainy 8mm video.

Gino said anyone who has lived here in Aspen always comes back. He was right and a few months later we came back for our first visit. When we met with Gino and his wife we were totally blown away! He explained that he doesn't just paint a woman's portrait he paints his impressions of the many stages of her life from young to old. Throughout his home he had displayed over 30 paintings of his impressions of Suzy. It was really quite amazing and somewhat overwhelming. He said to pick whichever one we wanted. There was one that had to be 10x10 feet of Suzy as a young girl that was so spectacular we didn't dare pick it. It was literally a masterpiece. I sensed his relief when we passed on that one. I do now hope somehow someway to see it once again. We did pick a a very special portrait that hangs on ourwall seventeen years later. It was one that reminded me of her on our wedding day. We call it our Gino Hollander. He said after he was dead it was probably going to be worth a lot of money. To me, from the moment I saw it I knew it was priceless.

20 Saturday's Music

Watching this 17 years later stirs some difficult emotions. This is August of 2000 and I personally am in a difficult place. Literally, I am squatting in Boulder after a hellish move from Aspen. Staying in a childhood friend's house that he is actively flipping as our new townhouse is yet to be completed as promised. I have a bunch of time on my hands as I am unemployed and Suzy has started Law School. Figuratively, I am homesick for my old life in the Roaring Fork Valley. I missed my friends. I missed the way it was when I could ignore my problems and pretend I was cool. There was no going back. My 20 Saturdays were done. The season was way over. I was kidding myself. Trying to keep the dream alive. Here I am playing the drum machine, strumming the guitar, writing music for the soundtrack for a movie that didn't exist anywhere but in my mind. 

Soon I would be waiting tables at the Sunflower in Boulder, soon we would buy a puppy, I would start selling groceries for Allient (US Foods), we'd move into our new house, we would have Kayla. Life would rock and roll, but here in this video, I was a misplaced Aspen Hippy Freak freaking out and trying to cope with reality the best way I knew how. By avoiding it. 

1st Saturday in the Year 2000!

So Y2K didn't happen? It was the impetus of my project. The end of the Millenium was supposed to bring some serious appocoliptical mayham down upon us. I remember pitching my idea as 20 Saturdays Skiing as The World Burns! 20 Saturdays of Y2K the Last Ski Season Ever. Or some such nonsense, if you were an adult back then you have to remember there was some serious anxiety building up to New Years Eve 1999.  Aspen was slow. The ultra rich stayed home to oversee their empires. The Grand Ball New Year's Eve Gala at the Hotel Jerome wasn't sold out. Which meant Suzy and me got to party like Rock Stars!

Suzy still worked there, I used to work there and we had recently had our wedding reception there so Tony (the GM) invited us for free to fill in the empty seats! So we partied like it was 1999 because it was. Here's us on the dance floor as the ball dropped. If Y2K was the end of the world I would have died a happy man.

Well so the world did not end and in fact Y2K was maybe the biggest dud ever. In fact nothing happened. I woke up early, road the gondola with Brad (childhood friend who came in from Houston) and Jasmin And skied in a blizzard on New Years day of 2000. Proving 20 Saturdays wasn't going to be a film about skiing the appocolipse taking the steam out of the plot a little bit. But I was committed and the show must go on (or the filming of the show whatever the show might end up being must go on). 

The first Saturday in January 2000 finds me on a chairlift in Snowmass on a gorgeous day with two old-school best buds Lionel and Top of Ten Tom. Their short conversation sums up the whole Y2K thing and allows for a Segway into what 20 Saturdays is really all about,

I'll insert the clip soon, when my tech improves for now these stills will suffice

The short conversation was about the lifts being Y2K compliant and that in fact they did have a diesel back-up in case there was a need for ...😊😳😁😃😂😎

So what was 20 Saturday all about. Twenty years latter I see it as a coming of age film about a 33 year old newlywed mountain man with a lot of problems who wanted to record some of what he knew was going to be his last ski season ever!

It's 2017

Two years to write Twenty Saturdays before my self-imposed deadline of 20 years expires to tell my story. The Saturdays run from 1999 into the year 2000, but the story rightly begins 1993 in Ocean City, MD with hurricane Emily bouncing up along the East Coast pushing 12 to 14 footers on the normally docile beaches of Ocean City. Working as a waiter at BJ's on the Bay at 75th Street came with many benefits and privileges. Without being there you can't appreciate the amount and beauty of the babes and the skills and coolness of the dudes. My dart throwing abilities got me invited to the Barn a cool beach rental with two fuge-ball tables and like 6 roommates and at least one raging party a night. This night was the annual opening season fuge-ball tournament and these guys were serious. $40 a man $80 a team, round robin, double elimination, $1,000 pot goes to the last team standing!

I had only a training shift that night and hadn't earned anything yet, but won $40 shooting darts and figured easy come easy go. It was a blind draw for partners and I got lucky with getting the kitchen manager from BJ's. He was an older heavy drinking kind of dude who's only words to me were, "Rookie if you can play a decent back we're going to take this thing." About twenty beers and six hours later we were the last men standing. Turns out I could block and pass almost as good as he could shoot. We split $1,200 bucks, but more importantly made some really cool friends and had met some beautiful ladies who now knew my name and it wasn't Rookie. Some of the guys called me champ and others called me by my name, then some called me hey is that your boat?

I lived across the Assawoman Bay in Ocean Pines with my parents. I was too old to be living with my parents, but I was there helping my dad recover from a second stroke that had really taken him down hard. I also lived there with my dog Sam Sammy D!

By the end of the summer my dad said he didn't need me any more. Gave me a precious piece of advice too. Said son this is probably the last time in your life you can move anywhere in the world you want to move. For the rest of your life you will have to move for work or move for family. You will have to move here and move there. Like when I had to love to Cleveland, but you, now, can up and move anywhere your heart desires.

So I Surfed hurricane Emily and then moved to Aspen!