Jerry Kranitz is an authority on cassette culture (home taper music and audio art creation) and music (space rock in particular).
He ran the Aural Innovation website/podcast for 18 years which was a mecca for space music fans (like me). It’s no exaggeration to say that finding that website changed my life for the better and for many other people.
Jerry wrote a massive book called Cassette Culture which I enjoyed so much that I knew I had to read the second edition because of the updates.
Jerry also recently published the book Putt-Putt Abuse which is not quite a memoir or autobiography, but is more of a collections of the stories of Jerry and his friends mis-adventures in their youth in the 1970s in the Kenmore area of New York.
I have to confess, I had trepidation reading this book. I thought (wrongly) that I wouldn’t like it and that it was something that only people from that time period and era would enjoy. It’s nice to be wrong! After a chapter or so I really caught the rhythm of the book and found that I couldn’t stop reading it and once I finished found I kind of missed the people in the book. Almost as if I had grown up with them and then lost contact with them. That is some feat for a writer to attain.
What follows is some questions I sent Jerry via email and his responses.
What inspired you to put the book together?
The full title of the book is Putt-Putt Abuse: And Other Zany Tales of Growing Up in 1970s Kenmore, New York. Kenmore is part of the greater Buffalo area. I’m on at least a dozen Kenmore/Buffalo related Facebook groups. What’s common across all of them is the palpable sense of nostalgia. People, places, history, restaurants/bars, landmarks, where people went to school… people endlessly and fondly reminisce.
A while back a guy posted promoting the memoir he published about growing up in Kenmore in the 1960s. I read it and was disappointed. It was very disjointed. And more than half the book took place after he had left New York state. I was confident I could do much better. Another important backdrop is that I remain friends with all the guys I met in the neighborhood where my parents purchased their home in 1969. So I worked on an outline while conducting interviews with my friends. It was a fun process. I had several phone conversations with some of them. One friend kept calling me out of the blue as specific memories occurred to him. I’d have to say, “Hang on!”, while I grabbed my digital recorder and put him on speaker. I loved it. It took a couple years but this short book gradually came together.
When putting Putt-Putt Abuse together, did you have any concerns that it would be un-relatable to people born outside that region and time period?
I wrote the book specifically for people born in that region and time period. But I also considered it an American experience that could resonate with anyone growing up in that era. But my targeted promotion has been Kenmore/Buffalo readers.
Were there any stories that you were asked by your friends/family to not include? Not that I’m asking to know what they are (if there are any) but I just want to know how you dealt with that situation if it came up?
The trick was finding a balance. I wanted to be candid. But I also wanted the book to be fun. Hence the choice of the word ‘Zany’ in the title. When in doubt about whether to include something, I tried to imagine whether I’d get laughter, rolling of the eyes, or “Those silly guys!” responses. What I wanted to avoid was making people wince at something out of bounds or downright creepy. For example, two of my friends went through a vandalism phase. On the one hand, it’s not shock/horror, but I could easily imagine it getting an, “Oooh, not cool” reaction.
Having said that, none of my friends or family asked me to leave anything out. I used my own judgement.
Memory can be tricky. What stories were you concerned you didn’t remember correctly?
That’s where the interviews with my friends came in. I’ve got a good memory for the most seemingly mundane incidents and details. But there were several incidents where my friends corrected me on details, or it took a couple of them bantering back and forth before we agreed on the details. There were even entire incidents that I had completely forgotten that they remembered. I can’t emphasize enough that this is just as much their book as it is mine. Their participation was fundamental to the entire project.
While reading the book I was really looking forward to reading about how you got into music. That came towards the end. Knowing how you’re such an authority on music and that’s what many people know about you, why did you choose to hold off until towards the end to dive into that?
That was the ‘Me’ chapter. I was kind of the black sheep of our circle of friends. They were all sports fanatics, whereas I just wasn’t interested. I did enjoy playing hockey but I sucked at it. I’m not the least bit athletic. And I was the only one of our group with all the wacky interests I describe in that chapter. Especially music, going to concerts, and getting stoned. So it made sense for that to come at the end as something separate from the larger story. While the book is ‘Our’ story, it’s also my memoir.
What did you forget to include that you remembered later and wanted to go back and add (if there was anything)?
Nothing I felt should have been added. But there have been little things popping up. For instance, while interviewing Dan he mentioned his Sicilian grandfather who didn’t speak English, which kind of drifted past me at the time. But after the book was published, Dan or someone in his family produced a photograph of this grandfather at a dining room table with all the kids. I kept staring at it because the picture had been taken before they moved to the neighborhood. I thought a lot about that. There was a large southern and east European population in Buffalo, and it wasn’t uncommon in that era for kids to have grandparents who spoke little or no English.
Another example is Dan spotted a photo posted to one of the Buffalo Facebook groups of a movie theater that had been in Kenmore we had no previous knowledge of. That set us off on a little research expedition to find out more about it. So while not things that I wish I had known for inclusion in the book, these little details show how the inspiration for the book lives on.
What has the reaction been to some of the stories in your book by friends who didn’t know you during the period?
There are lots of people in Kenmore I didn’t know who read the book and loved it. (The ‘Truancy’ chapter explains why I knew so few people outside my circle of friends.) I received lots of feedback that it brought back memories readers could relate to, made them laugh, reminded them of things they had forgotten, and many shared memories of their own. A handful of my music network friends like yourself have read it, which has been very satisfying.
You spared no one, especially not yourself, being mocked by the reality of what you all did, which is one of the virtues of Putt-Putt Abuse. How did you handle this?
Nothing to handle. No shame. I relish any and all reactions! We were young and young people do dumb stuff, which is all part of what I would insist is healthy growing up. As I stated a couple times in the book… We all gotta go through, what we gotta go through, to get where we need to be.
Why do you think the Saratoga restaurant, which features heavily in the book, went out of business? It seems like it had been booming for a long time.
The Saratoga wasn’t unique in this regard. I guess it just boils down to its time had come. I’m sure that was combined with the new management, who I didn’t know and can’t fairly comment on. But it saddened me. When we’re young and impressionable, small things are impactful. Like this restaurant several of us worked at for a handful of years. Working there was such a treasure trove of influence and lifelong memories that it rated a full chapter. The entire book is full of these things that my friends and I never tire of reminiscing about.
You mentioned something surprising to me towards the end that you rarely get out to concerts anymore. Would you mind elaborating on that?
The reasons are lame. Sorry, I mean LAME! It’s partly major arena shows. I dislike the crowds, the parking, the expense… it all seems more trouble than it’s worth. Yes, Old Fart talk! I have been to a couple big shows in the past few years, both of which my wife booked as part of vacation trips (Sting and The Who). Both were at the Budweiser Stadium in downtown Toronto. It was great because we stayed in a hotel directly across the street and could five-minute walk to the venue. I thoroughly enjoyed myself at both.
But there have also been a lot of club shows here in town I’ve not gone to because they don’t typically start until very late. I’m very early to bed, early to rise these days. There’s a local arts group that puts on lots of ‘experimental’ music shows, which start at 8pm on the dot. I try to attend those. So, yeah, Old Fart!
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