Questions for Chris Counts

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Posted By: George Dreher

Chris,

Does the Defense Language Institute/Presidio of Monterey still exist on top of the hill there? Is there still a pizza chain there called Roundtable? Does the Dream Theater still exist? Was doing some reminiscing when I saw where you work. Haven't been in Monterey for about 30 years and had some great times there.

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Posted By: Bill

Wow, small world. I was there from Jan. '05-Oct '05 at DLI at the top of Franklin Street. I'll never forget that walk! I do remember a Roundtable Pizza though I always liked Pelican Pizza. In regards to a theater, I don't remember that one. They did have a 'Cafe Noir' though that was a movie theater and coffee shop/house. Man, I loved that town.

Change your socks, drink water, and drive on.

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Posted By: peter chao

George,

It is a small world I was a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies from 1983-1985. We were a stone's throw from the DLI and their rivals in producing UN translators. I remember some of the places you mentioned.

Peter

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Posted By: George Dreher

Bill, I walked up and down Franklin Hill nearly every day for over a year. Used to walk all over town and was in incredible shape then. I loved that town also. Have thought many times about purchasing a vacation villa there and returning for part of the year. The climate was the best. Spring-like temperatures all year round. Met Clint Eastwood once when I was in Carmel.
The Dream Theater was a psychedelic movie theater where they showed weird movies like "Heavy Metal", "The Wall" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

Peter, I knew all of the instructors in the Hungarian program at DLI. Went with a girl whose parents were Vietnamese instructors there.

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Posted By: Anonymous

The Dream Theatre is no longer there.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Anyone on this thread old enough to have attended Monterey Pop in 1967? Never met anybody who was there.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

George,

The DLI/Presidio is still here, although there is always talk of closing it, as well as the Naval Postgraduate School. The various branches of the military are always considering moving to a place where the real estate is cheaper. The Dream Theater, unfortunately, was torn down a couple years ago. As for pizza, I've always been partial to Mexican food, so I can't really say ...

Barry, as for the Monterey Pop Festival, I have met many folks over the years who have told me they went. We also had a series of Grateful Dead shows in the late 80s they still talk about as well. It's hard to believe we once had so much great rock 'n' roll around here. Nowadays it's pretty much just slick jazz for tourists ...

And as for Clint, I met him just once. I was standing in line at a local burrito joint, minding my own business and ordering my burrito. Everytime I tried to place my order, some wise guy behind me kept making comments to try and confuse the English-challenged guy behind the counter. So whenever I would say "no cheese," the guy would follow it with "extra cheese." After a couple times, I turned around the confront the guy, and there was Clint, dressed like a golfer and smiling from ear to ear ...

By the way, for all you tobacco card lovers, Harry Wolter comes from Monterey ...

Also, if any of you guys make it down this way, there a new shop in downtown Carmel (just next door to Monterey) called "Carmel Baseball." It's a combination of a card business, baseball museum and batting cage. I've never seen anything quite like it. There isn't much pre-war stuff for sale, but it's still worth a visit. One of the co-owners is Hal Trosky's grandson (he runs a local baseball school for kids) and the place is filled with momentos from Hal's career ...

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Posted By: George Dreher

Sorry to hear the Dream Theater is no longer in existence.

Barry, I wasn't in Monterey quite that long ago. Have been to Height Ashbury in San Fran, but it was after the end of the psychedelic era.

I should start a new thread about Baltimore and DC. There were some great places there that are now gone. Best heavy metal bars....Hammerjacks, The Bayou, The Wild Kingdom, The Attic & Cellar in College Park, MD. Best pizza, Delaney's Irish Pub in Greenbelt, MD.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Thanks Chris. I've always felt the film Monterey Pop was the best of its kind ever made, even surpassing Woodstock. The summer of 1967 was a watershed moment in pop culture history.

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Posted By: Jay

This is great. I was at Stanford from 1971-75 and spent alot of time scuba diving just down the coast from Monterey at Missionary Beach. I remember a place in Monterey called the Spagetti Warehouse-does that ring a bell with anyone? For any of you that ventured a little further north did you ever stop at the St James Infirmary in Mountain View or Rosati's or the Oasis around the Stanford campus?

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Posted By: Chris Counts

Barry,

I agree with you about the Monterey Pop Festival. Although I didn't see either in person, I've watched the Woodstock and Monterey Pop movies many times, and I'm convinced Monterey had a better line-up. If you get a chance, there's some great Monterey Pop outakes on youtube, stuff that didn't make it in the movie, particularly clips from the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and Simon and Garfunkel. In the clips, David Crosby is not only playing with the Byrds, but he is also replacing Neil Young in Buffalo Springfield for the day. Shortly after the festival, he left the Byrds (reportedly due to the repercussions of playing with Buffalo Springfield and as well as political comments he made at the festival), eventually hooking up with both Stephen Stills and later, Young as well ...

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Posted By: Jim

I had a friend in Monterey that I lost touch with many years ago. I think that her father was an instructor there at a military helicopter base?

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Posted By: peter chao

Jim,

He was probably at the DLI. The big thing at the Monterey Institute of International Studies was simultaneous translating. It's fascinating to think that there are people who speak English and Farsi fluently. Not only that they would translate a sentence spoken in Farsi before the speaker was halfway through with the sentence into English.

And then they would translate the response from English into Farsi. Simply amazing.

Peter

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Posted By: barrysloate

Chris- I've seen David Crosby with Springfield on youtube, but what is even better is the Grateful Dead material that didn't make the movie. They hated their performance and didn't want it included in the finished film, but if you watch it today it is terrific. I have a friend who wrote two books on the Dead, and he showed me the tape years ago, but it now exists, at least in part, on youtube.

Edited to add I was actually in Haight Ashbury in the summer of 1967, but it was one of the more embarrassing moments in my life. I was 15 years old, and that summer I took a cross country trip with a group of other teenagers. When we got into S.F., one of our day trips was taking a Greyhound Bus through Haight Ashbury. This was exactly the touristy thing that killed the area for the residents. I remember people on the street cursing us out and giving us the finger. Our tour guide thought it was amusing, but I found it humiliating.

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Posted By: Jim Dale

Ran into Clint in the market in Carmel on the day before Thanksgiving, he was obviously going to be preparing his own dinner that night; couldn't get an invite out of him darn it.

Lived for 3 years in Pebble Beach / Shepherds Knoll which is a fantastic place to live. Might go back there for retirement.

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Posted By: George Dreher

Thanks for response. Sure brings back a lot of good memories.

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Posted By: BcDaniels

Chris, do you know a guy from the (DLI*) language institute named Cory Keller by chance?



BcD

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Posted By: peter chao

Clint,

Carmel is like heaven on earth if you have the money. If you don't you will be truly an outsider. There's high tolerance for eccentrics. There's a guy who lives in a glass house near the beach. How about that when you wake up in the morning you can look through the walls of your house and see the sunrise.

Peter