Occurrences is a reflective book. What made you want to write it?
“When my daughter Julia was four or five years old,” Schweid says, “she had a hard time going to sleep at night so I started to tell her stories that came out of my imagination. Every night I came up with a different story. Now that she’s 13, about two years ago she mentioned that she would love to have me write down those stories so that she could tell them to her kids. So I started to write [things] down and finally I decided to do the book on the fairy tales that I told her.
“Also, I incorporated some of the other stories that I’ve experienced in my life. Being a good listener, I can sit in an airport or in a restaurant, seemingly minding my own business, but my ears pick up all these things that go on around me. A few days later I start to wonder if it really was that way or what the real truth was in that particular scenario.” Whatever the veracity of it, Schweid continues, “I write it down. Some of the stories in the book are based on these kinds of things.”
Several of the pieces were published in the Daily Breeze, and these included at least two tales about pet dogs that grew up, were faithful companions, and eventually passed away. “Although people write a lot of stories about dogs,” Schweid says, “I got a lot of letters.” At least one person who wrote in suggested that he compile his stories into a book. In the time since it’s been published there have been people who have suggested a follow-up.
Schweid is considering that option. “I’ve got hundreds of things that I’ve written already, and they’re in the same vein of listening, watching, and giving my own perspective of what’s happening.” While the author does acknowledge that he’s not a sophisticated writer, many of the brief sketches easily engage our attention. However, the last 15 pages of the book – Schweid says that everything he submitted was handwritten – are rife with uncorrected errors, and I mention this, as I did to the author himself, because it initially kept me from reading the book at all. For example, “…suddenly,out of nowhere ,a wild herd of horses came galloping unto the school ground freightening everuone,except of coursr our brave little girl,who just jumped on the leader horse and galloped around the school at full speed with the herd not far behing.” Pretty careless stuff; and I’d be remiss not to point it out.
That said, the response in general has been warm and Schweid has been getting royalty checks: “I contribute ten percent of everything I get from the book to the Disabled American Vets, of which I am a member, although I was never disabled, except maybe some hangovers.” He pauses. “5:15 Club in Anchorage, Alaska.”
Rock and roll fantasy
In Alaska, Schweid was on the ski patrol for the U.S. Army, and indirectly this was what brought him to Hermosa Beach in the 1960s.
“I met a lot of people that came to ski, and some of them were stewardesses. Towards the end I hooked up with one and she lived in Hermosa, and I came to visit her. I stayed, and she left.”
Schweid landed a job with Wallach’s Music City – a fairly prominent chain at the time that not only sold records but also sheet music and musical equipment – and eventually managed all seven area stores, including the one at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood: “I sold Marshall amps to Jimi Hendrix and a Gibson E.S.35 to George Harrison.” After the stores folded, Schweid opened his own music store on the corner of Hawthorne and Artesia, across from the Galleria. He had a lot of contacts in the music industry and was successful with his business.
“But not successful enough,” he says, “because the guy next door put a bomb in his bagel shop and blew up the whole center.” Trying to exit by way of the alley, the store owner was stopped by a policeman who’d heard the explosion, who then arrested him because he could smell gas on his hands.
“He got convicted,” Schweid says, “and for all I know he’s still in jail. The Torrance Police Department had a rock and roll band, and they’d go out to all the schools and do the drug thing, D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). I supplied them with their PAs, amps, and everything. I don’t know what happened to this guy when they brought him down to the station, but it wasn’t good.”
What also wasn’t good was the fact that Schweid’s music store was underinsured, and he was out of business.
Schweid had also been an active ingredient in the South Bay live music scene.
“I started a band that was called Operation Soul.” They performed in clubs (The Players, The Blue Book, etc.) in Manhattan Beach, plus various fraternity and sorority parties. “We did this record” – he shows me the 45 rpm they cut – “which never did much, but it was a record.” Even so, “we made a lot of money playing those clubs.” One of Schweid’s friends, Jim Mazza, who ran the record department in the Torrance branch of Wallach’s Music City, became a salesman with Capitol Records and eventually its president. Sometimes he’d show up with important people when Schweid’s band performed: “That kind of made the club owners happy.”
Easing conflict, doing good
Schweid was living in Manhattan Beach, near Third and The Strand, which was where the band was rehearsing. One day, the wife of a friend who’d just gotten herself a real estate license, called him up and asked if he wanted to buy a house. Since he’d been honorably discharged from the army, she explained that it could be purchased on his G.I bill. Okay, he told her; I’ll buy it, even though he hadn’t even seen the property.
The papers were finalized, but at the time Schweid didn’t even have the necessary couple of hundred dollars for the closing costs. He had to borrow it from friends. “What I did acquire,” he says, “is a triplex about a block and a half from the beach. I live upstairs and I rent out the two units downstairs, but it’s an old building and it takes a lot of work. Between being a landlord, a dad, a mediator, and somewhat of a half-assed writer, my time is filled.”
A mediator? For the past 20 years or so Schweid has worked with former councilman Lance Widman and others as part of a conflict resolution team at the South Bay Center in Hermosa Beach that attempts to resolve disputes – between neighbors, tenants and landlords, spouses and other family members, and so on. Initially, there might be nothing but hostility. “Two, three hours later, after all is said and done, everything is exposed and they’ve had a chance to talk to me in the office and then talk to each other; they’ll be tissue on the table; they’re crying, they’re hugging, and they go home, happy campers. This is an accomplishment to me.”
The biggest hurdle is the one that involves alcohol, drugs, or mental illness. Even so, the non-profit South Bay Center claims that 90 percent of the disputes it handles end successfully. “Most people really desire a resolution,” Schweid says. “The other option is to go to court,” and that requires money and lawyers, time and effort, but with no guarantees of winning or losing. “We bat the ball back and forth, for whatever it takes, and when we do come to an agreement we write it up. It’s legal in a court of law.”
With all of these experiences behind you, are you optimistic about this coming year?
“Absolutely,” Schweid replies. “More good is happening in the world than bad, although we tend to focus on the bad because it stands out. That’s my take on life: focus on all the good stuff that we’ve got going. A random act of kindness is probably as spiritual as any religion there is. What culture would disagree with it?”
Mike Schweid’s book, Occurrences, is available at Amazon.com.
