Organized? Ha! Ha! Ha!

Jory and his multi-part toys

We tried to teach Jory organizational skills, but it it was mostly a futile effort.  We started when he was a toddler, establishing a bedtime routine that included: putting his toys away on the family room toy shelves, bath time, teeth brushing, storybook reading, and going to sleep.  It was soon apparent that his toys were not getting shelved in a timely manner, which pushed back the entire routine, including our ultimate goal of getting him to sleep.  He was so active during the day, that we were exhausted by evening and needed him to go to sleep.  Soon we relented, insisting that only one or two toys be put away, leaving the floor strewn with cars, trucks, blocks, and LEGO.  I rationalized that we had built-in burglar protection because no robber could walk through the mess without breaking a leg.  

That only worked for a short time.  One night we were awakened by noises in the darkness of night.  They seemed to be coming from the family room and we suspected an intruder was in the house.  Stealthily, Sam crept out of our bedroom, passed the boys’ closed bedroom doors, and down the hall.  Flashlight in hand, he pushed the button to spotlight and startle the intruder.  There was 18 month old Jory, holding an orange in one hand and a paring knife from the dishwasher in the other.  

“Stop!” Sam shouted as he lunged for the knife.  “Why aren’t you in bed and how did you get out of the crib?”

Jory just smiled and clutched the orange to his chest.  I had joined the midnight party in the kitchen, swung Jory and his orange onto my hip, and carried him back to his crib.  Even though he couldn’t talk yet, he seemed quite proud of himself.  

“How did you get out of your crib?” I whispered.  Jory looked up at us with his cherubic smile, and proceeded to show us how he stood by the sidebars, lifted his right foot onto the railing, used his hands to pull himself on top of the side rail, and let himself fall onto the carpet below.  Accomplished, he stood up and grinned proudly at us.  We were flabbergasted and admonished him to stay in bed and go back to sleep.

Jory and Darren

The next morning, big brother Darren told us that he had taught Jory how to climb out of the crib.  That entire day, meals were finger foods because all the silverware that had been in the dishwasher with the paring knife, had disappeared.  Jory couldn’t tell us what he had done with them and it wasn’t until the next day that I found all the cutlery “put away” in the refrigerator vegetable bin, hidden by celery stalks and parsley sprigs.  From then on, Jory went to bed in a harness that zipped up the back.  It allowed him to move around in the crib, but not escape.  

When a new baby was expected into the family, we decided that Darren and Jory would share a room.  Sam built a magnificent bunk bed unit that had a bottom bed for Jory and a top bed for Darren.  Darren was 5 years older and was always the kid who put away his toys, kept his books in perfect order, and followed the rules.  Jory was exactly the opposite:  toys that weren’t Jory-proof were disassembled, books were strewn in every direction, and piles of stuff accumulated in every vacant space.  Darren decided that he would rather share a room with the new baby.  

“Great!” exclaimed 4 year old Jory, “You’ll be a great help to Mommy and Daddy.  When the baby cries in the middle of the night, you’ll be right there to change the diaper and take care of it.”  Darren hadn’t thought of that and decided to stay sharing the room with Jory.  

Jory had his own Railroad Conductor's Uniform

Jory was in love with trains and had received a model railroad set as a gift.  Trying to help Jory organize his layout, and also provide Darren with access to his upper bunk, Sam built a large wooden platform that fit within the remaining floor space in the room.  The track and the transformer were attached to the board and the trains, buildings, signs, and accessories could be moved around.  The entire platform was fitted with a pulley system that allowed the platform with the trains and layout to be pulled to the ceiling when not in use.  Both boys could raise or lower the platform to play with the train set, or move it out of the way.  It worked well for all of us, especially on cleaning days.  Darren usually didn’t have much to pick up, but Jory secretly lowered the platform, dumped his stuff on top and pulled it out of sight.  Always out of the box, Jory managed to find ways of never being organized.

As Darren was becoming a teenager, he constantly complained that Jory’s space was always a mess, so we separated the boys into rooms of their own.  This gave Jory even more room to stockpile treasures, stash candy wrappers, and stuff items into the closet.  Jory’s jackets and shoes were strewn on furniture and floors across the house.  At first, I gathered renegade items and collected them in a giant bag destined for donation.  When Jory tried to find his favorites, he invaded the Goodwill bag, sneaking out his clothing and slipping off to school before I could catch him.  My efforts didn’t work in helping him feel the need to be organized. 

Jory's room after he returned from Israel

“If you don’t clean your room, I’m going to send you to St. Catherine’s Military Boarding School!” I threatened.  “You’ll have to wear a uniform and share a dorm room with 10 other boys.  All you will have, will be 1 little cubby to keep a few things.”  He listened politely, moved a few things around in his room, and stuffed all the dirty clothes into the closet or hamper.  It was a camouflaged attempt at cleaning the room.  As a last resort and after weeks of warnings, Dad would arrive in Jory’s room with giant, black, trash bags.  The floor once again became visible and a line of stuffed bundles marked time in the hallway awaiting their final ride on the dolly to the trash cans on the side of the driveway.  When we weren't looking, the bags crept into the dark corners of the garage.  Then, little by little, they shrunk down to half their sizes, leaving behind remnants of old completed newspaper crossword puzzles, empty candy wrappers, obsolete assignments from school, empty packaging from batteries, and other unwanted miscellaneous items.  Again our efforts were in vain.

The longest time that Jory’s room was somewhat clean was the summer that he went to Israel on a study abroad program.  I’d walk by his bedroom and smile to myself that I had finally managed to approach one goal with him.  Of course, that all changed when he arrived home with even more precious junk to invade our house.  

Jory's Music Portfolio for CalArts

LA Times Article on Jory writing music on a computer

I finally gave up and decided to concentrate on getting him into college.  I researched and learned that music composition majors needed to present a portfolio along with their written applications.  I bought several accordion file folders and labeled the sections.  As Jory wrote music on Finale, I requested copies to place in the files.  When he was featured in the LA TIMES, as a young composer writing music on a Mac computer, I cut out the article and placed photocopies of it in the files.  When he was a finalist in the Disney Creativity Competition, I included a copy of his computer generated score and his finalist certificate in the Awards section.  When he rewrote the Troy High School Alma mater for each instrument in the band for his Troy Tech Senior Project, I put copies of the scores and photos of Jory presenting his project, into the folders.  When his English teacher required each student to write a personal statement for their college applications, I put copies of his into the folders.  Soon the folders were full, easy to access, and ready to present.  Jory got into the groove and began presenting me with material for the portfolios without my asking.   

Jory after earthquake

Chivo Colorado

Even though I was successful at getting his college applications organized, I was still reluctant to believe that Jory was becoming organized, and rightly so, because it never really transferred to his living spaces.  At CalArts, he arrived with clothes, bedding, a computer, a monitor, a midi interface, at least one keyboard, a guitar, a Newton with a keyboard, a boom box, boxes of CDs, a stuffed animal goat—Jory’s brothers nicknamed him “Chivo Colorado,” Spanish for Jory's emerging red goatee— and more.

In advance, I felt sorry for Jory’s future roommates.  His first roommate, a guy 4 years older than Jory’s 18 years, was from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, had never been away from home, and arrived with a small duffel bag containing a couple of changes of clothing, a toothbrush, and a bottle of whiskey.  Their cohabitation lasted only a few months until the night of the giant Northridge Earthquake, which was actually centered beneath CalArts.  Tuscaloosa ran out of the dorms with his current bottle of whiskey, refused to re-enter the building, and evacuated to Alabama at the first opportunity.  His next roommate met his match with Jory.  Rob was studying pyrotechnics and their apartment was equally filled with boxes of explosives and electronics.  Neither of them minded the other’s messes.  I conceded failure at trying to get Jory to be neat, tidy, and organized.

Living room storage depository

In his late 20’s, Jory was working at LucasArts and had established himself in Fairfax, California.  He had answered an ad for a roommate for a small apartment over a garage.  After climbing a flight of stairs, the front door opened into a small living room with a kitchen at the far end.  Since Jory always ate out, the kitchen was the roommate’s domain.  The living room was used for storage, so beyond the clutter, was the roommate’s stacks of dirty dishes, pots, and pans rising above the sink and spreading across the counters. 

Jory's hand-me-down dresser

Following a path from the front door, through the storage depository, was Jory’s tiny bedroom.  His bed, pushed into the corner, took about 80% of the space and his workspace and audio equipment, in the opposite corner, presided over the remaining space.  Parallel to the bed, in the leftover corner, was a narrow dresser supporting stuffed animals and miscellaneous stuff. It was impossible to walk around the bed, as piles of clean and dirty clothes heaped upon the unmade bed, spilled onto all remaining floor space.  The windows were covered so the only available light was from a pole lamp near the workstation.

It was into this room that Jory brought an unsuspecting Japanese salesman who came to demonstrate a Laser LP Record Player.  Always fascinated with record players, Jory had read about this one and curiously contacted the manufacturer in Japan. 

“May I presume to inquire about you name?” questioned a Japanese businessman, carefully selecting his words in English. 

“Jory Prum,” he replied.

“May I presume to inquire about profession?”  he prodded.

“I’m a sound designer.” 

“You employed?” came a timid question, after a long pause to find the correct wording.

“Yes, I work for LucasArts.”

“Is that company of Mr. George Lucas?”

“Yes,” replied Jory.

“Oh, Mr. Plum, would possible be to bring LP Record Player to demonstrate to you?”  

Jory's truck

A couple of weeks later, Jory met him after work. at the international terminal of San Francisco Airport.  Jory was wearing his usual black jeans, a black leather jacket with Kermit the Frog embroidered on the back, a heavy metal band T-shirt, and motorcycle boots.  The proper Japanese salesman was attired in a dark tailored suit, a white shirt, tie, and dress shoes.  Jory carried his suitcase and the salesman clutched the protective case containing the Laser LP Record Player as they walked to Jory’s mini pickup truck.  Tossing the suitcase in the truck bed, Jory opened the passenger door for his guest, who reluctantly climbed in and protected his valuable machine between his legs.  Together they rolled over the Golden Gate Bridge to Jory’s apartment in Fairfax. 

Somewhere there's a bed under everything

With a few giant sweeps of his arms, clothes flew off the foot of the bed and joined the others on the floor.  Flipping the bedding toward the pillows, Jory patted the foot of the bed for the salesman to set up his record player.  Jory plugged the machine into the surge protector under his computer table and the demonstration began.  

ELP Laser Record Player

The Laser LP Record Player was cool, as was its $10,000 price tag.  

“Is it possible to leave the machine with me for a few days so that I can try it out?” inquired Jory.

“Oh, no no no!  It must stay with me.  It is only one in world.  It is only prototype in world.”

Jory drove the bewildered salesman back to San Francisco and thanked him for coming.  The salesman expressed his regret that Mr. George Lucas was unable to attend.

Jory's media wall

A year and a half later, Jory met and became engaged to Julie, an awesome artist.  She owned a condo and invited Jory to move in with her and her son.  With all of his collections and equipment, Jory seemed motivated to find a means of organizing his stuff, so as to not inconvenience his new, pop-up family.  He started with boxes of CDs, DVDs, and Video Taped Movies.  Along the living room wall, he built narrow shelving and filled the wall with media.  It actually looked pretty cool.  Behind the wall, was a long, narrow closet space that he converted into double workstations for Julie and himself.  His first attempts at organizing his collections were successful.  We were pleasantly surprised.  

At a barbecue celebration at Jory and Julie’s, a couple of years later, we met many of their friends.  Fairfax is a community that encourages creativity and artistic expression, so most of them were artists, musicians, film makers, designers, photographers, etc.  All were outgoing and friendly, reaching out to meet and include us in their circles.

Noah

“Hi, I’m Noah,” introduced a young man who came to sit next to me on a brick planter wall.  “You know,” he began, “everybody in town relies upon Jory to help us solve our problems and organize our projects.”

“Really?” I carefully replied.  “How many Jories do you have in town?” 

“Just one,” he answered.

“Well, our Jory was never known to be organized.  Are you sure?” I asked.

“You don’t understand; many of us were raised in communes by Hippy parents, who didn’t teach us about those things.  We need someone like Jory to help us and he’s great at it.  In fact, everyone calls him the honorary Mayor of Fairfax and the town psychiatrist.  He helps everyone and he’s helped me a lot.  I design cars and I’ll soon be leaving for Germany to work for BMW.  Jory said we’ll keep in touch over the computer.”

I couldn’t believe my ears!  I shared this revelation with Sam and we both had a good laugh.  

Sheri and Rob bought the tools for the studio build out

Our next visit to Fairfax was a couple of years later.  We received an urgent phone call from Jory.  He announced that he had leased a room in a decommissioned elementary school and was well into construction of a recording studio.  His CalArts roommate, Rob, and his wife Sheri, had come to help with the initial construction and used their credit cards to buy materials.  Jory was drowning in debt and was calling “The Bank of Dad” for a loan. 

 

“Let’s see your business plan” asked Dad.

“I’m going to record music and foley for films,” he replied.

“Who will be your customers?”

“Ahhh......musicians and filmmakers.  There are lots of those in Fairfax and they all know me and will come.”

“This will be a legal business loan,” explained Dad, “with specific requirements, including a contract, a business plan, a repayment schedule, insurance policies for the studio and it’s contents.  You will have to buy a security system for protection of your equipment and health insurance for yourself.  You will have to keep accurate records of all expenses, income, and debt.  You will have to pay your bills on time and stop sliding with partial payments to credit cards,” added Dad.

For years, we were aware of Jory’s unique system for paying bills.  When a bill arrived in the mail, he filed it unopened in the driver’s side door pocket of his truck.  When the pocket overflowed, he extracted the envelopes and wrote checks to pay them off.  Late fees and penalties were rationalized and tolerated as unfortunate evils.  Somewhere along the line, he came to erroneously believe that minimum payments on credit cards were ok because the 18% interest fees would be eventually subtracted from income taxes.  With this business loan, he would be required to keep accurate and up to date business records, as well as on time payments for expenses, with no tolerance of late fees or interest expenses.  It would be a complete shift in responsibility that Jory would have to accept and comply with.

“I’m ready to be a business owner, so ok!” replied Jory with conviction.

Dad and Jory writing business plans and loan contract.

For several days, we sat with Jory to work out the details.  An itemized list of conceivable expenses was created, along with a calculated estimate of income required to cover the bills, repayment of the loan, and Jory’s living expenses.  Aware that he would have to hustle every month to meet his obligations, Jory believed in himself and accepted the responsibility.  A detailed business plan was developed and written down for future reference.  A construction plan for the studio was analyzed and outlined to insure meeting a timely completion date so income could begin to be generated.  The three of us signed a contract that paid off all of Jory’s current debts, including Rob’s, Sheri’s, and Jory’s credit card balances; provided projected funds for studio construction and completion; and a realistic loan repayment schedule.

Dad needed to find a Jory-friendly way to handle the business side of the studio, so he introduced Jory to QuickBooks, a computer software that would help keep his business records running smoothly and accurately.  Jory loved everything techie, so QuickBooks was readily adopted as Jory’s accounting system.  Later on, Jory found a phone app that simplified bookkeeping by taking a photo scan of each receipt or bill, and then processing it via his phone into the proper category on Quick Books.

Before QuickBooks, Jory would migrate each April to our house to do his taxes with Dad.  He would arrive with several groceries bags brimming full of receipts.  The first several days were spent with Jory sitting on the family room floor surrounded by heaps of receipts that he would tediously sort into category piles, and then organize by dates.  Our pooch, Da Vinci, would sit on the nearby sofa to supervise and keep him company.  Once everything was ready, he would take one collection at a time upstairs to Dad’s office, where the two of them would input the data into TurboTax.  By the end of the week, Jory’s taxes were ready to submit, and we’d all had a great visit.  After Jory started using the photo scan app, the need for grocery bags disappeared, as did the visits to do taxes.  

As he went along, Jory had everything scanned and automatically entered into QuickBooks on a daily basis.  With a tap of a computer key, Jory and Dad were able to sync the data into TurboTax and complete Jory’s taxes in one sitting or online chat.   We could begin to see that Jory was finally finding modes of organization that fit his needs and lifestyle.  As he entered his 30’s, the maturity that we had been longing for, was finally catching up with his age.

COMMENTS: 

Click on Jorysmother@gmail.com to send comments.

 Jory (2003) 
I make piles.  I am well-organized, but not the tidiest person around.  Things tend to pile up and appear cluttered to others.  However, I know "exactly" where everything is.

Sam Rogers

So true! I once sublet Jory’s place for a few weeks while he was traveling and I was just brining my Australian girlfriend to the US for the first time. I mistakenly thought he might know to, y’know, clean the place. Allegedly he had...but that may have just meant doing laundry, I’m not sure. 

It was fine and fortunately Nicolle didn’t care much, she came to love Jory too. Sometime later he recorded & mixed our first EP in his studio. A few years later (after we had separated) and Jory was heading to Australia, I was happy that she hosted him and introduced him to many of her friends in Sydney. 

Oh, and I remember making Jory retell that Laser LP story over and over again and laughing hysterically every time. 

Laughing at it again now. Thanks!

 
Bobi Hirschbein
 Wonderful read...

Paul Stevens
I really love  this episode. So interesting, well written,  informative,  inspirational.

Marilyn Moidel

Yet another wonderful story about Jory. ..and this one is funny to boot.

Linda Birtler  
This one was lots of fun to read and remember.

Otis Ryder
 Lovely story.

  Rayleen Williams
:):)  Everyone has their own view of what it means to be organized.

Rita Blumstein
I am always amazed at how you remember all the details and are so articulate. 

Judy Sowell

I just finished your latest story about Jory.  I loved his many ideas, especially when he was small enough to get out of his crib; find an orange and a sharp knife (I agree that was dangerous) to peel it with, and putting the silverware from the dishwasher into the refrigerator.  I am sure it wasn’t funny then, not having the silverware to use; but it is funny now.  I loved the way you tell of your and Sam’s efforts to get him organized.  What a great story.

Veronica Noguer

Thank you again for a wonderful story of Jory.  Had to smile at your efforts to corral Jory's free spirit which evidently began very very early in his life.  Great writing.

 

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