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WHO IN THE HELL AM I?

WHAT MADE ME THIS WAY?

OTHER INTERESTING FAMILY FACTS AND PERSONAL TRIVIA.

...AS REPORTED BY NED ROUSE

"For me, myself and my loved ones, I am the Reporter"

My first wife and I were in the audience of the Who’s’ Pontiac Silver-Dome performance that is featured in the DVD, The Kids Are Alright, during the songs, Baba O’Reilly, and Won’t Get Fooled Again

On Todd Rundgren’s 1974 album, Todd, my name is there, in alphabetical order, in all of the names that make up his image, on the poster, included in the album.

My Grandpa Hank was a well known Baldwin, Michigan guide who entertained guests at his camp such as, Ty Cobb, Don Wilson, Amos & Andy and guest appeared on the TV’s Michigan Outdoors.

I have saved three peoples lives, in my life, so far. One was a farmer crushed under a tractor, the other, a child drowning in a creek, and a child severely injured by a car.

I wrote my first song when I was eight years old. It was a song about 13 mile road, where I grew up, out by Kenowa Avenue. It sounded like a Bing Crosby song.

I was once assisted by a woman, a stranger, who said she was told by God to help me survive a most difficult time in my life. Her name was Maria Elisa Cruz. During this time a mentally ill man was trying to kill me. She kept me safe and helped me, as she proved she had the gift of knowing the future and his movements. She also prepared me for what good was coming in my life! She did this countless times. Early on I asked her if Jesus was really the Son of God and if the Bible was all true. With not one moment of pause, she said yes! Since then I have never believed any differently. One of the things Elisa shared with me was that she often saw, and talked to, the Lord. I remember her telling me that Jesus is so beautiful! There were many talks and correspondences. Then my spiritual friend said goodbye and I never saw her again. We named our daughter, Clara Elisa Marie, after her because Clara was one of the blessings she‘d predicted! Years later I attended the funeral of my dear friend, Phyllis Robbins, who knew this story in much greater detail. When I got to the funeral her daughter said that while her mother was going in and out of consciousness, slowly dying, that she had seen the Lord and wanted her daughter to tell me about it at her funeral. She did. I arrived, mourning my loss. Soon, after my arrival, her daughter met me for the first time and told me that at one point her suffering mother started crying with joy, and said that she had just seen Christ. She told everyone in the room, with peace and clarity, that he, Jesus, looks so beautiful! Her mother told her to make sure you tell this to Ned Rouse! He will be coming to my visitation he won‘t make it here before I die. She also told me that my stories of Elisa had helped to bring her mom, Phyllis, to Jesus Christ. That was one of the happiest days I will ever remember!

I caught, and still have, Little Betty’s leg, part of a chopped up doll that I caught during the song Dead Babies at my 1st Alice Cooper concert in Holland, Michigan in 06/21/1972.

Cheap Trick’s drummer, Bun E. Carlos, bought my antique, brass/bronzed, Leedy snare drum from the person I sold it to when I retired from drumming.

I was there, in the background, taking pictures when they were filming the Apocalyptic ending to Stephen King’s, The Stand in Las Vegas.

I learned about music and how to love it from my Uncle Rich, and brothers, Hank and Jim.

My 2^nd wife, Vicki, used to date, Rick Allen, the drummer for Def Leppard, when he still had 2 arms. This was back when she was a dancer in Las Vegas. She knew many celebrities there. Vicki left Las Vegas after surviving a brutal stabbing where she was declared dead in front of our son, Tom. Singer, and friend, Andy Gibb paid her hospital bills. She didn’t want to be living there if the assailant ever got out of prison, since he swore that he would someday finish the job! She came and found me! We burned brightly for years! Vicki was a fun and passionate woman. She still is a great person with a lot of energy! We get still along and she likes and respects my wife Sara.

I have had photos published in several well known magazines under an alias name.

I auditioned once for the band Journey. It went poorly. I showed them my music. Bad match for all involved. I am not a commercial kind of guy. I should have known better.

My Great Aunt Marguerite was married to film star, Chester Conklin, who was better known as the Captain of the Keystone Cops. He also appeared in many 3 Stooges shorts and a lot of motion pictures, like Lil’ Abner. She had her own religious radio show and claimed stigmata.

When people thought I was doing drugs to be so creative, and eccentric, I wasn’t doing any. You couldn't fit the drugs I have had into a shot glass. Today I am totally anti-drug! I never had been much of a drinker either, so ears ago I stopped drinking anything with alcohol in it too!

I once took a job as the Eastbrook Mall Santa Claus!

I once 1 hour in a downpour with John Wayne Bobbitt sharing my umbrella with him.

When I was 14 years old I began multi-tracking with two old reel to reel tape recorders.

My Great-Grandmother, Clara Rouse was an author and an artist. She wrote the book, Iowa Leaves and also wrote for The Washington Post. Her father was Robert Robinson, who helped found the state of Iowa with the man who was to become the first Governor.

You can hear me obnoxiously screaming between the live cuts throughout Todd Rundgren and Utopia’s 1975 album, Another Live 2, because they announced they were recording it that day at Pine Knob. Sorry Todd L

I made a small, working, sitar in shop class in the 7^th grade. I wanted to be a Beatle so bad!

My Uncle, Richard Drilling played with Della Reese and other famous performers. His mother, my Grandma Cleta, was also an excellent pianist who played many concerts and events!

My Great-Uncles Herb and Harry worked for Al Capone. Uncle Herb’s front was having a plumber business.

Once I was photographed in a tub with a girl and Ron Jeremy.

My Grandpa Hank and Grandma Dode were a song and dance team in vaudeville. That is why they knew, and stayed in contact with, many celebrities.

I made animated cartoons with a super 8mm camera when I was 13 years old

My son, Ian Hunter Rouse, was stillborn and it changed my life forever. Tragically I drove my wife to the wrong hospital.

I recorded popular commercials in the 1970’s for Purple East, Audio Entertainment and Waterbed Warehouse.

I had famous female magazine models staying at my duplex in the early to mid 1990’s while I recorded their audio intro tapes and shot promotional photos for them.

My Great Uncle, Robert Rouse, was a well known political cartoonist for the Press.

I spent time with all of the King Crimson band after one of their concerts, in 1994, getting a get well card signed, by all of them, for my ex-wife, Vicki.

My first wife, Kim, won 12 milking goats on the TV show, Let’s Make A Deal. Kim is also a very talented artist!

When my Grandpa Hank was a kid he was a shoe shine boy in Chicago and had shined Al Capone’s shoes.

I still have my stuffed childhood doll, Buttons. He still cares for me too!

My favorite shows when I was a kid were, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Ed Sullivan, Lost In Space, The Man From Uncle, Star Trek, The Prisoner, The Wild Wild West, Green Acres and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Oh yea,…sometimes,…Get Smart.

I used to photograph occasional recording artists at their concerts for a local radio station.

James Doohan, Scotty from Star Trek, once put the make on my ex-wife Vicki, with me watching. He acted very drunk and smelled like alcohol to her. He was grabbing Vicki's behind, and bra strap, while they were facing the convention crowd for pictures. I remember trying to figure out why she was smiling with such a red face. That is not why she is my ex! As for James, he did manage to sign his name across the bridge of my Starship Enterprise Model!

My 3^rd Cousin is the romance writer, Ann Barbour. Her real name Barb Yirka.

My Great-Great Grandfather Jesse Bradford drove coach for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He and his wife, Sarah had a total of 18 children together!

I used to produce, write and act in local movies, then organize the premiers.

The first record I bought was Candy Girl by the Four Seasons and my first LP was Stop, Stop, Stop by the Hollies. The title song Stop, Stop, Stop inspired me to buy a banjo at the Ravenna Flea Market. Is that where Banjo Boy was born???

My Great Uncle Charlie was a famous singer who performed for the crowned heads of Europe under his stage name of Charles Rousseau. He was known as an extremely eccentric artist and often went out to public events dressed in his pajamas and robe, wearing a beret.

Years ago I ran out of gas during a rainstorm, and it was Congressman Paul Henry who pulled over to ask if he could help. He was scheduled to be somewhere, but after a moment of thinking about it, he made the decision to help me. Paul had his own gas can in the back of his station wagon. He took me to a gas station and then drove me back to my car. Because I was so wet and cold, Paul filled the tank, and had me get in the car to try to get it to start. There he was, standing there in his suit in the rain. I thought to myself, what a great guy! The Congressman waited until my car was running before he went on to his important appointment. I was with him 45 minutes and during that time noticed Paul had blinked constantly. It wasn’t a couple of years later that the Congressman died of brain cancer. Maybe that is why the Congressman was blinking. I have to add that he was one of the nicest, and polite, people I have ever talked to. No wonder he has so many things named after him around here.

I was the art editor of the school paper, The Spartan Echo. I achieved perfect attendance, got on the honor roll and became a member of the student council.

My best Christmas gift was boxes, inside of boxes, inside of more boxes, from my Grandma Cleta.

From 1972 to 1975 my hair was colored with, sometimes as many as 18 different colors, and people often thought I had a headdress on. Even earlier than that, I began dying my hair different colors back in Jr. High.

When I was 14 or 15 years old I was walking to up the Fahling farm. Their farm hand was shooting at a rabbit through the grapevines on a small ridge. He had shot through the rabbit and the exiting bullet parted the hair on the upper side of my head. I hit the dirt thinking a psycho was trying to kill me. I crawled on my belly, to the top of the ridge, and saw him, and a buddy, holding, the dead rabbit. I told them what had happened and they said I was making it all up. The Fahling’s were on a vacation. I had all that stress for nothing. Over the years my lifestyle choices led to many times I came close to being killed. I was hunted in a cornfield by a redneck psycho, with a shotgun, after climbing out of a his nieces bedroom window. Another time I was backed up against a wall, with a knife into my gut as far as it could go without entering me, by a ranting drunk in a bar in Conklin Michigan who wanted to kill himself a hippie. A close friend intervened. A couple of days later, the same drunk knifed a man and eventually went to prison. When I was 8 or 9 years old a group of apple-pickers (southerners as we used to call them) tried to kidnap me by pulling me into their car. There were 3 men and a half naked woman in the backseat with 2 of them. I dropped my bike and ran through our neighbors peat-moss trials further into their woods. As I look back at it, something sexual was happening and being planned. All of these things happened to me when I was still at home living with my parents. They never knew these things. I remember always telling them, before I went out, that I’d be careful and would take good care of myself. Yea, right! That’s why my kids were more closely watched. Especially whenever they told me that they’d be careful and would take good care of themselves!

My mother loved my artwork and at a young age encouraged me to paint murals on my bedroom walls!

Oral Roberts once announced to the public that he had spoken to the Lord and if he couldn’t raise 6 Million dollars, in a short period of time, the Lord would be calling him home. I thought it sounded like he was saying God was holding him hostage. I wrote him a letter about this hostage idea. I started thinking that I could send this phony man, fake money too. I taped the letter to a big blue piggy bank and stuffed it with 6 Million dollars in play money. I went to the post office and mailed it out. The local press covered it. Later Oral Roberts wrote me back a scolding letter and signed it. I still have it in my papers somewhere!

While filming our Dracula movie in the early 1970’s we almost witnessed a knifing in back of the restaurant we were filming at. Out of the back door came a kitchen worker chasing another man with a large knife and was threatening to kill him. The guy put the knife away when he saw us. There we were, the camera, cameraman, pretty girl and me dressed as Dracula. The restaurant employee quickly went back inside and the guy he was chasing just kept running. FYI I had a coffin donated to me, for the movie, and at some point I decided that I would try using it as a bed. I brought it home. My mother was so happy that I couldn’t get it through the door of our house. She went shopping with Dad and when they returned home they were surprised to find that I had found a way to get it in my bedroom. My poor mother and father! Coffins aren’t made to comfort the living, just the un-dead!

In 1973 I was asked to illustrate the Grand Valley State College Captain Crisis Handbook.

At Breton Village Mall we filmed 3 cannibals chasing a fat man to the surprise of customers and a press photographer. This was one of the stunts for my movie, Alvin’s Journey. Of course cannibals love finding a nice fat person to eat!

I staged a school sit-in protesting the Viet Nam war. I was always having issues with the system and had petitions going. I think a lot my protesting and mockery of the school BS got me put in yearbook as class pessimist with my friend, Jane Blondin. It was all kind of strange. I was into the peace movement, but was prone to violence when it came to fighting. I could have a temper with anyone messing with me, or the people I cared about. I have noticed that some people who preach against things like violence end up becoming violent to try to reach their peaceful goals. Just like countries do! I have not been much of a violent person since having kids and coming back to God! I do bear the scars though.

I was madly in love with my wife, Sara, back in High School. So now I will tell you about it. The first time I saw Sara Stewart, it was love at first sight for me. I noticed her in my art class and we soon became the best of friends. She was going with a guy so I had to practice a respectable boundary and keep a proper distance. She was kind, pretty and sweet! I sat as close to her as I could get. When I sat in back of her I tied ribbons in her hair and thus her nickname, Buckwheat was born! I loved the way she acted and looked. The way she smelled. The way the light looked on her hair. If she was anywhere near me I was happy. It was like finding the most serene place, where everything is right and you never want to leave. All my friends knew how much I cared about her, but it never got back to her much. We danced at a school dance once, but couldn’t bring myself to tell her how I felt about her. My parents had taught me to never interfere with relationships. Also, back then, I think I had self esteem issues and didn’t want to make a fool out of myself proclaiming a one way love. She, after all was so awesome and spoken for. So I just let it go. I was hoping someday I’d get an opportunity. We still had lots of fun. I would do anything for her and she would do just about anything for me. Keep in mind I am an eccentric and she did have some dignity to protect! Knowing her made me a better person, friend, and student. Sara is the reason I stopped skipping school and started having perfect attendance. I eventually even made the honor roll. She was simply the safest person I knew. We were always hanging out together and whenever her boyfriend was around, it felt like he was the third wheel. I just kept waiting for her and the boyfriend to break up. Their breakup never happened. Still there were many important good times for us to share together! Time passed. Soon she was engaged and then got married to him. I remember taking her my gift of a specially made art poster to present to her at their wedding reception. A friend drove me there and all my friends knew how difficult this was for me to attend. I put on the best fake happy face anyone ever has seen! After the dollar dance I quickly left and my friend Bruce drove me out to Hoffmaster Park where I proceeded to get smashed and cry all night. I was devastated. It hit me hard that, this was it. I went on a female binge/rampage for the next few years. I only ever ran into Sara once in a great while. I will tell you that anything we ever gave each other was kept. Over the years we carried each other’s pictures in our wallets. Between any girlfriend, or marriage I had, I tried to find Sara and see if she was finally available. It was like she had fallen off the Earth. That is, until 25 years, later. I strangely got her number from her ex-husband’s mother and was able to finally contact her. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1997, Sara Jane Tift came over to my house and it was like no time had passed at all. It was on that day I gathered the courage to tell her how I had always felt about her. In our wallets we still carried each others pictures. She had everything I ever gave her back in high school, including an special note, written with hidden feelings, that declared, “I am madly in like with you.” She didn’t read between the lines and thought that the note was cementing us as, just friends. It is displayed among many artifacts on this web-page! I played her many of the songs I had written about her over the years. Many of those songs appear on my CDs. I STILL LOVED SARA JANE STEWART! When she left to go home, we made a commitment to stay connected. We sure did,…and on January 30^th 1998 we became the happiest married couple in the history of the entire world!! I LOVE SARA JANE STEWART ROUSE! My wife, my friend and the love of my life! Thank you God and Sweetlittlebuckwheatwhatneverdidnuffintonobody!

I hung out with Al Lewis, otherwise known as Grandpa Munster, for 2 days at a photography event. He had a nasty mouth on him! He was 80 years old and totally full of it!

When I was in my late twenties I wanted a Big Boy Club membership to get a pin for my large button collection. At one of their restaurants I filled out an application. I received a letter in the mail saying I was rejected for membership in the Big Boy Kid’s Club because I was too old. I contested it back and forth in mail correspondence until I got a letter from the President of Big Boy. He said they would not give me membership and that was final. Dolly, Nugget and the President of the Elias Brothers Corporation had signed the letter. I finally sent in a new application and lied about my age. I told them I was 8 years old. I got the pin! It is still in my display case. Sometimes I like the challenge!

Just out of high school I was making another movie. For a particular scene I wanted it to look like I get thrown off of the Sparta Klein Rodeo tower. I used my art skills to create a realistic looking dummy that I named, Ernie Rouse. He had a skeleton with movable parts. I used a facial likeness of an old man, thanks to my brother Jim, and gave him glass eyes. I dressed him in a similar looking suit to mine and gave him shades. The stunt was breathtaking! After the movie, I put him in the backseat passenger side of my car where he was to always ride shotgun for the longest time. Everyone in Sparta started to get a kick out of Ernie and many people talked to him like he was real. I soon began taking him to events, parties and receptions with me. He was always the hit of the party! At a wedding reception I sat him in a corner with a glass of Jim Beam and a cigarette and more people talked to him than me! When anyone asked about how Ernie was doing, I’d always say, fine, but you know that Ernie, he don’t talk much! Nobody ever messed with my car and I never had it broken into! I had done such a good job making him look so realistic, and I realized that during a date at the old Eastown Theater. After watching Blazing Saddles, Sue Longstreet and I came out to find that 2 city policemen were trying to get Ernie to wake up and move my car! I remember telling them, he is just my dummy. He is not real! Both officers were laughing so hard. I didn’t get a ticket! One day, at a party his head came off. I stored his head in a box and it eventually got lost. His body was accidentally thrown out when my Dad cleaned his shed one day. I don’t know why, but I always liked the name Ernie.

I made a secret agent movie in high school and had TV’s Bozo the Clown, play my boss. We filmed it at the Bozo’s Big Top set at TV 13.

Fresh out of high school, in what I call the drug and alcohol years, all of us partied hard. Many times we put ourselves in danger. We didn’t realize how close we were coming to death. One particular night, in the winter, a friend of mine was having a birthday party at the Grange Hall in Cedar Springs. At that time I did not drive, so I went to the Sparta parking lot where everyone hung out, and hooked a ride with an acquaintance of mine named Chris. He was what we called a “gear-head.” Of course, he had a snooped-up car. He asked me where the party was. When I told him, he hit the gas, and off we went. We were instantly going considerably over the speed limit, and soon the police were behind us. I remember him laughing and hitting the gas even harder. After a couple of minutes we were running red lights and fish-tailing on the snowy, ice covered streets. For awhile we kept going in circles all around the town. Then two more squad cars joined in the chase. I looked over at the speedometer and he was going over 100 mph! At one point I told him I wanted to get out! He was just laughing, and called me a “pansy.” We slid around a turn and started heading for the Sparta Foundry Building. He told me this is where we were going to lose the police. As we approached the corner of the factory building, I though we were going to hit it head-on. He slowed, slid sideways, and made the turn down a side street. The cops did not make the turn, they slid through the stop sign, and lost pursuit. Chris zigzagged through the side streets and came to the main road out of town. He floored it again, with just one set of police lights in the distance, slowly disappearing. At that point, I kept my mouth shut, because it began to snow even harder, just like my praying! I don’t remember the exact route he took, but it seems we pretty much stayed on mostly the same road. There were times I looked over and the speedometer was as much as 110 mph. It felt like we were gliding and fish-tailing just above the road. When we got to the Grange Hall, we parked and went inside. I was shaking. The first thing I decided, was that I was going to find was someone else to hitch a ride home with! I was never in to hard drugs, but when I found the friend who was celebrating his birthday, he was shooting up heroin, on a stage, in front of his large birthday crowd. Now let me explain, my father was deputized by the Kent County Sheriff’s Department in his work with AA. The one thing that I did not want to do was, to get busted for this kind of substance abuse. I quickly spotted another acquaintance who seemed as uncomfortable to be there as I was. I had no idea of how he drove, but I decided to quickly leave with him and his friend, Jude. This seemed to be a better match, traveling at 50-55 mph! The two of them sat up in front and I sat in between their seats in the back. We were on a road by Long Lake and were approaching a sign informing us that there was a “T” in the road ahead. Just about the time I was thinking to myself, “Gee, he doesn’t seem to be slowing down,” I heard Jude say, “Wake up, Phil, wake up!” Phil drove through the sign and into a tree! We was still driving over 50 mph. Phil’s face hit the steering wheel, Jude’s face hit the dashboard, and my head came up and hit the ceiling of the car. The last thing I remember, was that their faces were all bloody and cut up, and I reached for the top of my head, not finding any blood, and then passing out. The rest of this story is what people involved told me later. I definitely had a bit of amnesia, probably shock, but because the trunk of the car had illegal substances in it, they decided to point me in the direction of Sparta, and get me walking home before the police arrived. The knew what my father would probably do to me. One of my good female friends, Suzie, slowed down, recognized me, and told me to get in her car. Once in the car, I told her a confused story, but she got enough out of me to know to return me to where I was living, with friends at a house by Riverside Park in Grand Rapids. One of my roommates, named Linda, told me that I woke her up and asked her what having a concussion was like. She advised me to stay awake. A little while later the doorbell rang, and my good friends, including Bob and Jim, had me get into their car, go to and wait in line on the streets of Chicago, for Led Zeppelin tickets, going on sale in the morning. Off I went! I don’t, to this day, remember anything, between passing out at the scene of the accident, and coming to focus in front of the Chicago Stadium. It was almost surreal, and drunken feeling, slowly emerging from the state I was in, and realizing cops were hitting the concert ticket mob with billy-clubs, and throwing them into paddy-wagons. My friends told me parts of my story, and let me know that we had tickets to Led Zeppelin! I was soon pretty much back to normal, if that’s a word I can use in my life, but I did have a cop chase me with his billy-club when I cross-walked! The next time I saw my parents, they asked me what I’d been up to lately, and as usual, I told them, “Nothing much…” Several months later I ran into Chris in the Sparta parking lot. He yelled to me, “Hey Rouse, you want to hear something funny? I know someone who was so scared to ride with me from a party, that he got a ride with someone else, and guess what? He got into a car accident and hit a tree!! I guess he wasn’t a safe driver!!” I just smiled, and kept my mouth shut…

I collect things. You must have guessed that by now. I usually keep interactive mementos and the scan below is an example of that. When I was putting together the band, Barbazoonka, we put several of these up in the music stores around town. I was trying to be very painfully specific. We were putting together a progressive rock band. Of course I put a little humor and sarcasm to the ad, based on the first few, poorly matched, responses I got, to insure we wouldn't get what I called, Cro-Magnon rockers! There were a lot of these around at the time. I love what the anonymous musician wrote, in blue ink, as a response to my fat, ugly, groupie line! It must of hit the bulls-eye in his situation. His comment also showed that he thought I would have a very hard time finding someone around Grand Rapids who wasn't having those fat, ugly groupie, child support issues! It's hard to explain, but around here that was the case with many of them. I wonder if it is still that way?

Over the years I have played many different places. I was never happier than when I was playing for the great crowds at the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts. Below are the kind of wonderful things that the Grand Rapids Press does to unite readers with the artists! That Saturday night we closed the main stage with a powerful performance that kicked ass! That was the first night I premiered my playing drums standing up, while playing keyboards with my right hand. Many of the songs on our set list were originals written by our band. We ended that show with a composition that I wrote for that night. It became the title of my first CD, 2002's, Life In The Furniture City and it's the first cut appearing on that recording!

The day after John Lennon was murdered, The Grand Rapids Press spoke with me about him to get more information for their article on his life. They also printed the lyrics from the bridge of the song I'd written just the night before, when John was killed. It was entitled, MDC. (Mark David Chapman) The updated song finally appeared on my 2005 CD, Music To The Soundtrack Of My Life! It is a song honoring the man who inspired me to become a songwriter!

-THANKS!