ET CETERA
University Daily Kansan, January 31, 1985
Page 6
Restaurant dishes out homelike atmosphere
Doug Ward/KANSAN
Jane Daniels, a waitress at Drake's, takes a breakfast order from Garmon Dale,
741 Maine St. The 57-year-old establishment is open Monday through Saturday, 4
a.m. to 1:45 p.m.
Nancy Alexander, 622 Forest Ave., left, eats breakfast while Bakery and Snack Shop, 907 Massachusetts St. The establishment Paul Penny, 638 Ohio St., enjoys a cup of coffee at the Drake opened in 1928.
Doug Ward/KANSAM
By PEGGY HELSEL Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Glover. $7_{1}$ sits at the counter of the Drake Bakery and Snack Shop. His tobacco-stained fingers rolly up a cigarette that he draws on between sips of coffee.
A plate in front of him shows the remnants of his breakfast, hash browns and fried eggs.
10 years assume
"I worked here for a year and a half in '65."
Worley recently returned to Drake's after a 20-year absence.
"I DON'T LIKE fast food. It's all right if you’re in a hurry."
"usually eat breakfast here. I come for the home-cooked food," he said on a recent morning at the restaurant, 907 across from me, many of these kinds of restaurants anymore.
"We get all kinds in people," said waitress Bonnie Worley. "Business people, young people, retired people, just plain work-a-day people."
Glover, who calls himself semi-retired, seems to take life at an unhurried pace. He says he likes living in Lawrence because "it's a place where you feel comfortable doing nothing, just loafing."
Down the counter from Glover, a student pores over the New York Times. A few seats down from the student, men in business suits carry on a conversation over their coffee.
she said. "It hasn't changed a bit. The only change is I am 20 years older."
"IT'S ALWAYS BEEN a very busy place." Owner Joe Drake said his father had taken care of his wife in 1928. Drake worked there off and on as he worked into the service during World War II, he said.
When Drake returned in 1945, he took over the bakery, and in 1961 he put in a lunch counter.
in back of the counter is the waitresses' domain. They move back and forth behind the counter, from their customer to the cook, and from the cook to the regular customers and with each other.
The lunch counter runs along the side and back of the room, and a row of stools sits in it.
An empty display case stands behind the front window. A pan of gingerbread men sometimes appear in the case, uniformly smiling at apples-by.
One waitress takes a customer's order and shouts it down the counter to the cook. "Hamburger Deluxe and a Pepsi," she says, like someone in a "Saturday Night Live" sketch.
THE COOK PLOPS another hamburger on the grill, which is also behind the counter. Country music drifts from a radio somewhere in the background.
Inside the bakery stands another case, almost as bare as the one in the window. This one holds two trays of chocolate chip cookies and a few sweet rolls. A customer walks
behind the case and grabs a cookie, walks over to the cash register and pays for it.
Drake does all the baking for the business, but not as much as he used to, he said. He blames the decline in the bakery business on the loss of supermarkets opening bakery sections.
Before most of Lawrence comes alive, Joe puts out the "open" sign. The restaurant opens at 4 a.m. and closes at 1:45 p.m. every Monday through Saturday.
PATRICIA COFFELT, WHO has been a waitress for 12 years at Drake's, said that many times the place had been filled with customers minutes after the store opened.
She relishes the environment at Drake's, she said.
"I like the bosses, the help and the atmosphere. It's just home, my home away."
A customer agonizes over what to order
He asks the waitress about the chicken.
"Let me tell you something, it's a little daisy, who whispers to him in confidence. Why?"
The informal atmosphere lures John Mills to Drake's.
"IT'S PRETTY RELAXED, and it's easier than cooking breakfast." he said.
Mills said, "I'm a regular, I come in about two times a week. I used to stop in here every day on my way to campus until I moved. Now we convenient anymore. I come out in of habit."
Broadcasting students Ray Cunningham, Hutchinson senior, street department's efforts to clear Lawrence roads during left, and Bill Comfort, St. Louis senior, report for TV 30 on the yesterday's snowstorm.
Students obtain broadcasting skills
By SHELLE LEWIS
Staff Reporter
With about 50 words, Lorrane Quinton
launched the broadcast journalism
of NPR. (AP)
Quinton, Junction City senior, christened the station Jan. 19 by becoming the first person to go on the air at TV 30, Lawrence's first television station.
TV 30, a low-power UHF station with studios at 3211 Clinton Parkway Court, serves as a classroom for 40 KU students. Before the station came along, they made videotapes on campus or during summer internships.
"It was a once in a lifetime experience. Scary, but exciting." she said. "You never get over that initial excitement of being on the air."
STUDENTS IN THE advanced broadcasting course work as the station's news staff. Dennis McCough, a paid employee of TV 30, directs the staff.
Quinton is one of 10 KU students who receive credit for working as a reporter for the station. Thirty other students work in the company, which is operating cameras or editing videotape.
MCCOUGH BROADCASTS THE stories
the students report. Only KU students
compete.
He said, "It's exciting working with students who really want to learn."
Quinton, who also receives credit by working as the station's assistant assignment editor, said the station emphasized professionalism.
Under the direction of Max Utsler, chairman of the program in radio-television-film, the students work six hours at the station and attend two hours of class each day. He said he tried to teach students skills that would help them not only get jobs, but keep them.
She said, "Each department is staffed by professionals with experience, and we are expected to act, dress and respond like professionals.
"These students are doing a great service to the University and the journalism school," he said. "With the exception of being a basketball or football player, I don't believe there is anything you can do as far as being more visible."
"As a student it is scary to think you are going into something this close to a real job. You don't know what you're doing."
Erin O'Shea, Lawrence senior, said. "This is a really good opportunity. I feel really lucky to be working here. This is as close to the real world as you can get."
Maria Bell, St. Louis senior, said some days at the station had been freeting.
"EVERYTHING IS NEW" she said "We
have new reporters, the relationship between the station and the University is new and is still being defined. The system is still being made sure we are all trying our best to make things work.
However, O'Shea and Bell, both reporters said they found working at TV 30 worthwhile.
'O' She said, '14 When I think we could still be
able to use the heat, just make jaws to turn in,
this is wonderful.'
"Compared to what we had a year ago and what every university in the country has, this is just wonderful," he said.
Even if the RTVF program were given $10.00 worth of new equipment, Utsler said, the arrangement with TV 30 still would be better.
Utsler agreed with O'Shea
"There is no way to duplicate in a lab setting actually doing it for real. You can try to fool yourself that it's real, but it not, he said. "It's hard to create a big pot of gold and dumped it into our laps."
Utsler said the students working at TV 30 this semester were special because they enrolled in a somewhat experimental class. He said he had talked to a few students who were apprehensive about being part of the experiment.
Quinton said, "Our class is setting down the pattern, and what we learn or don't learn will be taken into consideration for the generations of classes to come."
Local musicians jazz it up despite lack of paying gigs
Staff Reporter
By RICK ZAPOROWSKI Staff Reporter
"I think the climate for jazz in this area is really improving," said Chuck Bckg, associate professor of radio, television and film. "There's probably more interest in jazz than there was 10 or 20 years ago. The audience is a little more educated."
An audience's enthusiasm alone does not put food on the tables of out-of-work jazz artists.
Lawrence jazz musicians say that although audiences are becoming more interested in listening to jazz, paying jobs are hard to come by.
LAWRENCE AUDIENCES WANT to listen to jazz, said Ron McCurdy, director of KU jazz studies. However, musicians find few money-making gigs.
Tommy Johnson, a KU graduate with a doctoral degree in music education, works part time at KU's Bureau of Child Research and as a member of three bands.
McCurdy said that area musicians could have difficulty supporting a family on an income solely from musical performances—making many jazz performers part-time.
Johnson said that it was possible to be a full-time performer, but that the job would be time-consuming. When he performed full time with the jazz ensemble he formed, the band played instruments, he spent entire days making phone calls and writing letters to promote the band.
"THE SUCCESS OF any band — any musical organization — is directly correlated with the success of the artist."
The amount each band gets paid depends on many factors. Johnson said, such as how many musicians perform and how long the band has been performing, would also earn anywhere from $300 to $900 per show.
The Experiment often performs at The Jazzhaus, 92% of Massachusetts St., and invites guest musicians to play with them. Our guests have included McCurty and Beers.
"We try to feature a different person every time we play in town." Johnson said. "We try to have somebody come down who is a specialist at his instrument.
"It really works out pretty well," he said,
"it's about like the old jam sessions that
are running at my house."
Berg said having guests perform with the group helped bring together a variety of
"Chuck Berg, for example, is a really good tour bass player. When he sits in with us, he uses a simple keyboard."
JOHNSON CHOOSES COMPOSITIONS familiar to the performers so rehearsal time can be kept short and so newcomers can fit into the group easily, he said.
Johnson said that although most of the Experiment's shows were structured, the
group occasionally dealt with an over- abundance of players.
"One night we had four or five saxophone players come down to the Jazzhaus. he said.
"We tried to have one or two on stage at a moment, so it sounded like music instead of noise."
"IT'S VERY INFORMAL." McCurdy said,
"but very good."
During the past three to four years McCurdy has performed with The Experiment from time to time as a guest trumpet and flugelhorn player.
The informal settings of many jazz bands allow musicians to play in more than one
"There is some exchanging of roles," McCurdy said, "or some changing of the guards, if you will."
Berg said he enjoyed the opportunity to improvise with the Experiment, in addition to playing with his own band, the Chuck Berg Band.
"What I like is a combination of the two," he said. "With my own band, being the (band) musician."
ANOTHER BAND JOHNSON performs with, The Gaslight Gang, includes in its schedule performances at grade schools, junior high schools and high schools to teach music students about jazz performance. The opportunity to pass on their craft makes up for the lack of paid concerts.
"I think most jazz artists want to exert a
faction of control over the shape and
structure."
"We'll give them sort of a history of how jazz evolved," he said. "We'll play different styles of jazz. We'll play some Dixieland, some big band and some be-bop."
Johnson said the band tried to teach simple improvisational techniques that the students liked.
"We like to think we're jazz educators," he said.
Improvisation plays an important role in performing jazz, McCurdy said, and it's a skill that can be taught.
"There are courses designed to teach one how to improvise," he said. "Improvising is a very complex art."
Johnson said, "A baby starts by experimenting with his voice. When he grows older he learns to use the same mouth."
"He learns words, then he learns to put
words together. Pretty soon he learns to put
words in order."
To learn jazz, a musician must experiment with his musical instrument. Johnson said, and then learn the notes and the chords in the right context follows with practice.
He said the Gaslight Gang instructed students to experiment with their instruc- tions.
"We tell our students it's OK to sound
he said, "let me quality that it's OK
to sound."