#70s tork

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Peter Tork, Coco Dolenz, and Micky Dolenz onstage at the Troubadour in September 1970.

“Coco’s a wonderful singer. I’m just so impressed with her at all times.” - Peter Tork, Zilch podcast, no. 67 (2016) “My heart is full with memories of my beloved Peter. ‘We were born to love one another, this is something we all need’ . Fly free my friend. May we meet again.” “In honor of my beloved ‘brother’ Peter, I’m listening to Blues today. Not just because I’m sad, but because it reminds me of him and his love for the genre. On tour, we always played ‘a little blues for Pete’ during sound checks and VIP Meet and Greets. He could play anything, from Rock and Roll to Classical. I miss you, Pete.” - Coco Dolenz, Facebook (February 2019)

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Photo from the 1965 filming of The Monkees' pilot episode.

From the 1970s transcripts of the unpublished, shelved Peter Tork autobiography (auctioned off on eBay years ago): Peter Tork: "[At Michael's home, in 1965] you had to climb about 120 steps. I remember when I walked in after the pilot I arrived separately, arrived back home, as it was, Phyllis walked in from the shower, stark naked, scared the shit out of both of us." Q: "Out of her, too?" PT: "Well, we were both quite startled." Q: "Oh, it was just you and her." PT: "Mike hadn’t come in yet. I hope it’s not too embarrassing to her to say that. Maybe I should ask her, I think I can reach her."

“The first time I met Peter was at the Troubadour where he performed, long before the auditions. I’ve always liked his warmth and honesty. And he’s always been very kind to me. Both Davy and Peter have lived with us and Peter was always very considerate, helping with the dishes and all. One night Mike just brought Davy home to dinner and that was how I met him. It was at a very early period, right after the guys had been chosen. Davy was so charming and nice. He would walk the dog, play with Christian and compliment my cooking — really nice to have around. Christian liked all of them right from the first. He’s always so happy when any of the Monkees drop over. When Davy and Peter lived with us it was kind of a family atmosphere. They just all kind of pitched in — and even babysat for us!” - Phyllis Nesmith, Fave (January 1968) [x]

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“Peter is growing squash on his mother’s farm in Connecticut.” - Davy Jones, The Journal News (September 12, 1970)

“It’s taken Peter a while to get his head straight again. He was never mentally suited to all the pressure, to the studio demands, the girls always tugging and pushing and mauling us.” - Davy Jones, Edmonton Journal (October 24, 1972)

“Peter is a very mellow, erudite man, and he had to play the dummy on the show — if you remember. Maybe you don’t. Anyway, he was the Huntz Hall of the Monkees, and, in private life, he’s by no means that way.” - Micky Dolenz, News-Pilot (August 11, 1976)

“[Micky] did a great job [drumming] on Headquarters. [But] he wasn’t going to do it again, and there was nothing you could do [to change his mind]. We had to go back in the studio. He said, ‘Peter, you can’t go back.’” - Peter Tork, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd. CD liner notes (2007)

Q: “Was it hard on you when it was over, Peter?” Peter Tork: “Um, no, it wasn’t particularly hard on me — at the time, I didn’t think it was hard on me. I… but I did not know very well what I was doing. I wanted to go back to the street; I was happy in my Greenwich Village hippie days, let me go back to passing the basket. But, you can’t go back, as some sage once said. And so I spent those in between years trying to make the difference up.” - Nightwatch (1986)

“When The Monkees were big, I couldn’t handle the pressure. I missed the easy, street-level camaraderie of my Greenwich Village days.” - Peter Tork, 2006; quoted in Uncut (2019)

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All photos that I've researched of Mr. Thorkelson's time as a teacher at Pacific Hills School and New Dimensions High School (and that have been posted in the past separately with quotes). Photos 1-4 (?) by Anthony K. Roberts, photo 6 by Matt Asner.

“Best high school teacher I ever had […]. Tremendous empathy.” - former student Mark, commenting on a Monkees Live Almanac blog post (2018) “Peter was a great teacher and friend to me in 1977-78 in Los Angeles. He was my History and Music teacher 5 days a week and was the most wonderful, patient and real teacher I have ever had. I learned so much from his kindness and talent.” - former student David, MLive dot com (2019) In a New Dimensions High School Alumni public group on Facebook, various alumni recalled their memories of Peter, including: “We were lucky to have known him.” - Joanie (2019) “Was a wonderful guy and we [were] lucky to have known him.” - Alison (2019) “I was one of the luckiest student[s] the year [Peter] taught music. [He] let me rock the violin for the graduation ceremony.” - Mark (2019)

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Peter Tork teaching at Pacific Hills School, 1976.

“[A]lso, you have to remember that, in this society, teaching is not regarded as a very important pastime by those people in charge of setting budgets and national priorities and that kind of thing. Because if it were, they’d be paid a vastly greater amount of money than they are. Not, you know, double doesn’t begin to get it. Triple, quadruple, that kind of thing maybe. And the fact that teachers are paid as poorly as they are indicates what the priorities are. Nurses make what garbage men make, that kind of thing. It’s not a, you know, it speaks… well… ill, it speaks very poorly and very loudly about our priorities.” - Peter Tork, KTRU Radio (August 28, 1983) “Since September he has been teaching English, math, drama, Eastern philosophy and ‘Rock Band Class’ at Pacific Hills, a private secondary school in Santa Monica, Calif. A college dropout, Peter got the job on the strength of his interview with Dr. Penrod Moss, the school’s director. ‘I like to hire people who are independent and creative,’ Moss said. ‘I was impressed by his personality and his ability to speak.’” - People Magazine (April 5, 1976) “I was a schoolteacher in Southern California, and I taught music as well as academics, and I really very much love to teach, and, and I think that if circumstances show me that I am not to entertain anymore or my entertaining career per se winds down, I would very, very much love to coach young entertainers.” - Peter Tork, Headquarters Radio (1989) “[A]s a teacher, I realized that in order to teach something well you need to understand what your student is going through as they try to learn.” - Peter Tork, The Journal Times Online (August 12, 2005) “Best high school teacher I ever had […]. Tremendous empathy.” - former student Mark, commenting on a Monkees Live Almanac blog post (2018) “Peter was a great teacher and friend to me in 1977-78 in Los Angeles. He was my History and Music teacher 5 days a week and was the most wonderful, patient and real teacher I have ever had. I learned so much from his kindness and talent.” - former student David, MLive dot com (2019)

(More quotes and photos from Peter's time as a teacher in older posts, filed under the tag Tork teaching.)

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Photo by Nurit Wilde.

“[T]he thing that Peter enjoys the most about his new life is that he feels he’s finally able to be himself. He’s so happy that sometimes when he’s driving somewhere, he’ll start singing along to the radio at the top of his lungs. When people see this happy, bearded young man tootling down the highway on pure lung power, they sometimes stop and start. But Peter just smiles and gives them the peace sign and goes on his merry, musical way — a guy who knows where he’s going and who’s doing what he wants to do.” - article by Sandi DeMastus, Flip (January 1970)

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Photo by Nurit Wilde.

“When they shot them down at Kent State, that was the end of the flower-power era. That was it. You throw your flowers and rocks at us, man, and we’ll just pull the guns on you. Essentially, the revolution, which was sort of tolerated as long as it wasn’t a significant material threat, was not tolerated anymore. And everybody went ‘Ooops’ and scurried for cover and licked their wounds. They became isolated – which was the point of it all. 'Togetherness isn’t going to get it’ was the moral they tried to lay on us, because the less togetherness there is, the more room there is for exploitation. Kent State was an attempt. Let’s try this and see what happens. And what happened was the shooting and vast inflation and a swing to the right — the moral majority. The whole thing was inherent in the situation. A certain amount of loosening up, a certain amount of extra leisure, and people are going to try to improve their lot instead of just barely hanging on. If you had a little extra you’re going to try to make everything better. And if you see that your own happiness, or the lack of it, is tied in with the sadness of your neighbor, you’re going to start feeling communal. And that’s going to expand until the crunch comes. As long as people are educated to believe that isolated self-interest is the only way to go, when the crunch comes they’ll withdraw from each other. And only now, in the faintest glimmerings, do I see any sense that people are realizing that togetherness and flower power alone won’t get it. It’s got to be togetherness, flower power, plus a willingness to do something pretty stern from time to time. If you’re not willing to behave sternly, people who won’t stop short of stern behavior are going to keep on going. It’s taken a while for that message to sink in.” - Peter Tork, When The Music Mattered (1984) Q: “How do you think the 60s differ from today?” Peter Tork: “I think we are going to see a re-run of a lot of the same effort of that time. But I think it’s going to be real. I think the 60s kind of ‘All You Need Is Love,’ flower power and all that, was disproven. Kent State showed us the truth of that. I think it was a critical attempt that had to be tried or else we’d be kicking ourselves wondering why we hadn’t tried it. But we’re not going to be fooled again. Flowers and guns, head to head and there’s no question who’s gonna walk off with the goods. It was a very difficult lesson that we had to learn. Now we have to face people head to head and not everybody’s going to come out of this one alive. There was a chance before but J.F.K. said it: ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.’ And an awful lot of power hungry people knew they had to get their guns out to protect what they thought was theirs. God takes away from you what you have to have. What you will hang on to at any cost will be ripped away from you. Ripped. And if you hold on so tight that you can’t let go, your arms are going to be wrenched out of their sockets. This is not my will. This is a law. Like the law of gravity. It’s going to happen.” - Columbia Daily Spectator, April 2, 1982

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“I knew Peter back in the 70's. We had a lot of fun together. Frankly, when I first met Peter, I didn't even know who he was since he had a long beard and looked completely different from what we remember from the Monkees. He was a loving, fun guy who was extremely talented. I'm so glad I got to know him and will surely miss his endearing smile.” - Penny Andros, obits dot mlive dot com (2019)