Look and Listen

Biography

My full name is Darryl Dawson Brown. I use my middle name as my nom de plume only because I think it sounds better than "Darryl Brown." I was born on the same day as Martin Luther King, Jr. My first conscious memory is of staring at a Beatles cartoon on a huge black-and-white TV through the slats of my crib. Mom and Dad are both teachers (still alive, both retired), and I have one older brother. We lived in a comfortable two-story house in a lovely, integrated, suburban neighborhood called Harbor City, just a twenty-minute drive from the beach. I can count myself among the original Sesame Street generation, back in the day when it was psychedelic and funny. The first three years of my education were at a Christian elementary school where I first learned values and how to properly rebel against them. It was also there that I developed an aversion to suits and ties. The rest of my education was public. I grew up watching "Sanford and Son" and "The Flip Wilson Show", listening to Al Green and The Spinners, and admiring the amazing talents of Julius Erving and Muhammad Ali. Simultaneously, I grew up watching "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Get Smart", listening to Three Dog Night and The Carpenters, and admiring the amazing talents of Pete Maravich and Fran Tarkenton. Simply put, I was aware of, and quite proud of, my Blackness, but harbored no fear or resentment toward the Caucasian world around me. I had a United Nations of neighborhood friends, and we all played football in the street (there's something you seldom see anymore, thanks to pedophiles, reckless drivers and Nintendo). Don't get me wrong; I was certainly subject to the occasional racist names and jokes lobbed from the insensitive catapults of my middle school and high school peers, and sometimes they would cause me to engage certain self-defense mechanisms. But bottom line, I never grew up angry. Cynical, definitely, but not angry. As I alluded to earlier, I also love music--listening, not playing. I was fortunate to grow up in Southern California during the peak of rock radio (more on that later), and as I grew older I gravitated towards bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. The first album I bought with my own money was a cutout bin copy of Out of the Blue by the Electric Light Orchestra. It remains my all-time favorite album to this day. I attended Narbonne High School, home of the mighty Gauchos. It was there that I failed miserably in athletics, but more than held my own in acting and creative writing. I took a very unique class not on the curriculum: "How to Shut Up 101." My final exam was a fist to my right cheekbone. It taught me how not to strive to be something I'm not, and to respect people no matter what their backgrounds or opinions are. I turned out a better, if quieter, person. An odd circumstance considering my original career choice--I wanted to be a disc jockey. The "Mighty Met", the "Cool Patrol" and the "Roq of the 80's". There were others I loved, but no trio of radio stations in any market were better, and it wasn't just the music that drew me to them; it was the disc jockeys. Nowadays, everybody (including me) hates disc jockeys, largely because they come in one of three types: 1) loudmouthed demagogues with an axe to grind against those with an opposing political view, 2) irresponsible pricks who have no understanding of real comedy, and worst of all, 3) brainless automatons who give the time and temperature, tow the company line and, contrary to their job title, have no personality whatsoever. It wasn't that way in the 70's and the early 80's. Back then, you actually remembered the names of your favorite deejays. Joe Benson, Dusty Street, Frasier Smith, Gary Owens, J.J. Jackson, Jim Ladd, Jed the Fish, Dr. Demento, the Real Don Steele, Richard Blade. These were the people I admired, and wanted to be like. Those influences, along with WKRP and everybody telling me what a nice voice I had, propelled in the career direction of radio. After attending, then dropping out of, Long Beach State University, I got my first radio gig in Redding, California in late 1986. Over the course of the next eight-and-a-half years, the industry moved in a drastically different direction. FCC deregulation made it easier for one company to own two, three or more radio stations in one market, leading to safer, more predictable programming. When you compete against yourself, striving for excellence is optional. Disc jockeys had little to no control over the music they played or what they said over the air. Commercial breaks became ridiculously long and promoting the station became more important than changing the course of culture. What used to be a canvas had become a billboard. Disillusionment led me to quit the business for television, which was equally corrupt, but at least it paid more. My first TV job was in Reno as an audio operator at first, then a video editor. One summer day I took a job surveillance vacation in Phoenix, Arizona, checking out the lay of the land and the opportunities for higher paying gigs. I remember stepping out of my air conditioned motel room into a stark, bright, 100-plus degree day and feeling the change in temperature in my skin, being flooded with goosebumps from the soft, dry hush of desert wind. I fell in love with Phoenix on that day, and in 1996 I moved there and became a video editor until 2002. My TV career would take me to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I had a forgettable career as a video photographer for one station and rebounded as an editor at another. In 2004 I moved back to Phoenix, where I worked as a satellite coordinator and started bringing "The Crawlspace" to life. And it's alive, thanks to AuthorHouse, in paperback and eBook for your pleasure!

Inspiration

My first horror experience was from my all-time favorite TV show, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. That show not only thrilled me (sometimes to the point of insomnia), it also introduced me to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination. This was right around fifth grade when I first started writing poetry and my teacher told my mom I could be "the next James Baldwin." Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" is a very influential book, as is Clive Barker's "Books Of Blood," Stephen King's "Nightmares & Dreamscapes," and Walter Mosley's "The Wave."