Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Ellen Terry reciting Portia's mercy speech from The Merchant of Venice. Fitting right?
"The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, Upon the place beneath" lines from Portia's speech to the court in William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
As Jimmy came across these above lines in the epilogue of a book that he was innocently, very innocently, reading about the sources of old time English playwright William Shakespeare’s sources for his various works he suddenly developed a 50th anniversary case of the nerves. And the source of those nerves was easily traceable, very easily traceable, to time spent in Miss Lenora Sonos’ classroom memorizing those very lines of the Bard.
Miss Lenora Sonos, Jimmy’s senior year English teacher made many people nervous. Who was he kidding, she made James Cullen, Jimmy, Class of 1961, and king hell king of the intramural bowling league (boys’ division) at old Clintondale High, nervous. Others can, on their own hook, come forth with their own benighted and heart-rendering testimony but she made him nervous before her class, nervous while in her class, nervous after leaving her class, and nervous in that occasional dark hour just before the dawn when he woke up, woke up with the sweats, became that book report due Monday morning bright and early was not coming together the way he wanted. Come on, again, who was Jimmy kidding, waking up with the sweats kidding, the way that she wanted it. The no rush, no night before it was due , well-thought out and drafted, concise, with some kind of original twist to it paper, and written like some come down from the mountain patriarchal tablet screed, or really an endlessly re-written version of that self-same screed.
And worst, worst than not being concise, worst than not having an original twist idea, was that you had to publicly defend your ideas in front of the whole class. But, once again who was Jimmy kidding, the class was child’s play, putty in his hands once he started throwing his obscure, arcane, in-your-face two thousand facts at them, and they retreated, or better, surrendered, white flags in hand. No, it was her, Miss Sonos, that he had to impress with his obscure, arcane, in-your-face knowledge but here was the rub, she had no surrender, or white flag, in her because she was privy to those two thousand facts, had in fact taught him a bunch of them, and had a few thousand additional ones in her own storehouse just waiting for Jimmy to make that one wrong move, the one wrong move that was inevitably to come from a young, still unformed, mind.
And worst, worst than public Sonos humiliation, worst than being at a lost for that original idea was to not be with her, to be with her one hundred percent, when she spoke, almost in a hushed whisper, of some piece of literature the virtues of which she endlessly drilled into the class, but really had her eyes set on him when doing so, or so he thought. (He found out later that that feeling was shared by every at least half-awake student in the class, the others were just ducking behind some book hoping not to be noticed.) As he thought of those books just now, he remembered the time, trying to be one hundred with her, when he blurred out that Holden Caulfield from The Catcher In The Rye “spoke” to him, spoke to him about his own teen alienation, spoke about what can a kid do when the cards are stacked against him in this cruel old world, a world he didn’t put together, spoke of teen angst in trying to find his place in the sun when everybody was pushing him in about six different ways and he was pushing himself in about seven.
And there Jimmy was, proud as a peacock, feeling like a junior-sized literary critic and then she, Miss Sonos in high dudgeon, lowered the hammer and dismissed the book, and the author, as so much hot air and New Yorker-style cheapjack kids’ short story, barely pabulum. And that was the end of it, for once Miss Sonos pronounced someone a mere short story writer, oblivion beckoned. She much preferred that her Jimmys tackle James T. Farrell, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Flannery O’Connor, and Edith Wharton who although they too wrote short stories wrote novels, great novels, and therefore were not assigned to hellish depths. And you know in a funny way Jimmy had to admit that she was right, right in the sense that these other guys had a lot to say and that one should no put all their “literary light” eggs in one basket, although she was still wrong, wrong big time, about J.D. Salinger. Wrong that is if she is not now nearby, nearby this side of the grave.
But the worst time, the worst time of all, for Jimmy who was trying to hold his head up in that dark early 1960s Cold War working poor teen angst night was when she made him write a paper as a proponent of the then front line, flame-burning civil rights movement down South after he had written a short piece, a short diary-like piece, for her eyes only, one time. Not only that but he was going to be forced to argue his case against the editor of the school newspaper, a hot shot who had real literary ambitions and a father who was a professor, or something, over at the university. Now Jimmy, as he noted in his short piece, was in sympathy, secret sympathy, with the struggle of black people down South, and had linked that struggle with his own sense of what white working poor people needed to. Not all that deeply thought out then, but that was the gist of it. But see, the secret part was necessary because the best word, the absolutely best word that he ever heard anybody in Clintondale, young or old, call black people was “nigra,” like the neighborhood, the predominantly Irish and Italian Catholic neighborhood that he lived in, and breathed in, was down South itself.
And the most vitriolic voice around the neighborhood was that of his father, and his kindred, who resided nightly at the Old Gaelic Pub, egging on vicariously, while watching the barroom television news, the Bull Connors of the world. Jimmy tried, tried hard, to explain this all to Miss Sonos but she, unlike in other things, dismissed his pleas out of hand. Well, he gave that presentation, and if he didn’t win the debate points, the precious debate points, that he thought he was fighting for he made it clear that the he was on the other side of the road between the those who lived, thought and acted “nigra” and those who said 1960s “negro.” So there she was right again, although many bridges were burned that day.
As Jimmy nervously finished up musing over the exploits, the maybe un-heroic exploits, of Miss Lenora Sonos, he though about those lines from Portia’s speech to the court in Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice, lines that she made the class memorize, although that memorizing business was not her style in general. And Jimmy chuckled to himself that did not, after all, have to look those sentences in that speech up, although if he was in court he would have to confess that he did look up to see if there was one or two p's in droppeth. He knew those lines and more from the master by heart. And that fact, that fact of remembrance, served to bring up something, something heroic about Miss Sonos. About what she said, said endlessly. Literature matters. Words matter. Jimmy had, on more occasions than he cared to remember, honored those ideas more in the breech than the observance but he tried to be guided by them. But they, no question, were planted there by Miss Sonos.
Thinking on it now though Jimmy realized that he not close to Ms. Sonos, certainly not her "pet". Perhaps she did not even really know who he was, although that bout over the civil rights paper may have turned the tables a little away from the truth of that notion. He did not know about today but back then the classes were very large and there were many minds to feed. So it was possible. Perhaps she did not even “like” him. That too was possible. Jimmy did not display his better side, the "better angel of his nature", in those days, on most days. However, Jimmy did know two things about her-literature matters, words matter. That more than balanced things out, Jimmy thought. And then he said in whisper, “Miss (Ms.) Lenora Sonos, wherever you are-thanks.”
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop Doo Wop Night- The Night Red Rock Doo Wopped
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Don & Juan performing their doo wop classic, What's Your Name?
CD Review
25 All-Time Doo Wop Hits, various artists, Varese Sarabonde Records, 2002
Road weary, yes, road weary all right that is what Fritz Taylor said to himself repeatedly as he waited, waited his third hour waited, by this god-forsaken exit just off Interstate 40 heading west out of Albuquerque on the seemingly endless hitchhike road. This trip had more than its fair share of mishaps. Road weary let’s just call it that, and let’s call it also a sudden realization by Fritz that something was not right in the world, the hitchhike world. For example, a couple of years back there was no way in hell, or god’s good green earth, have it your way, that poster hippie hitchhike boy, Fritz Taylor, would be standing for his third hour, christ, his third hour, on a major highway west looking for a ride.
Not Fritz, decked out in obligatory olive drab army jacket (World War II version, bought at some ubiquitous Army-Navy surplus store not earned by military duty, although he did serve it was just that he couldn’t bear to wear anything that reminded him of ‘Nam), slightly faded, faded from too much washing and wear blue jeans, sturdy, reliable, purposeful work boots (although sometimes they felt like lead, heavy atomic lead, when he had to walk to some more practical road in search of a ride), bedroll nicely slung over one shoulder, a small green knapsack over the other carrying, in toto, all his worldly goods. Something was definitely off-kilter in his world in this year, this 1974 year that had started out with so much promise. Now in hard August, hard hitchhike road August, no girl, no home except the road, no real dough, and no prospects, add in no sense of order in his universe and there you have it. A serious recipe for road weariness.
Deep in those bleak house thoughts Fritz almost missed the Volkswagen mini-bus that was slowing down just ahead of him. Or maybe, reflecting on the bleak road idea, he no longer believed, except as apparitions, old time mini-buses, or converted yellow brick multi-colored school buses that trolled the roads in great profusion just a couple of years back still existed. This trip had been dealt out, been pushed forward, mainly, by tired big-load cross-country truckers looking for white-line road company, a son’s company really, and by an occasional curious tourist-type wondering, probably wondering hard, why a good looking, although oddly dressed, young man who looked like he knew what he was doing was out on some no job, no home, no prospects road in Muncie, Indiana, Moline, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Dallas, Texas or a million other just names stops on the road west.
“Hey, brother where are you heading?” came a question for the front passenger seat of the now fully stopped van. And the question, once Fritz came to his road senses, was uttered by a very sweet-looking woman all dressed in Native American regalia. “Los Angeles, and then Big Sur” answered Fritz. “Oh, we are going to the Intertribal gathering just up the road at Red Rock for a few days and then heading to Joshua Tree, does that help you?,” came the sing-song response. Fritz, for just a minute, thought that he would thank them for stopping but that he needed a longer ride and needed to make faster time pass but that sing-song voice, that van apparition, and just that flat-out road weariness made him say “Hell, yes, it’s good to see fellow freaks on the road, it has been a while. What are you guys the lost tribe that they are always talking about in the books?” That brought a chuckle from the occupants of the van as the side door slid open and Fritz threw his gear on to a mattress, maybe two mattresses, that filled the floor of the whole back portion of the van. And on that matting were two kindred guys, and a youngish woman, a girl really. “Hi, I’m Fritz,” he said as he closed the door and the van started up. “Hi, I’m Zeke,” Hi, I’m Benjy,” yelled the two kindred over the roar of the engine. ‘I’m Moonbeam,” whispered the girl, who actually, on closer inspection was older than a girl and also clearly deep in some mystical drug experience, either coming down or going up Fritz could not tell. From the front the sing-song voice called out her name, “I’m Sally Running Water and I am one-sixteenth Hopi,” and the driver yelled out, “Hi, I’m Doc and I know how to cure you,” as he passed back a pipe filled with some herb. “We are the Pink Fogs and we’ve just finished a rock concert in Austin and Sally wanted to go to the Intertribal to see some of her people before we head to Joshua Tree for the big alterno-rock jam that will put us on the rock ‘n’ rock map.” Just them Doc, steady, rock-like Doc, who was the obvious leader of this group, maybe more like a flock shepard turned the tape deck up and the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter came blasting away at us and they all, collectively, started blasting away at it in response-yes, "it’s just a shot away, just a shot away." Fritz, now a little high from that passed pipe, thought yes I finally made a right decision, these are my people, lost tribe or not.
Between this and that it was dark, very dark but also star-bright dark, where they got to Red Rock, found their assigned site and started to set up kitchen stuff for a meal, and prepare the van for sleeping, if sleeping time ever came. Doc, as Docs will do, started a fire from some heavy brush gathered in the area, and Fritz noticed as he hadn’t before in the dark that the campsite was adjacent to a high cavern wall and as the flames of the fire grew stronger he could see shadows, almost human form shadows bouncing off those walls. And in the distance, although he, to be honest was too stoned to know how distant, he could hear the steady, slow, rhythmic pounding of the war drums, or rain drums, or just plain entertaining drums that provided an almost mesmerizing effect. Fritz also noticed that Sally and Doc seemed to be sitting together just now, her head on his shoulder, listening to that same incessant hypnotic sound. And Zeke and Moonbeam were doing the same. Benjy was sitting by himself, off to the side just a little, and maybe a little miffed that he had “lost” the girl wars. And of course Fritz, new boy Fritz, was left to fend for himself. And just that moment he wished, he wished to high heaven, that he had not been girl-less and wished that Cindy was here with him.
Suddenly the air was filled not only with the tattoo of drums but sounds of rattles and some almost bass guitar sound. And that sudden change brought the little Pink Fog campsite to life. Because, for whatever reason, Doc started singing out in a very strong bass the words to that old time doo- wop rock song by the Five Satins, In The Still Of The Night, and his fellow Pink Fogs joined in on the harmony, even Benjy. Hell, even Fritz did a low-slung harmony just to help fill the air. And Doc, or Doc and Sally, or just Sally, Fritz never did quite figure it out after than song was over, started up on The Penquins Earth Angel and that really got Fritz kind of weepy for Cindy, and for his not so long ago lost youth.
But here is the real funny, funny odd, part. Fritz noticed as the flames flickered from the campfire that on the walls he could see human figures, women’s figures, a couple anyway, and when he looked over in the dark he noticed that a couple of young women, twenty-ish women from what he could tell, women who in any case knew, knew as well as he did the words, and, more importantly, the spirit and growing up absurd meaning behind the songs, and were moving closer to the circle. Then, like it was contagious, Zeke started in on the Capris’ There’s A Moon Out Tonight (and there was) and all joined in. Fritz waved the two shadowy women toward the circle and noticed that in the meantime they had been joined by two other youngish, twenty-ish women.
Benjy got into the act having also noticed the bevy of women standing in some ill-defined outer circle and bellowed out Don & Juan’s What’s Your Name and backed it up with Robert & Johnny’s We Belong Together. The other members of the troupe backing him up, backing him up big time. Now they are all in one circle, even Benjy is in tight, and with the drums and other instruments still beating time for them Fritz starts out low-voiced just above a whisper Johnnie & Joe’s Over The Mountain; Across The Sea as one of the women moved over to sit right next to him, almost on his lap. And that night, that ancient flame, ancient sounds starry night, was the night Red Rock did indeed doo-wop.
CD Review
25 All-Time Doo Wop Hits, various artists, Varese Sarabonde Records, 2002
Road weary, yes, road weary all right that is what Fritz Taylor said to himself repeatedly as he waited, waited his third hour waited, by this god-forsaken exit just off Interstate 40 heading west out of Albuquerque on the seemingly endless hitchhike road. This trip had more than its fair share of mishaps. Road weary let’s just call it that, and let’s call it also a sudden realization by Fritz that something was not right in the world, the hitchhike world. For example, a couple of years back there was no way in hell, or god’s good green earth, have it your way, that poster hippie hitchhike boy, Fritz Taylor, would be standing for his third hour, christ, his third hour, on a major highway west looking for a ride.
Not Fritz, decked out in obligatory olive drab army jacket (World War II version, bought at some ubiquitous Army-Navy surplus store not earned by military duty, although he did serve it was just that he couldn’t bear to wear anything that reminded him of ‘Nam), slightly faded, faded from too much washing and wear blue jeans, sturdy, reliable, purposeful work boots (although sometimes they felt like lead, heavy atomic lead, when he had to walk to some more practical road in search of a ride), bedroll nicely slung over one shoulder, a small green knapsack over the other carrying, in toto, all his worldly goods. Something was definitely off-kilter in his world in this year, this 1974 year that had started out with so much promise. Now in hard August, hard hitchhike road August, no girl, no home except the road, no real dough, and no prospects, add in no sense of order in his universe and there you have it. A serious recipe for road weariness.
Deep in those bleak house thoughts Fritz almost missed the Volkswagen mini-bus that was slowing down just ahead of him. Or maybe, reflecting on the bleak road idea, he no longer believed, except as apparitions, old time mini-buses, or converted yellow brick multi-colored school buses that trolled the roads in great profusion just a couple of years back still existed. This trip had been dealt out, been pushed forward, mainly, by tired big-load cross-country truckers looking for white-line road company, a son’s company really, and by an occasional curious tourist-type wondering, probably wondering hard, why a good looking, although oddly dressed, young man who looked like he knew what he was doing was out on some no job, no home, no prospects road in Muncie, Indiana, Moline, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Dallas, Texas or a million other just names stops on the road west.
“Hey, brother where are you heading?” came a question for the front passenger seat of the now fully stopped van. And the question, once Fritz came to his road senses, was uttered by a very sweet-looking woman all dressed in Native American regalia. “Los Angeles, and then Big Sur” answered Fritz. “Oh, we are going to the Intertribal gathering just up the road at Red Rock for a few days and then heading to Joshua Tree, does that help you?,” came the sing-song response. Fritz, for just a minute, thought that he would thank them for stopping but that he needed a longer ride and needed to make faster time pass but that sing-song voice, that van apparition, and just that flat-out road weariness made him say “Hell, yes, it’s good to see fellow freaks on the road, it has been a while. What are you guys the lost tribe that they are always talking about in the books?” That brought a chuckle from the occupants of the van as the side door slid open and Fritz threw his gear on to a mattress, maybe two mattresses, that filled the floor of the whole back portion of the van. And on that matting were two kindred guys, and a youngish woman, a girl really. “Hi, I’m Fritz,” he said as he closed the door and the van started up. “Hi, I’m Zeke,” Hi, I’m Benjy,” yelled the two kindred over the roar of the engine. ‘I’m Moonbeam,” whispered the girl, who actually, on closer inspection was older than a girl and also clearly deep in some mystical drug experience, either coming down or going up Fritz could not tell. From the front the sing-song voice called out her name, “I’m Sally Running Water and I am one-sixteenth Hopi,” and the driver yelled out, “Hi, I’m Doc and I know how to cure you,” as he passed back a pipe filled with some herb. “We are the Pink Fogs and we’ve just finished a rock concert in Austin and Sally wanted to go to the Intertribal to see some of her people before we head to Joshua Tree for the big alterno-rock jam that will put us on the rock ‘n’ rock map.” Just them Doc, steady, rock-like Doc, who was the obvious leader of this group, maybe more like a flock shepard turned the tape deck up and the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter came blasting away at us and they all, collectively, started blasting away at it in response-yes, "it’s just a shot away, just a shot away." Fritz, now a little high from that passed pipe, thought yes I finally made a right decision, these are my people, lost tribe or not.
Between this and that it was dark, very dark but also star-bright dark, where they got to Red Rock, found their assigned site and started to set up kitchen stuff for a meal, and prepare the van for sleeping, if sleeping time ever came. Doc, as Docs will do, started a fire from some heavy brush gathered in the area, and Fritz noticed as he hadn’t before in the dark that the campsite was adjacent to a high cavern wall and as the flames of the fire grew stronger he could see shadows, almost human form shadows bouncing off those walls. And in the distance, although he, to be honest was too stoned to know how distant, he could hear the steady, slow, rhythmic pounding of the war drums, or rain drums, or just plain entertaining drums that provided an almost mesmerizing effect. Fritz also noticed that Sally and Doc seemed to be sitting together just now, her head on his shoulder, listening to that same incessant hypnotic sound. And Zeke and Moonbeam were doing the same. Benjy was sitting by himself, off to the side just a little, and maybe a little miffed that he had “lost” the girl wars. And of course Fritz, new boy Fritz, was left to fend for himself. And just that moment he wished, he wished to high heaven, that he had not been girl-less and wished that Cindy was here with him.
Suddenly the air was filled not only with the tattoo of drums but sounds of rattles and some almost bass guitar sound. And that sudden change brought the little Pink Fog campsite to life. Because, for whatever reason, Doc started singing out in a very strong bass the words to that old time doo- wop rock song by the Five Satins, In The Still Of The Night, and his fellow Pink Fogs joined in on the harmony, even Benjy. Hell, even Fritz did a low-slung harmony just to help fill the air. And Doc, or Doc and Sally, or just Sally, Fritz never did quite figure it out after than song was over, started up on The Penquins Earth Angel and that really got Fritz kind of weepy for Cindy, and for his not so long ago lost youth.
But here is the real funny, funny odd, part. Fritz noticed as the flames flickered from the campfire that on the walls he could see human figures, women’s figures, a couple anyway, and when he looked over in the dark he noticed that a couple of young women, twenty-ish women from what he could tell, women who in any case knew, knew as well as he did the words, and, more importantly, the spirit and growing up absurd meaning behind the songs, and were moving closer to the circle. Then, like it was contagious, Zeke started in on the Capris’ There’s A Moon Out Tonight (and there was) and all joined in. Fritz waved the two shadowy women toward the circle and noticed that in the meantime they had been joined by two other youngish, twenty-ish women.
Benjy got into the act having also noticed the bevy of women standing in some ill-defined outer circle and bellowed out Don & Juan’s What’s Your Name and backed it up with Robert & Johnny’s We Belong Together. The other members of the troupe backing him up, backing him up big time. Now they are all in one circle, even Benjy is in tight, and with the drums and other instruments still beating time for them Fritz starts out low-voiced just above a whisper Johnnie & Joe’s Over The Mountain; Across The Sea as one of the women moved over to sit right next to him, almost on his lap. And that night, that ancient flame, ancient sounds starry night, was the night Red Rock did indeed doo-wop.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Alan Ladd Held Forth-“Appointment With Danger”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film Appointment With Danger.
DVD Review
Appointment with Danger, starring Alan Ladd, Jack Webb, Jan Sterling, Paramount Picture, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. I would add here a couple of earlier Alan Ladd vehicles, the film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key and This Gun For Hire both also starring classic femme fatale Veronica Lake (be still my heart, sorry Rita Hayworth). Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale, Rita Hayworth. Be still my heart, am I forgiven, Rita Hayworth? I have even tried to salvage some by touting their plot lines, and others by there use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the edgy musical score, with all the zither music you could want or need, as well). And that brings us to those, like this film under review, 1951's Appointment With Danger, starring the above-mentioned Alan Ladd that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now as I mentioned in a recent review of another lesser crime noir, William Holden in Union Station, it is not like Alan Ladd did not know how to play hard-boiled crime noir on either side of the crime line as he did in The Glass Key and This Gun For Hire (as well as the Raymond Chandler-scripted The Blue Dahlia) so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Ladd may have been a little tired from holding Veronica Lake's hand (or playing playfully with that big wavy hair falling over her right eye). What is missing here in the film under review, Appointment With Danger, is any spark to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line in any case is rather conventional. Ladd plays a hard-nosed postal inspector (what? yes a postal inspector, and hard-nosed to boot) who is sent out to crime-ridden Indiana to seek the killer, or killers, of a fellow postal inspector (what?, again a postal inspector-who would have known it was such a dangerous life) and the only clue that he has to go on is via a sister, no not a dame, a nun who can identify (and be identified by) one of the men last seen with said postal inspector. Between the pair hard-boiled, obviously Protestant, postal inspector with a narrow sense of his job, and narrower regard for the human species and Catholic nun good who sees only good, Ladd tumbles into a big time heist, a million dollar heist (that was big dough ten, if only pocket change now) involving the postal service. Is nothing sacred?
Part of the tumbling by Ladd is that he gets inside the job through wit, wiliness, and an occasional drawing of the gun, although this is the weakest part of a weak plot. If one assumes a certain amount of finesse by Earl, a hotel owner looking for, well, looking for “easy street” and an end to changing towels for the masses, then Ladd’s working his way into the scheme should have put out signals big time. Moreover some of Earl’s confederates have more than a few problems, especially the combination that later in the decade would do yeomen’s service as detectives in Dragnet (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan). Of course in this one the message was telegraphed from the very beginning, crime doesn’t pay, especially if you go after the big boys, the postal service. Or people who walk around with guardian angels to protect them.
Note: As is usual with crime-addled guys they need their molls, sometimes gun molls, but sometimes just for company in the sometimes long wait between jobs. Here the moll, a blonde one as well, although blondeness is not required for the job, just the craven desire for a share of the ”easy street” dough is played by the same moll from Union Station, Jan Sterling. Ms. Sterling actually “steals” the show here as the hard-boiled but smart “be-bop” moll with the quick answer who also has enough sense to come in out of the rain. In short, to know when the deal goes down that her man, Earl, ain’t going nowhere fast and so she blows town, just in time. Nice work. But this is where my interest was perked; she also was into the 1950s be-bop jazz night and brought tin-eared Ladd up to her digs to listen to some platters. If Brother Ladd had had any sense he would have followed her out of town. Willingly.
DVD Review
Appointment with Danger, starring Alan Ladd, Jack Webb, Jan Sterling, Paramount Picture, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. I would add here a couple of earlier Alan Ladd vehicles, the film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key and This Gun For Hire both also starring classic femme fatale Veronica Lake (be still my heart, sorry Rita Hayworth). Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale, Rita Hayworth. Be still my heart, am I forgiven, Rita Hayworth? I have even tried to salvage some by touting their plot lines, and others by there use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the edgy musical score, with all the zither music you could want or need, as well). And that brings us to those, like this film under review, 1951's Appointment With Danger, starring the above-mentioned Alan Ladd that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now as I mentioned in a recent review of another lesser crime noir, William Holden in Union Station, it is not like Alan Ladd did not know how to play hard-boiled crime noir on either side of the crime line as he did in The Glass Key and This Gun For Hire (as well as the Raymond Chandler-scripted The Blue Dahlia) so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Ladd may have been a little tired from holding Veronica Lake's hand (or playing playfully with that big wavy hair falling over her right eye). What is missing here in the film under review, Appointment With Danger, is any spark to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line in any case is rather conventional. Ladd plays a hard-nosed postal inspector (what? yes a postal inspector, and hard-nosed to boot) who is sent out to crime-ridden Indiana to seek the killer, or killers, of a fellow postal inspector (what?, again a postal inspector-who would have known it was such a dangerous life) and the only clue that he has to go on is via a sister, no not a dame, a nun who can identify (and be identified by) one of the men last seen with said postal inspector. Between the pair hard-boiled, obviously Protestant, postal inspector with a narrow sense of his job, and narrower regard for the human species and Catholic nun good who sees only good, Ladd tumbles into a big time heist, a million dollar heist (that was big dough ten, if only pocket change now) involving the postal service. Is nothing sacred?
Part of the tumbling by Ladd is that he gets inside the job through wit, wiliness, and an occasional drawing of the gun, although this is the weakest part of a weak plot. If one assumes a certain amount of finesse by Earl, a hotel owner looking for, well, looking for “easy street” and an end to changing towels for the masses, then Ladd’s working his way into the scheme should have put out signals big time. Moreover some of Earl’s confederates have more than a few problems, especially the combination that later in the decade would do yeomen’s service as detectives in Dragnet (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan). Of course in this one the message was telegraphed from the very beginning, crime doesn’t pay, especially if you go after the big boys, the postal service. Or people who walk around with guardian angels to protect them.
Note: As is usual with crime-addled guys they need their molls, sometimes gun molls, but sometimes just for company in the sometimes long wait between jobs. Here the moll, a blonde one as well, although blondeness is not required for the job, just the craven desire for a share of the ”easy street” dough is played by the same moll from Union Station, Jan Sterling. Ms. Sterling actually “steals” the show here as the hard-boiled but smart “be-bop” moll with the quick answer who also has enough sense to come in out of the rain. In short, to know when the deal goes down that her man, Earl, ain’t going nowhere fast and so she blows town, just in time. Nice work. But this is where my interest was perked; she also was into the 1950s be-bop jazz night and brought tin-eared Ladd up to her digs to listen to some platters. If Brother Ladd had had any sense he would have followed her out of town. Willingly.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Growing Up Absurd In The 1950s- In The Heart Of The Last Kiss Night- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis Presley performing his classic, Love Me.
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1956-1957, Time-Life Music, 1996
Scene: (Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which graces each CD in this Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a he, Johnny Riley, and a she, Peggy McGuire, half-dancing, half-embracing, half-kissing (wait a minute that is too many halves, right?). Kissing that last dance kiss as if their lives depended on it, and maybe it does. Or it had better be so else this scene will turn to ashes)
Johnny Riley had been thinking, thinking hard about Peggy, Peggy McGuire, all day as he prepared himself in anticipation of his date with her for that night’s school dance over at the North Adamsville High gym. Although they had only gone out a few times, a few glorious down the day time beach, out to the movies, and after school bowling at Jake’s Bowling and pizza at Salducci’s times he was thinking hard about her just the same. Ya, it was getting to be like that. More pressing though was, if she liked him too, and he thought she might, what it would be like on their first kiss. She looked like a good kisser but kissing, although he didn’t have all that much experience at it truth to tell, wasn’t something you could tell about by looking; only doing. With that “wisdom” in mind he planned, planned hard, almost as hard as he was thinking about Peggy on how he would “work” around to that first kiss tonight. Ya, tonight was the night he thought to himself later as he made his final preparations, teeth brushed, check, mouth wash, check, deodorant, check, hair tonic-ed and combed, check. Ready.
And out the door with the keys to father’s, clueless father’s, automobile on loan, on special Johnny loan for this evening because Johnny’s father “liked” Peggy. Johnny wondered, wondered for just a second, whether his father and mother kissed. Nah, no way. And as he drove to pick Peggy up Johnny went through his plan in his head one more time. At the dance he was going to dance all the slow dances real close and real physical to get her worked up a little. Then after the dance suggest that they go to Salducci’s for some pizza and then down the beach to “watch the submarine races.” Although he wouldn’t say that but more like it was nice night and let’s go down to the beach and watch the moon or something like that. The key though was to get her “in the mood” with that slow dancing.
Well, Johnny picked Peggy up, they talked in the car on the way over, just chitchat stuff, Johnny parked the car, and they went into the dance. No problems so far, and things were going according to Johnny plan because no sooner had they got there than the DJ played Fever by Little Willie John and Johnny “worked” his closeness magic and a few songs later with Long Lonely Nights by Lee Andrews and The Hearts. After intermission the DJ played Ivory Joe Hunter’s Empty Arms, a song, no question, designed to bring lips together. And Johnny could sense that Peggy, every time he held her closer, didn’t try to back off but just followed his lead and stayed close. Yes, this was going to be the night. A couple of songs they sat out as both agreed they were drippy like old foggy Pat Boone’s April Love and Lloyd Price’s Just Because.
Then Elvis’ Love Me came on and they got up again to dance. About two seconds into the dance Peggy gave Johnny the biggest kiss he had ever received in his life, not a long kiss but big, big with meaning, kiss. Right on the dance floor. And then Peggy said she had enough of dancing and since it was such a nice night maybe they could go down to the beach to cool off and “watch the submarine races.” See, as hard as Johnny was thinking about Peggy that day, Peggy McGuire was thinking just a little harder about him, and about why he was taking so long to give her a first kiss like he didn’t want to. So a girl had to take things in hand sometimes. Of course old clueless Johnny only found this out, between kisses, as they were watching those submarine races on that nice night down at the beach. Thanks Elvis.
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1956-1957, Time-Life Music, 1996
Scene: (Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which graces each CD in this Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a he, Johnny Riley, and a she, Peggy McGuire, half-dancing, half-embracing, half-kissing (wait a minute that is too many halves, right?). Kissing that last dance kiss as if their lives depended on it, and maybe it does. Or it had better be so else this scene will turn to ashes)
Johnny Riley had been thinking, thinking hard about Peggy, Peggy McGuire, all day as he prepared himself in anticipation of his date with her for that night’s school dance over at the North Adamsville High gym. Although they had only gone out a few times, a few glorious down the day time beach, out to the movies, and after school bowling at Jake’s Bowling and pizza at Salducci’s times he was thinking hard about her just the same. Ya, it was getting to be like that. More pressing though was, if she liked him too, and he thought she might, what it would be like on their first kiss. She looked like a good kisser but kissing, although he didn’t have all that much experience at it truth to tell, wasn’t something you could tell about by looking; only doing. With that “wisdom” in mind he planned, planned hard, almost as hard as he was thinking about Peggy on how he would “work” around to that first kiss tonight. Ya, tonight was the night he thought to himself later as he made his final preparations, teeth brushed, check, mouth wash, check, deodorant, check, hair tonic-ed and combed, check. Ready.
And out the door with the keys to father’s, clueless father’s, automobile on loan, on special Johnny loan for this evening because Johnny’s father “liked” Peggy. Johnny wondered, wondered for just a second, whether his father and mother kissed. Nah, no way. And as he drove to pick Peggy up Johnny went through his plan in his head one more time. At the dance he was going to dance all the slow dances real close and real physical to get her worked up a little. Then after the dance suggest that they go to Salducci’s for some pizza and then down the beach to “watch the submarine races.” Although he wouldn’t say that but more like it was nice night and let’s go down to the beach and watch the moon or something like that. The key though was to get her “in the mood” with that slow dancing.
Well, Johnny picked Peggy up, they talked in the car on the way over, just chitchat stuff, Johnny parked the car, and they went into the dance. No problems so far, and things were going according to Johnny plan because no sooner had they got there than the DJ played Fever by Little Willie John and Johnny “worked” his closeness magic and a few songs later with Long Lonely Nights by Lee Andrews and The Hearts. After intermission the DJ played Ivory Joe Hunter’s Empty Arms, a song, no question, designed to bring lips together. And Johnny could sense that Peggy, every time he held her closer, didn’t try to back off but just followed his lead and stayed close. Yes, this was going to be the night. A couple of songs they sat out as both agreed they were drippy like old foggy Pat Boone’s April Love and Lloyd Price’s Just Because.
Then Elvis’ Love Me came on and they got up again to dance. About two seconds into the dance Peggy gave Johnny the biggest kiss he had ever received in his life, not a long kiss but big, big with meaning, kiss. Right on the dance floor. And then Peggy said she had enough of dancing and since it was such a nice night maybe they could go down to the beach to cool off and “watch the submarine races.” See, as hard as Johnny was thinking about Peggy that day, Peggy McGuire was thinking just a little harder about him, and about why he was taking so long to give her a first kiss like he didn’t want to. So a girl had to take things in hand sometimes. Of course old clueless Johnny only found this out, between kisses, as they were watching those submarine races on that nice night down at the beach. Thanks Elvis.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Growing Up Absurd In The 1950s- In The Heart Of The Late Dance Night- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Platters performing their classic, Only You.
CD Review
The Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll: Slow Dancing Classics, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: (Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which graces each CD in this Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a he, Jimmy Callahan, and a she, Kathy Kelly, in formal attire dancing, dancing that last sweet teenage high school, maybe the senior prom, dance. Or it had better be else this scene will turn to ashes)
“I don’t understand why it took you so long to ask me out, Mr. James Callahan,” murmured Kathy Kelly as they clasped hands in anticipation of the last dance. Jimmy mumbled, or it seemed like mumbling to Kathy, that he was shy, that he was busy, that he wasn’t sure that she even noticed him, or if she did notice him, liked him. Kids’ stuff, typical guy kids’ stuff, thought Kathy. But just now, unbelievably, the last dance, the last sweet time high school dance before facing the Cold War world and whatever it held out in that 1957 night, was to begin. But that world stuff was for tomorrow tonight Kathy has finally, finally, snagged the boy she has been mooning over for, well, let’s leave it as a long time, long before rock ‘n’ roll made it easier for a guy like Jimmy Callahan to ask a girl like Kathy Kelly out on to the dance floor without having to get all balled up in following the leader close dancing, sweaty palms and all. Now though was the time for slow dancing, slow last dance dancing and two-left feet, two left-shoeless feet, heck, two left-snow-shoed feet or not, Jimmy, as Kathy beamed to herself, was snagged.
Kathy looking resplendent in her Filene’s finest formal dress, complete with lacy see-though shawl, and topped off with a Jimmy corsage, a corsage that spoke more powerfully to her victory than ten million dances, and that finally felt that it all worth it feeling another ten million. Worth the every trick in the book that she had to pull out of the hat in order that he would “ask” her to their senior prom, the last chance Kathy would get to claim her Jimmy before he left for State later in the summer. Just that hand-clasped moment she hoped, hoped to the stars above, that they played her “they” song, a song that she had been listening to with Jimmy last dance dancing in mind since, well, you already know, a long time.
That right choice might also be the last chance to put her mark on him, although earlier in the evening she sensed something, something unsaid, when they played 16 Candles by the Crests and Jimmy mumbled something about how he was sorry that he couldn’t make it to her 16th birthday party, although Kathy had gone through six levels of hell to try and get him there. Then he kind of backed off when they played Patsy Cline’s cover of Crazy and right after that he said he didn’t understand how someone could keep on “carrying the torch” when the love affair was over. And he was definitely moody when they played I’m Sorry by Brenda Lee, calling it drippy. He lightened up a little when they played in In The Still Of The Night by the Five Satins and said he loved doo wop, proving it by knowing all the words and doing some fine harmony in his deep bass voice.
Suddenly some awfully familiar music started up and the last dance began, the last dance ending with Only You by The Platters. And just as the Platters got into the heart of the song, the heart-felt only you part, Jimmy, red-faced, shy, two left-feet Jimmy, asked Miss Kathy Kelly if she would come up and visit him at State in the fall. Ah, very heaven.
CD Review
The Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll: Slow Dancing Classics, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: (Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which graces each CD in this Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a he, Jimmy Callahan, and a she, Kathy Kelly, in formal attire dancing, dancing that last sweet teenage high school, maybe the senior prom, dance. Or it had better be else this scene will turn to ashes)
“I don’t understand why it took you so long to ask me out, Mr. James Callahan,” murmured Kathy Kelly as they clasped hands in anticipation of the last dance. Jimmy mumbled, or it seemed like mumbling to Kathy, that he was shy, that he was busy, that he wasn’t sure that she even noticed him, or if she did notice him, liked him. Kids’ stuff, typical guy kids’ stuff, thought Kathy. But just now, unbelievably, the last dance, the last sweet time high school dance before facing the Cold War world and whatever it held out in that 1957 night, was to begin. But that world stuff was for tomorrow tonight Kathy has finally, finally, snagged the boy she has been mooning over for, well, let’s leave it as a long time, long before rock ‘n’ roll made it easier for a guy like Jimmy Callahan to ask a girl like Kathy Kelly out on to the dance floor without having to get all balled up in following the leader close dancing, sweaty palms and all. Now though was the time for slow dancing, slow last dance dancing and two-left feet, two left-shoeless feet, heck, two left-snow-shoed feet or not, Jimmy, as Kathy beamed to herself, was snagged.
Kathy looking resplendent in her Filene’s finest formal dress, complete with lacy see-though shawl, and topped off with a Jimmy corsage, a corsage that spoke more powerfully to her victory than ten million dances, and that finally felt that it all worth it feeling another ten million. Worth the every trick in the book that she had to pull out of the hat in order that he would “ask” her to their senior prom, the last chance Kathy would get to claim her Jimmy before he left for State later in the summer. Just that hand-clasped moment she hoped, hoped to the stars above, that they played her “they” song, a song that she had been listening to with Jimmy last dance dancing in mind since, well, you already know, a long time.
That right choice might also be the last chance to put her mark on him, although earlier in the evening she sensed something, something unsaid, when they played 16 Candles by the Crests and Jimmy mumbled something about how he was sorry that he couldn’t make it to her 16th birthday party, although Kathy had gone through six levels of hell to try and get him there. Then he kind of backed off when they played Patsy Cline’s cover of Crazy and right after that he said he didn’t understand how someone could keep on “carrying the torch” when the love affair was over. And he was definitely moody when they played I’m Sorry by Brenda Lee, calling it drippy. He lightened up a little when they played in In The Still Of The Night by the Five Satins and said he loved doo wop, proving it by knowing all the words and doing some fine harmony in his deep bass voice.
Suddenly some awfully familiar music started up and the last dance began, the last dance ending with Only You by The Platters. And just as the Platters got into the heart of the song, the heart-felt only you part, Jimmy, red-faced, shy, two left-feet Jimmy, asked Miss Kathy Kelly if she would come up and visit him at State in the fall. Ah, very heaven.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Time Of Frankie’s Carnival Time
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing his song Jersey Girl that formed part of the inspiration for this post.
An old man walks, walks haltingly down a North Adamsville street, maybe Hancock Street, or maybe a street just off it, a long street like West Main Street, he has forgotten which exactly in the time between his walking and his telling me his story. Near the high school anyway, North Adamsville High School, where he graduated from back in the mist of time, the 1960s mist of time. A time when he was known, far and wide, as the king, the king hell king, if the truth be known, of the schoolboy be-bop night. And headquartered, properly headquartered, at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor as was his due as the reigning schoolboy king of the night. But that schoolboy corner boy king thing is an old story, an old story strictly for cutting up old torches, according to the old man, Frankie, yes, Francis Xavier Riley, as if back from the dead, and not fit, not fit by a long shot for what he has to tell me about his recent “discovery,” and its meaning.
Apparently as Frankie, let us skip the formalities and just call him Frankie, walked down that nameless, maybe unnamable street he was stricken by sight of a sign on a vagrant telephone pole announcing that Jim Byrd’s Carnival and Traveling Show was coming to town and setting up tent at the Veteran’s Stadium in the first week in June, this past June, for the whole week. And seeing this sign, this vagrant sign on this vagrant telephone pole, set off a stream of memories from when the king hell king of the schoolboy corner boy night was so enthralled with the idea of the “carny” life, of this very Jim Byrd’s Carnival and Traveling Show carnival life, that he had plans, serious plans, to run away, run away with it when it left town. Conditioned, and of course there was always a condition: if Ma Riley, or Pa Riley if it came to it, although Pa was usually comfortably ensconced in the Dublin Pub over on Sagamore Street and was not a big factor in Frankie’s life when it came time for him to make his mark as king hell king, just bothered him one more time, bothered about what was never specified.
In any case rather than running away with the carnival Frankie served his high school corner boy term as king hell king, went to college and then to law school, ran a successful mid-sized law practice, raised plenty of kids and political hell and never looked back. And not until he saw that old-time memory sign did he think of regrets for not having done what he said that “he was born for.” And rather than have the reader left with another in the endless line of cautionary tales, or of two roads, one not taken tales, or any of that, Frankie, Frankie in his own words, wants to expand on his carnival vision reincarnation:
Who knows when a kid first gets the carnival bug, maybe it was down in cradle times hearing the firecrackers in the heated, muggy Fourth Of July night when in old, old time North Adamsville a group of guys, a group of guys called the “Associates”, mainly Dublin Pub guys, and at one time including my father, Joe Riley, Senior, grabbed some money from around the neighborhood. And from the local merchants like Doc over at Doc’s Drug Store, and Mario over at Estrella’s Grocery Store, Mac, owner of the Dublin Pub, and always, always, Tonio, owner of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor. What they did with this money was to hire a small time, usually very small time, carnival outfit, something with a name like Joe’s Carny, or the like, maybe with a merry-go-round, some bumping cars, a whip thing, a few one-trick ponies, and ten or twelve win-a-doll-for-your-lady tents. On the side maybe a few fried dough, pizza, sausage and onions kind of eateries, with cotton candy to top it off. And in a center tent acts, clown acts, trapeze acts with pretty girls dangling every which way, jugglers, and the like. Nothing fancy, no three-ring circus, or monster theme amusement park to flip a kid’s head stuff. Like I say small time, but not small time enough to not enflame the imagination of every kid, mainly every boy kid, but a few girls too if I remember right, with visions of setting up their own show.
Or maybe it was when this very same Jim Byrd, a dark-haired, dark-skinned (no, not black, not in 1950s North Adamsville, christ no, but maybe a gypsy or half-gypsy, if that is possible). A friendly guy, slightly wiry, a slightly side-of-his-mouth-talking guy just like a lawyer, who actually showed me some interesting magic tricks when I informed him, aged eight, that I wanted to go “on the road” with him first brought his show to town. Brought it to Veteran’s Stadium then too. That’s when I knew that that old time Associates thing, that frumpy Fourth of July set-up-in-a-minute-thing-and-then-gone was strictly amateur stuff. See Jim’s had a Ferris wheel, Jim had a Mini-Roller Coaster, and he had about twenty-five or thirty win-a-doll, cigarettes, teddy bears, or candy tents. But also shooting galleries, gypsy fortune-telling ladies with daughters with black hair and laughing eyes selling roses, or the idea of roses. And looking very foxy, the daughters that is, although I did not know what foxy was then. Oh ya, sure Jim had the ubiquitous fried dough, sausage and onion, cardboard pizza stuff too. Come on now this was a carnival, big time carnival, big time to an eight year old carnival. Of course he had that heartburn food. But what set Jim’s operation off was that central tent. Sure, yawn, he had the clowns, tramp clowns, Clarabelle clowns, what have you, and the jugglers, juggling everything but mainly a lot of whatever it was they were juggling , and even the acrobats, bouncing over each other like rubber balls. The big deal, the eight year old big deal though, was the animals, the real live tigers and lions that performed in a cage in center stage with some blonde safari-weary tamer doing the most incredible tricks with them. Like, well, like having them jump through hoops, and flipping over each other and the trainer too. Wow.
But now that I think about it seriously the real deal of the carny life was not either the Associates or Jim Byrd’s, although after I tell you about this Jim’s would enter into my plans because that was the carnival, the only carnival I knew, to run away with. See down in Huntsville, a town on the hard ocean about twenty miles from North Adamsville there was what would now be called nothing but an old-time amusement park, a park like you still might see if you went to Seaside Heights down on the Jersey shore. This park, this Wild Willie’s Amusement Park, was the aces although as you will see not a place to run away to since everything stayed there, summer open or winter closed. I was maybe nine or ten when I first went there but the story really hinges on when I was just turning twelve, you know, just getting ready to make my mark on the world, the world being girls. Yes, that kind of turning twelve. But nine or twelve this Wild Willie’s put even Jim Byrd’s show to shame. Huge roller-coasters (yes, the plural is right, three altogether), a wild mouse, whips, dips, flips and very other kind of ride, covered and uncovered, maybe fifteen or twenty, all based on the idea of trying to make you scared, and want to go on again, and again to “conquer” that scared. And countless win things (ya, cigarettes, dolls, teddy bears, candy, and so on in case you might have forgotten). I won’t even mention that hazardous to your health but merciful, fried dough, cardboard pizza (in about twenty flavors), sausage and onions, cotton candy and salt water taffy because, frankly I am tired of mentioning it and even a flea circus or a flea market today would feel compelled to offer such treats so I will move on.
What it had that really got me going, at first anyway, was about six pavilions worth of pinball machines, all kinds of pinball machines just like today there are a zillion video games at such places. But what these pinball machines had (beside alluring come-hither and spend some slot machine dough on me pictures of busty young women on the faces of the machines) were guys, over sixteen year old teenage guys, mainly, some older, some a lot older at night, who could play those machines like wizards, racking up free games until the cows came home. I was impressed, impressed to high heaven. And watching them, watching them closely were over sixteen year old girls, some older, some a lot older at night, who I wondered, wondered at when I was nine but not twelve might not be interfering with their pinball magic. Little did I know then that the pinball wizardry was for those sixteen year old, some older, some a lot older girls.
But see, if you didn’t already know, nine or twelve-year old kids were not allowed to play those machines. You had to be sixteen (although I cadged a few free games left on machines as I got a little older, and I think the statute of limitations has run out on this crime so I can say not sixteen years or older). So I gravitated toward the skee ball games located in one of those pinball pavilions, games that anybody six to sixty or more could play. You don’t know skees. Hey where have you been? Skee, come on now. Go over to Seaside Heights on the Jersey shore, or Old Orchard up on the Maine coast and you will have all the skees you want, or need. And if you can’t waggle your way to those hallowed spots then I will give a little run-down. It’s kind of like bowling, candle-pin bowling (small bowling balls for you non-New Englanders) with a small ball and it’s kind of like archery or darts because you have to get the balls, usually ten or twelve to a game, into tilted holes.
The idea is to get as high a score as possible, and in amusement park land after your game is over you get coupons depending on how many points you totaled. And if you get enough points you can win, well, a good luck rabbit’s foot, like I won for Karen stick-girl (a stick girl was a girl who didn’t yet have a shape, a womanly shape, and maybe that word still is used, okay) one time, one turning twelve-year old time, who thought I was the king of the night one time because I gave her one from my “winning,” and maybe still does. Still does think I am king of the hill. But a guy, an old corner boy guy that I knew back then, a kind of screwy guy who hung onto my tail at Salducci’s like I was King Solomon, a guy named Markin, already wrote that story once. Although he got one part wrong, the part about how I didn’t know right from left about girls and gave this Karen stick girl the air when, after showering her with that rabbit’s foot, she wanted me to go with her and sit on the old seawall down at Huntsville Beach and I said no-go. I went, believe me I went, and we both practically had lockjaw for two weeks after we got done. But you know how stories get twisted when third parties who were not there, had no hope of being there, and had questionable left from right girl knowledge themselves start their slanderous campaigns on you. Yes, you know that scene, I am sure.
So you see, Karen stick and lockjaw aside, I had some skill at skees, and the way skees and the carny life came together was when, well let me call her Gypsy Love, because like the name of that North Adamsville vagrant telephone pole street where I saw the Byrd’s carnival in town sign that I could not remember the name of I swear I can’t, or won’t remember her’s. All I remember those is that jet-black long hair, shiny dark-skinned glean (no, no again, she was not black, christ, no way, not in 1950s Wild Willie’s, what are you kidding me?), that thirteen-year old winsome smile, half innocent, half-half I don’t know what, that fast-forming girlish womanly shape and those laughing, Spanish gypsy black eyes that would haunt a man’s sleep, or a boy’s. And that is all I need to remember, and you too if you have any imagination. See Gypsy Love was the daughter of Madame La Rue, the fortune-teller in Jim Byrd’s carnival. I met her in turning twelve time when she tried to sell me a rose, rose for my girlfriend, my non-existent just then girlfriend. Needless to say I was immediately taken with her and told her that although I had no girlfriend I would buy her a rose.
And that, off and on, over the next year is where we bounced around in our “relationship.” One day I was down at Wild Willie’s and I spotted her and asked her why she wasn’t on the road with Jim Byrd’s show. Apparently Madame LaRue had had a falling out with Jim, quit the traveling show and landed a spot at Wild Willie’s. And naturally Gypsy Love followed mother, selling flowers to the rubes at Wild Willie’s. So naturally, naturally to me, I told Gypsy Love to follow me over to the skees and I would win her a proper prize. And I did, I went crazy that day. A big old lamp for her room. And Gypsy Love asked me, asked me very nicely thank you, if I wanted to go down by the seawall and sit for a while. And let’s get this straight, no third party who wasn’t there, no wannbe there talk, please, I followed her, followed her like a lemming to the sea. And we had the lockjaw for a month afterward to prove it. And you say, you dare to say I was not born for that life, that carnival life. Ha.
An old man walks, walks haltingly down a North Adamsville street, maybe Hancock Street, or maybe a street just off it, a long street like West Main Street, he has forgotten which exactly in the time between his walking and his telling me his story. Near the high school anyway, North Adamsville High School, where he graduated from back in the mist of time, the 1960s mist of time. A time when he was known, far and wide, as the king, the king hell king, if the truth be known, of the schoolboy be-bop night. And headquartered, properly headquartered, at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor as was his due as the reigning schoolboy king of the night. But that schoolboy corner boy king thing is an old story, an old story strictly for cutting up old torches, according to the old man, Frankie, yes, Francis Xavier Riley, as if back from the dead, and not fit, not fit by a long shot for what he has to tell me about his recent “discovery,” and its meaning.
Apparently as Frankie, let us skip the formalities and just call him Frankie, walked down that nameless, maybe unnamable street he was stricken by sight of a sign on a vagrant telephone pole announcing that Jim Byrd’s Carnival and Traveling Show was coming to town and setting up tent at the Veteran’s Stadium in the first week in June, this past June, for the whole week. And seeing this sign, this vagrant sign on this vagrant telephone pole, set off a stream of memories from when the king hell king of the schoolboy corner boy night was so enthralled with the idea of the “carny” life, of this very Jim Byrd’s Carnival and Traveling Show carnival life, that he had plans, serious plans, to run away, run away with it when it left town. Conditioned, and of course there was always a condition: if Ma Riley, or Pa Riley if it came to it, although Pa was usually comfortably ensconced in the Dublin Pub over on Sagamore Street and was not a big factor in Frankie’s life when it came time for him to make his mark as king hell king, just bothered him one more time, bothered about what was never specified.
In any case rather than running away with the carnival Frankie served his high school corner boy term as king hell king, went to college and then to law school, ran a successful mid-sized law practice, raised plenty of kids and political hell and never looked back. And not until he saw that old-time memory sign did he think of regrets for not having done what he said that “he was born for.” And rather than have the reader left with another in the endless line of cautionary tales, or of two roads, one not taken tales, or any of that, Frankie, Frankie in his own words, wants to expand on his carnival vision reincarnation:
Who knows when a kid first gets the carnival bug, maybe it was down in cradle times hearing the firecrackers in the heated, muggy Fourth Of July night when in old, old time North Adamsville a group of guys, a group of guys called the “Associates”, mainly Dublin Pub guys, and at one time including my father, Joe Riley, Senior, grabbed some money from around the neighborhood. And from the local merchants like Doc over at Doc’s Drug Store, and Mario over at Estrella’s Grocery Store, Mac, owner of the Dublin Pub, and always, always, Tonio, owner of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor. What they did with this money was to hire a small time, usually very small time, carnival outfit, something with a name like Joe’s Carny, or the like, maybe with a merry-go-round, some bumping cars, a whip thing, a few one-trick ponies, and ten or twelve win-a-doll-for-your-lady tents. On the side maybe a few fried dough, pizza, sausage and onions kind of eateries, with cotton candy to top it off. And in a center tent acts, clown acts, trapeze acts with pretty girls dangling every which way, jugglers, and the like. Nothing fancy, no three-ring circus, or monster theme amusement park to flip a kid’s head stuff. Like I say small time, but not small time enough to not enflame the imagination of every kid, mainly every boy kid, but a few girls too if I remember right, with visions of setting up their own show.
Or maybe it was when this very same Jim Byrd, a dark-haired, dark-skinned (no, not black, not in 1950s North Adamsville, christ no, but maybe a gypsy or half-gypsy, if that is possible). A friendly guy, slightly wiry, a slightly side-of-his-mouth-talking guy just like a lawyer, who actually showed me some interesting magic tricks when I informed him, aged eight, that I wanted to go “on the road” with him first brought his show to town. Brought it to Veteran’s Stadium then too. That’s when I knew that that old time Associates thing, that frumpy Fourth of July set-up-in-a-minute-thing-and-then-gone was strictly amateur stuff. See Jim’s had a Ferris wheel, Jim had a Mini-Roller Coaster, and he had about twenty-five or thirty win-a-doll, cigarettes, teddy bears, or candy tents. But also shooting galleries, gypsy fortune-telling ladies with daughters with black hair and laughing eyes selling roses, or the idea of roses. And looking very foxy, the daughters that is, although I did not know what foxy was then. Oh ya, sure Jim had the ubiquitous fried dough, sausage and onion, cardboard pizza stuff too. Come on now this was a carnival, big time carnival, big time to an eight year old carnival. Of course he had that heartburn food. But what set Jim’s operation off was that central tent. Sure, yawn, he had the clowns, tramp clowns, Clarabelle clowns, what have you, and the jugglers, juggling everything but mainly a lot of whatever it was they were juggling , and even the acrobats, bouncing over each other like rubber balls. The big deal, the eight year old big deal though, was the animals, the real live tigers and lions that performed in a cage in center stage with some blonde safari-weary tamer doing the most incredible tricks with them. Like, well, like having them jump through hoops, and flipping over each other and the trainer too. Wow.
But now that I think about it seriously the real deal of the carny life was not either the Associates or Jim Byrd’s, although after I tell you about this Jim’s would enter into my plans because that was the carnival, the only carnival I knew, to run away with. See down in Huntsville, a town on the hard ocean about twenty miles from North Adamsville there was what would now be called nothing but an old-time amusement park, a park like you still might see if you went to Seaside Heights down on the Jersey shore. This park, this Wild Willie’s Amusement Park, was the aces although as you will see not a place to run away to since everything stayed there, summer open or winter closed. I was maybe nine or ten when I first went there but the story really hinges on when I was just turning twelve, you know, just getting ready to make my mark on the world, the world being girls. Yes, that kind of turning twelve. But nine or twelve this Wild Willie’s put even Jim Byrd’s show to shame. Huge roller-coasters (yes, the plural is right, three altogether), a wild mouse, whips, dips, flips and very other kind of ride, covered and uncovered, maybe fifteen or twenty, all based on the idea of trying to make you scared, and want to go on again, and again to “conquer” that scared. And countless win things (ya, cigarettes, dolls, teddy bears, candy, and so on in case you might have forgotten). I won’t even mention that hazardous to your health but merciful, fried dough, cardboard pizza (in about twenty flavors), sausage and onions, cotton candy and salt water taffy because, frankly I am tired of mentioning it and even a flea circus or a flea market today would feel compelled to offer such treats so I will move on.
What it had that really got me going, at first anyway, was about six pavilions worth of pinball machines, all kinds of pinball machines just like today there are a zillion video games at such places. But what these pinball machines had (beside alluring come-hither and spend some slot machine dough on me pictures of busty young women on the faces of the machines) were guys, over sixteen year old teenage guys, mainly, some older, some a lot older at night, who could play those machines like wizards, racking up free games until the cows came home. I was impressed, impressed to high heaven. And watching them, watching them closely were over sixteen year old girls, some older, some a lot older at night, who I wondered, wondered at when I was nine but not twelve might not be interfering with their pinball magic. Little did I know then that the pinball wizardry was for those sixteen year old, some older, some a lot older girls.
But see, if you didn’t already know, nine or twelve-year old kids were not allowed to play those machines. You had to be sixteen (although I cadged a few free games left on machines as I got a little older, and I think the statute of limitations has run out on this crime so I can say not sixteen years or older). So I gravitated toward the skee ball games located in one of those pinball pavilions, games that anybody six to sixty or more could play. You don’t know skees. Hey where have you been? Skee, come on now. Go over to Seaside Heights on the Jersey shore, or Old Orchard up on the Maine coast and you will have all the skees you want, or need. And if you can’t waggle your way to those hallowed spots then I will give a little run-down. It’s kind of like bowling, candle-pin bowling (small bowling balls for you non-New Englanders) with a small ball and it’s kind of like archery or darts because you have to get the balls, usually ten or twelve to a game, into tilted holes.
The idea is to get as high a score as possible, and in amusement park land after your game is over you get coupons depending on how many points you totaled. And if you get enough points you can win, well, a good luck rabbit’s foot, like I won for Karen stick-girl (a stick girl was a girl who didn’t yet have a shape, a womanly shape, and maybe that word still is used, okay) one time, one turning twelve-year old time, who thought I was the king of the night one time because I gave her one from my “winning,” and maybe still does. Still does think I am king of the hill. But a guy, an old corner boy guy that I knew back then, a kind of screwy guy who hung onto my tail at Salducci’s like I was King Solomon, a guy named Markin, already wrote that story once. Although he got one part wrong, the part about how I didn’t know right from left about girls and gave this Karen stick girl the air when, after showering her with that rabbit’s foot, she wanted me to go with her and sit on the old seawall down at Huntsville Beach and I said no-go. I went, believe me I went, and we both practically had lockjaw for two weeks after we got done. But you know how stories get twisted when third parties who were not there, had no hope of being there, and had questionable left from right girl knowledge themselves start their slanderous campaigns on you. Yes, you know that scene, I am sure.
So you see, Karen stick and lockjaw aside, I had some skill at skees, and the way skees and the carny life came together was when, well let me call her Gypsy Love, because like the name of that North Adamsville vagrant telephone pole street where I saw the Byrd’s carnival in town sign that I could not remember the name of I swear I can’t, or won’t remember her’s. All I remember those is that jet-black long hair, shiny dark-skinned glean (no, no again, she was not black, christ, no way, not in 1950s Wild Willie’s, what are you kidding me?), that thirteen-year old winsome smile, half innocent, half-half I don’t know what, that fast-forming girlish womanly shape and those laughing, Spanish gypsy black eyes that would haunt a man’s sleep, or a boy’s. And that is all I need to remember, and you too if you have any imagination. See Gypsy Love was the daughter of Madame La Rue, the fortune-teller in Jim Byrd’s carnival. I met her in turning twelve time when she tried to sell me a rose, rose for my girlfriend, my non-existent just then girlfriend. Needless to say I was immediately taken with her and told her that although I had no girlfriend I would buy her a rose.
And that, off and on, over the next year is where we bounced around in our “relationship.” One day I was down at Wild Willie’s and I spotted her and asked her why she wasn’t on the road with Jim Byrd’s show. Apparently Madame LaRue had had a falling out with Jim, quit the traveling show and landed a spot at Wild Willie’s. And naturally Gypsy Love followed mother, selling flowers to the rubes at Wild Willie’s. So naturally, naturally to me, I told Gypsy Love to follow me over to the skees and I would win her a proper prize. And I did, I went crazy that day. A big old lamp for her room. And Gypsy Love asked me, asked me very nicely thank you, if I wanted to go down by the seawall and sit for a while. And let’s get this straight, no third party who wasn’t there, no wannbe there talk, please, I followed her, followed her like a lemming to the sea. And we had the lockjaw for a month afterward to prove it. And you say, you dare to say I was not born for that life, that carnival life. Ha.
Friday, June 24, 2011
The Slumming Streets Of 1950s L.A.- Joseph Ellroy’s “L.A. Confidential”
Click on the headline to link to an interview article on crime novelist
Joseph Ellroy
Book Review
L.A. Confidential, Joseph Ellroy, The Mysterious Press, New York, 1990
Crime writer Raymond Chandler, and his detective creation Phillip Marlowe, owned the slumming streets of 1940’s Los Angeles and in the process set the standard by which to judge modern crime novels (along with the work of Dashiell Hammet, of course). However, as time moves on, others have set themselves up to take the challenge posed by these forbears. The author of the book under review, Joseph Ellroy, has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of Los Angeles –based crime novels. Although I believe that Raymond chandler is still king of the mound out in those wavy brownish-yellow western hills and shorelines Ellroy is pushing him, and pushing him hard.
On other occasions I have noted that I am an aficionado of crime book and film noir, although that designation has previously been somewhat limited to the 1940s-1950s period mentioned above, the golden age of black and white film and grainy, sparse language detective novels. I, frankly, was not that familiar with Mr. Ellroy’s work, although I had seen the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential several years ago and had heard about the Black Dahlia case, the basis for another book in the L.A. series. Perhaps, strangely, I took up his works after reading a review of his memoir in The New York Review of Books out of curiosity, if nothing else. Thus this is the first book that I have actually read of the several that he has produced thus far. As I intend to read others this review will act to fill in a little why, as I stated above, I believe that Raymond Chandler is still king of the L.A. seamy-side night.
Chandler’s 1930s-1940s L.A. was still a rather sprawling, sleepy town, an old West town just becoming a magnet for, well, for everyone and with every kind of dream, and dream thwarted, imaginably. Ellroy has moved up to set him material in the 1950s when, in the aftermath of the great post-World War II expansion, the place was the stuff of dreams, the stuff to cash in on. And that is a basic premise behind the plot here, as well as the usual human motives that drive crime novels in general. The plot centers on L.A.'s finest, represented by three distinctly different types of cops, uncovering (and occasionally covering up) present crimes, in their also very distinct ways- you know the usual murder, mayhem, pornography, drugs, prostitution but also, of necessity coming up against an age-old crime from the 1930s. Thus an on the face of it inexplicable mass murder at a diner pinned on three black men turns out to be a five hundred page look, and a revised look at an older crime. And in the process it dives into human greed, police corruption, political appetites, vengeance, sadism, and just plain perversity. At five hundred pages it may be a bit too long to carry the plot but Mr. Ellroy has put a few nice twists in to keep us guessing for a while, always an important test for a crime novel.
No question that Mr. Ellroy has professional police language, motivation, angst down pretty well and can tell a story. My problem off of reading this first book is that using the three professional city cops (Bud, Edward, Jack) approach to the plot doesn’t have the same feel as getting inside private investigator Phillip Marlowe’s motivation for his keeping on tilting at windmills even after taking his usual several beatings in his search for justice. None of the characters here “spoke” to me in that sense. Maybe L.A. crime is just too big a story to be amenable to what comes down to a police procedural. More later.
Joseph Ellroy
Book Review
L.A. Confidential, Joseph Ellroy, The Mysterious Press, New York, 1990
Crime writer Raymond Chandler, and his detective creation Phillip Marlowe, owned the slumming streets of 1940’s Los Angeles and in the process set the standard by which to judge modern crime novels (along with the work of Dashiell Hammet, of course). However, as time moves on, others have set themselves up to take the challenge posed by these forbears. The author of the book under review, Joseph Ellroy, has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of Los Angeles –based crime novels. Although I believe that Raymond chandler is still king of the mound out in those wavy brownish-yellow western hills and shorelines Ellroy is pushing him, and pushing him hard.
On other occasions I have noted that I am an aficionado of crime book and film noir, although that designation has previously been somewhat limited to the 1940s-1950s period mentioned above, the golden age of black and white film and grainy, sparse language detective novels. I, frankly, was not that familiar with Mr. Ellroy’s work, although I had seen the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential several years ago and had heard about the Black Dahlia case, the basis for another book in the L.A. series. Perhaps, strangely, I took up his works after reading a review of his memoir in The New York Review of Books out of curiosity, if nothing else. Thus this is the first book that I have actually read of the several that he has produced thus far. As I intend to read others this review will act to fill in a little why, as I stated above, I believe that Raymond Chandler is still king of the L.A. seamy-side night.
Chandler’s 1930s-1940s L.A. was still a rather sprawling, sleepy town, an old West town just becoming a magnet for, well, for everyone and with every kind of dream, and dream thwarted, imaginably. Ellroy has moved up to set him material in the 1950s when, in the aftermath of the great post-World War II expansion, the place was the stuff of dreams, the stuff to cash in on. And that is a basic premise behind the plot here, as well as the usual human motives that drive crime novels in general. The plot centers on L.A.'s finest, represented by three distinctly different types of cops, uncovering (and occasionally covering up) present crimes, in their also very distinct ways- you know the usual murder, mayhem, pornography, drugs, prostitution but also, of necessity coming up against an age-old crime from the 1930s. Thus an on the face of it inexplicable mass murder at a diner pinned on three black men turns out to be a five hundred page look, and a revised look at an older crime. And in the process it dives into human greed, police corruption, political appetites, vengeance, sadism, and just plain perversity. At five hundred pages it may be a bit too long to carry the plot but Mr. Ellroy has put a few nice twists in to keep us guessing for a while, always an important test for a crime novel.
No question that Mr. Ellroy has professional police language, motivation, angst down pretty well and can tell a story. My problem off of reading this first book is that using the three professional city cops (Bud, Edward, Jack) approach to the plot doesn’t have the same feel as getting inside private investigator Phillip Marlowe’s motivation for his keeping on tilting at windmills even after taking his usual several beatings in his search for justice. None of the characters here “spoke” to me in that sense. Maybe L.A. crime is just too big a story to be amenable to what comes down to a police procedural. More later.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
A Day In The Life Of A Member Of The Generation Of '68-For Mary, Class Of 1964 Somewhere
Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia entry for the "Summer Of Love", 1967.
"In that time, 'twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.
He was scared, Billy was scared, Billy Bradley well known member of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 was scared, as he entered the foyer of the North Adamsville Holiday Inn for what was to be his class’ 5th reunion on this 1969 November weekend, this Thanksgiving Saturday night. Yes, he reflected, those had been his glory days, those days from 1961 to 1964 when he had been the captain of the billiards team three years running. A time then when he could have had every good-looking, every interesting girl that he wanted, and, well, whatever else he wanted from the girls who hung around Joe’s Billiard Parlor after school during the season, and some of them after the season as well.
Of course in those glory days when everyone in town, and other places too, bled raider red the football players, even the dinks, had first dibs on the girls. But after that, well after that, it was open season and the girls, the interesting girls, found their way to Joe’s Billiard Parlor. Billy had to chuckle even now as he thought about it, about those basketball bozos, those hockey hoboes, those tennis touts, those golf goofs, and those soccer scum who were clueless about why the girls didn’t flock, all a-flutter, to them and their dink sports. And in their flailing, their anger, and their clueless-ness these pseudo-jocks, en masse, in those days started spreading vicious slanders around about how Joe’s was nothing but a rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out of a pool hall. Run by a “connected” bookie, Joe, on top of all that. Like those girls, those interesting girls, knew or cared a fig, hell half a fig, about the finer distinctions, as important as they are to aficionados, between pool and billiards as they draped themselves languidly around the empty billiard tables and filled the place almost to the rafters at Joe’s. Or that Joe made book right in front of them. Ya, those geek guys were, no question, clueless.
But that was then and tonight was a whole different ballgame. See Billy, after deciding to come back and tweak a few noses at this reunion thing, started to get cold feet. Of course he blew off the tradition Thanksgiving Thursday football game between North and cross-town arch-rival Adamsville High in order not to send his classmates a telegram about his new world. Although he had not been back in those five years since graduation, he knew, knew in his heart, that the blue-collar working class ethos that had practically buried him alive back in those so-called days would still be in play, still be in play in the "us" against "them" world, and the them was the “monster” government that was intent on wreaking havoc with its giant footprint every place it could, including right this minute in Vietnam, to the cheers of the North Adamsville thems.
And they, the thems, certainly the father and mother thems would definitely not understand that Billy Bradley, a son of the blue-collar working class, a kid who started out like them, and their kids, who thankfully never went to college but straight to work, saving, mercifully saving, the old man’s wallet from extinction, went over to the other side, the “us”, and helped caused eruptions in places like New York City ( jesus, even New York City, is nothing sacred, he could hear them say snickering in the background chatter of this ill-starred reunion dinner), in Washington, D.C. and points west, Yes, he knew that story, knew it first-hand, chapter and verse, from those occasional calls back home to mother. Hell, she had led the chorus, at least the chorus about what was he going to do with his life and how was he going to use his hard fought for, and ever harped on desperately paid for, education. He would not even mention her tirades about marriage, family, and producing kids, grand kids. And, as he thought of it occasionally, maybe she led the snickers too. Yes indeed, he knew the story chapter and verse, and as well from the odd-hour telephone calls sent homeward to mother’s house threatening the usual “if-I ever-see-that-s.o.b.,” and that was just the mildly curious expression of bad vibes ready to pounce on him this night, or so he feared.
See, if you didn’t realize it before, Billy was now a vision of heaven’s own angel choir. As he looked at himself in the hotel lobby mirror he sensed that he was out of place here, and not just in the family-friendly, take a vacation to historic North Adamsville, land of late presidents, and earlier revolutionary brethren long gone and best forgotten, forgotten for what they were trying to do with that fragile democratic experiment idea they had on their minds as they civilized this green-grassed new continent, Holiday Inn scene gathered around him. Yes, unquestionably he was out of synch here with his symbol of “youth nation” faded blue jeans, his battle-scarred (Chicago 1968) World War II Army olive drab jacket, Army-Navy surplus store-purchased, his soft, velvety well-worn (and slightly smelly, sorry) moccasins that had many hitchhike miles on them, and his longish pony-tailed hair with matching unkempt beard. No his act would not play in Peoria, Adamsville’s kindred.
This is a mistake, my mistake, he said to himself and he was ready to turn around just then. But just as had made the pivot he heard a voice, “Hey, Captain Billy you old pool hall hoodlum.” And then, “Come on now don’t turn the other way on me.” Finally he recognized the voice if not the person yelling it out. “Wait a minute that’s “Thundering” Tommy Riley, ace football player, captain of the vaunted 1964 team, class president, and, in earlier times, his bosom buddy,” Billy blurred out to no one in particular. Now envision Buffalo Bill Cody although Billy was not sure if Cody was as big as Tommy, with fringed-deerskin jacket, the obligatory “youth nations” faded blue denims, some exotic roman sandals, and long straight hair, longer than Billy’s, with matched beard tooped off by a well-worn (and stained) Stenson hat. Another vision of heaven’s own, well, own something, not angels, not angels, no way. And standing right next to him, right next to him and very like heaven’s own angelic, or maybe Botticelli's versions of the angelic, or Joni Mitchell if you don’t know Botticelli’s work, was Chrissie, Chrissie McNamara, a secret long ago Billy flame, very secret, although maybe not so long ago at that.
Now Tommy and Chrissie were an “item” back in ’64, a big item. Chrissie was, among other things, other things like being an actress, a school newspaper writer, and a high-scoring ten pin bowler, head cheerleader (mainly to be around Tommy more, from what Billy had heard). But Tommy’s girl or not , head cheerleader or not, Chrissie was a fox. A fox though who had no time for billiard parlor romances, or even to step into the rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out joint where the guy who ran it “made book.” No, not pristine Chrissie. Tonight though Billy understood why he had that crush on her for she had on a shapely sarong thing and wore her hair, more blondish hair long now, very long as was now the fashion amount hipper women. The only word he could think of, newer world or not, brothers and sisters in struggle now or not, was fetching.
Tommy motioned Billy to come over and the trio greeted each other heartily. Tommy, never at a lost for words, started telling his epic saga from his football career-ending injury freshman year at State U. to his getting “religion” about the nature of the American state, the need to transform that state to a more socially useful one, and the need have people be better, much better toward each other. Yes, here was a kindred, no weekend hippie tourista. Chrissie was another matter; she seemed less sure of her place in the sun, questioned whether any change, especially disruptive change, mattered and whether maybe it was better just to try to do the best you could within the system. "Yes, Chrissie I see your point, for you anyway," Billy found himself thinking. Hell, he had “crushed” such arguments, from male or female, like so much tissue many times before but not tonight, not this Chrissie in front of him night. Ya, Billy thought it was still like that with Chrissie. Tommy and Chrissie also made it very clear as well, reflecting the new “religious” sensibilities of youth nation that they were just friends. And Billy did notice Chrissie giving him several side-glance peeks while they were talking, and he was insistently peeking right back.
After than confab ended the trio prepared themselves, or rather fortified themselves, to make the rounds together of the other classmates milling around the now somewhat crowded lobby waiting for dinner to start. This tour, this death-march tour, caught Billy feeling like he had a pit in his stomach, especially after a couple of guys started to bait them with the “hippie-dippie” taunt that was standard fare among the squares, and that he would normally shrug his shoulders at except it was here at North. Then a couple of guys from the billiards team came rushing up to him, a couple of alternates, at best, who began a play by play of the North Adamsville-Adamsville contest. No, not the recent Thanksgiving football game, as one might expect, but the 1964 senior year billiards match against the old arch-rival. Billy thought they will probably go to their graves reciting the excruciating details of that one. Move on with your lives, boys, please.
Moreover, with one exception, Janie Thompson, well two, if you count Chrissie, none of the good-looking billiard hall hanging-off-the-rafters girls, or any others that had caught his eye back then, gave him a tumble. They were there but they either didn’t recognize him, or didn’t want to. Many of them had the look, the married look that dictated eyes straight ahead, or the pregnant look (now or in the recent past) that spoke of greater concerns than giving some bearded hippie boy a tumble. Most, whether they had caught his youthful eye in the past or not, had that secure job hubby, little white picket fenced house in the real suburbs, preparing for parenthood look. Chrissie though, mercifully just then, was still giving her peeks, and Billy was right back at her.
Right then though he began talking to Janie, Janie Thompson. Now Janie had certainly blossomed out some because back in the day she was just a wallflower hanging around with a couple of beauties whom Billy had taught how to play billiards, and a couple of other things. Janie told him that she had just graduated from Radcliffe (which he had vaguely remembered she was heading to) but more importantly she had followed, followed closely, his various anti-war activities while in and around Cambridge. Well, things are looking up, or so he thought. But a closer look around, and a conference with Tommy, convinced him that this was neither his place, nor his time and that they (Billy and Janie, Tommy and Chrissie in no particular combination) better go out back and have a joint, and then blow this place. Janie, although she had never smoked before, was game, Billy was certainly game. And off they went, blowing the dust of the place off them in the process. Who was it, oh yes, Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the book You Can’t Go Home Again. Billy thought he should have read that novel long before he actually did and then he would have known, known for sure, that the generation of ’68, his generation of ’68, was fated to be a remnant.
"In that time, 'twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.
He was scared, Billy was scared, Billy Bradley well known member of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 was scared, as he entered the foyer of the North Adamsville Holiday Inn for what was to be his class’ 5th reunion on this 1969 November weekend, this Thanksgiving Saturday night. Yes, he reflected, those had been his glory days, those days from 1961 to 1964 when he had been the captain of the billiards team three years running. A time then when he could have had every good-looking, every interesting girl that he wanted, and, well, whatever else he wanted from the girls who hung around Joe’s Billiard Parlor after school during the season, and some of them after the season as well.
Of course in those glory days when everyone in town, and other places too, bled raider red the football players, even the dinks, had first dibs on the girls. But after that, well after that, it was open season and the girls, the interesting girls, found their way to Joe’s Billiard Parlor. Billy had to chuckle even now as he thought about it, about those basketball bozos, those hockey hoboes, those tennis touts, those golf goofs, and those soccer scum who were clueless about why the girls didn’t flock, all a-flutter, to them and their dink sports. And in their flailing, their anger, and their clueless-ness these pseudo-jocks, en masse, in those days started spreading vicious slanders around about how Joe’s was nothing but a rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out of a pool hall. Run by a “connected” bookie, Joe, on top of all that. Like those girls, those interesting girls, knew or cared a fig, hell half a fig, about the finer distinctions, as important as they are to aficionados, between pool and billiards as they draped themselves languidly around the empty billiard tables and filled the place almost to the rafters at Joe’s. Or that Joe made book right in front of them. Ya, those geek guys were, no question, clueless.
But that was then and tonight was a whole different ballgame. See Billy, after deciding to come back and tweak a few noses at this reunion thing, started to get cold feet. Of course he blew off the tradition Thanksgiving Thursday football game between North and cross-town arch-rival Adamsville High in order not to send his classmates a telegram about his new world. Although he had not been back in those five years since graduation, he knew, knew in his heart, that the blue-collar working class ethos that had practically buried him alive back in those so-called days would still be in play, still be in play in the "us" against "them" world, and the them was the “monster” government that was intent on wreaking havoc with its giant footprint every place it could, including right this minute in Vietnam, to the cheers of the North Adamsville thems.
And they, the thems, certainly the father and mother thems would definitely not understand that Billy Bradley, a son of the blue-collar working class, a kid who started out like them, and their kids, who thankfully never went to college but straight to work, saving, mercifully saving, the old man’s wallet from extinction, went over to the other side, the “us”, and helped caused eruptions in places like New York City ( jesus, even New York City, is nothing sacred, he could hear them say snickering in the background chatter of this ill-starred reunion dinner), in Washington, D.C. and points west, Yes, he knew that story, knew it first-hand, chapter and verse, from those occasional calls back home to mother. Hell, she had led the chorus, at least the chorus about what was he going to do with his life and how was he going to use his hard fought for, and ever harped on desperately paid for, education. He would not even mention her tirades about marriage, family, and producing kids, grand kids. And, as he thought of it occasionally, maybe she led the snickers too. Yes indeed, he knew the story chapter and verse, and as well from the odd-hour telephone calls sent homeward to mother’s house threatening the usual “if-I ever-see-that-s.o.b.,” and that was just the mildly curious expression of bad vibes ready to pounce on him this night, or so he feared.
See, if you didn’t realize it before, Billy was now a vision of heaven’s own angel choir. As he looked at himself in the hotel lobby mirror he sensed that he was out of place here, and not just in the family-friendly, take a vacation to historic North Adamsville, land of late presidents, and earlier revolutionary brethren long gone and best forgotten, forgotten for what they were trying to do with that fragile democratic experiment idea they had on their minds as they civilized this green-grassed new continent, Holiday Inn scene gathered around him. Yes, unquestionably he was out of synch here with his symbol of “youth nation” faded blue jeans, his battle-scarred (Chicago 1968) World War II Army olive drab jacket, Army-Navy surplus store-purchased, his soft, velvety well-worn (and slightly smelly, sorry) moccasins that had many hitchhike miles on them, and his longish pony-tailed hair with matching unkempt beard. No his act would not play in Peoria, Adamsville’s kindred.
This is a mistake, my mistake, he said to himself and he was ready to turn around just then. But just as had made the pivot he heard a voice, “Hey, Captain Billy you old pool hall hoodlum.” And then, “Come on now don’t turn the other way on me.” Finally he recognized the voice if not the person yelling it out. “Wait a minute that’s “Thundering” Tommy Riley, ace football player, captain of the vaunted 1964 team, class president, and, in earlier times, his bosom buddy,” Billy blurred out to no one in particular. Now envision Buffalo Bill Cody although Billy was not sure if Cody was as big as Tommy, with fringed-deerskin jacket, the obligatory “youth nations” faded blue denims, some exotic roman sandals, and long straight hair, longer than Billy’s, with matched beard tooped off by a well-worn (and stained) Stenson hat. Another vision of heaven’s own, well, own something, not angels, not angels, no way. And standing right next to him, right next to him and very like heaven’s own angelic, or maybe Botticelli's versions of the angelic, or Joni Mitchell if you don’t know Botticelli’s work, was Chrissie, Chrissie McNamara, a secret long ago Billy flame, very secret, although maybe not so long ago at that.
Now Tommy and Chrissie were an “item” back in ’64, a big item. Chrissie was, among other things, other things like being an actress, a school newspaper writer, and a high-scoring ten pin bowler, head cheerleader (mainly to be around Tommy more, from what Billy had heard). But Tommy’s girl or not , head cheerleader or not, Chrissie was a fox. A fox though who had no time for billiard parlor romances, or even to step into the rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out joint where the guy who ran it “made book.” No, not pristine Chrissie. Tonight though Billy understood why he had that crush on her for she had on a shapely sarong thing and wore her hair, more blondish hair long now, very long as was now the fashion amount hipper women. The only word he could think of, newer world or not, brothers and sisters in struggle now or not, was fetching.
Tommy motioned Billy to come over and the trio greeted each other heartily. Tommy, never at a lost for words, started telling his epic saga from his football career-ending injury freshman year at State U. to his getting “religion” about the nature of the American state, the need to transform that state to a more socially useful one, and the need have people be better, much better toward each other. Yes, here was a kindred, no weekend hippie tourista. Chrissie was another matter; she seemed less sure of her place in the sun, questioned whether any change, especially disruptive change, mattered and whether maybe it was better just to try to do the best you could within the system. "Yes, Chrissie I see your point, for you anyway," Billy found himself thinking. Hell, he had “crushed” such arguments, from male or female, like so much tissue many times before but not tonight, not this Chrissie in front of him night. Ya, Billy thought it was still like that with Chrissie. Tommy and Chrissie also made it very clear as well, reflecting the new “religious” sensibilities of youth nation that they were just friends. And Billy did notice Chrissie giving him several side-glance peeks while they were talking, and he was insistently peeking right back.
After than confab ended the trio prepared themselves, or rather fortified themselves, to make the rounds together of the other classmates milling around the now somewhat crowded lobby waiting for dinner to start. This tour, this death-march tour, caught Billy feeling like he had a pit in his stomach, especially after a couple of guys started to bait them with the “hippie-dippie” taunt that was standard fare among the squares, and that he would normally shrug his shoulders at except it was here at North. Then a couple of guys from the billiards team came rushing up to him, a couple of alternates, at best, who began a play by play of the North Adamsville-Adamsville contest. No, not the recent Thanksgiving football game, as one might expect, but the 1964 senior year billiards match against the old arch-rival. Billy thought they will probably go to their graves reciting the excruciating details of that one. Move on with your lives, boys, please.
Moreover, with one exception, Janie Thompson, well two, if you count Chrissie, none of the good-looking billiard hall hanging-off-the-rafters girls, or any others that had caught his eye back then, gave him a tumble. They were there but they either didn’t recognize him, or didn’t want to. Many of them had the look, the married look that dictated eyes straight ahead, or the pregnant look (now or in the recent past) that spoke of greater concerns than giving some bearded hippie boy a tumble. Most, whether they had caught his youthful eye in the past or not, had that secure job hubby, little white picket fenced house in the real suburbs, preparing for parenthood look. Chrissie though, mercifully just then, was still giving her peeks, and Billy was right back at her.
Right then though he began talking to Janie, Janie Thompson. Now Janie had certainly blossomed out some because back in the day she was just a wallflower hanging around with a couple of beauties whom Billy had taught how to play billiards, and a couple of other things. Janie told him that she had just graduated from Radcliffe (which he had vaguely remembered she was heading to) but more importantly she had followed, followed closely, his various anti-war activities while in and around Cambridge. Well, things are looking up, or so he thought. But a closer look around, and a conference with Tommy, convinced him that this was neither his place, nor his time and that they (Billy and Janie, Tommy and Chrissie in no particular combination) better go out back and have a joint, and then blow this place. Janie, although she had never smoked before, was game, Billy was certainly game. And off they went, blowing the dust of the place off them in the process. Who was it, oh yes, Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the book You Can’t Go Home Again. Billy thought he should have read that novel long before he actually did and then he would have known, known for sure, that the generation of ’68, his generation of ’68, was fated to be a remnant.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
*When “Doctor Gonzo” Was 'King Of The Hill'-The Master Journalism Of Hunter S. Thompson-"Songs Of The Doomed"
*When “Doctor Gonzo” Was 'King Of The Hill'-The Master Journalism Of Hunter S. Thompson-"Songs Of The Doomed"
Book Review
Songs Of The Doomed; Gonzo Papers Volume Three, Hunter S. Thompson, 1978
In a review of Hunter Thompson's early journalistic work compiled under the title , The Great Shark Hunt, a retrospective sampling of his works through the early 1970s, many which appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine during its more radical, hipper phase, I noted the following points that are useful to repost here in reviewing Songs Of The Doomed, another later , similar compilation of his journalistic pieces:
“Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists, like Karl Marx. Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and other less radical progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense if nothing else, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a man of big, high life appetites, a known dope fiend, a furious wild man gun freak, and all-around edge city lifestyle addict like the late, massively lamented, massively lamented in this quarter in any case, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far, very far, from any thought of a socialist solution to society's current problems and would reject such a designation, I think out of hand, we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us-but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of mad truth-seeking journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.
I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself, or wanted to been seen, as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968, my generation, being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu, coming of adult age in the drab Cold War, red scare, conformist 1950s that not even the wildly popular Mad Men can resurrect as a time which honored fruitful and edgy work, except on the coastal margins of society. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson’s career, the part culminating with the demise of the arch-fiend, arch-political fiend, Richard Nixon. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time-lines and for mass circulation media, these pieces show an uneven quality. Hunter's manic work habits, driven by high dope infusions and high-wire physical stress, only added to the frenzied corners of his work which inevitably was produced under some duress, a duress that drove his hard-boiled inner demons onward. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others, hopefully, will push on further.
One should note that "gonzo" journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within a story by interposing himself/herself as an actor in that story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in the formal schools of other disciplines like history and political science, is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter’s way.
As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that the period covered by this compilation was a period of particular importance in American history, the covering of which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on wrestling with the phenomena of one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, all-around political chameleon and off-hand common criminal. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on the rising curve of his never ending “comeback” trail to his fated (yes, fated) demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went out of his way, way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon, as Robert Kennedy in one of his more lucid comments noted, represented the "dark side" of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work.
Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to earn a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway-searching in Idaho, the non-student left in the 1960’s, especially the earnest early 1960s before the other shoe dropped and we were all confronted with the madness of the beast, unchained , the impact of the ‘beats’ on the later counter cultural movements and about the ‘hippie’ invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his ‘failed’ (according to him, not others) initial stab at “gonzo” journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, “The Great Shark Hunt”, and his ‘tribute’ to his friend the “Brown Buffalo” of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson’s career. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.”
As for the pieces here, mainly the journalistic pieces that form the core of this compilation, the format of the book is divided up into decades starting from the pre-gonzo days of the1950s (although you can detect a certain flare for putting himself inside the story even then, note Prince Jellyfish) to the woe-begone mad efforts (on local law enforcement’s part) to legally destroy Brother Thompson in the early 1990s. In between, Thompson runs through side commentaries on the whys and wherefore of his famous “fear and loathing” works that were the bedrock of his version of gonzo journalism. Additionally, in the 1980s he makes, to my mind, something of a comeback with his reportage on the Pulitzer divorce proceedings in Palm Beach and some of his work (published more extensively elsewhere in another compilation as well) for the San Francisco Examiner. One piece, one short piece that may sum up what Hunter Thompson was trying to do, and what make be his best individual piece of flat-out king hell king good Hemingway/Fitzgerald writing is High Water Mark from Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. That is “high” Thompson as well as very good exposition of where and when the tide ebbed for those of us seeking a “newer world” in the 1960s. Buy the ticket; take the ride as he would say.
Book Review
Songs Of The Doomed; Gonzo Papers Volume Three, Hunter S. Thompson, 1978
In a review of Hunter Thompson's early journalistic work compiled under the title , The Great Shark Hunt, a retrospective sampling of his works through the early 1970s, many which appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine during its more radical, hipper phase, I noted the following points that are useful to repost here in reviewing Songs Of The Doomed, another later , similar compilation of his journalistic pieces:
“Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists, like Karl Marx. Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and other less radical progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense if nothing else, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a man of big, high life appetites, a known dope fiend, a furious wild man gun freak, and all-around edge city lifestyle addict like the late, massively lamented, massively lamented in this quarter in any case, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far, very far, from any thought of a socialist solution to society's current problems and would reject such a designation, I think out of hand, we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us-but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of mad truth-seeking journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.
I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself, or wanted to been seen, as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968, my generation, being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu, coming of adult age in the drab Cold War, red scare, conformist 1950s that not even the wildly popular Mad Men can resurrect as a time which honored fruitful and edgy work, except on the coastal margins of society. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson’s career, the part culminating with the demise of the arch-fiend, arch-political fiend, Richard Nixon. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time-lines and for mass circulation media, these pieces show an uneven quality. Hunter's manic work habits, driven by high dope infusions and high-wire physical stress, only added to the frenzied corners of his work which inevitably was produced under some duress, a duress that drove his hard-boiled inner demons onward. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others, hopefully, will push on further.
One should note that "gonzo" journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within a story by interposing himself/herself as an actor in that story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in the formal schools of other disciplines like history and political science, is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter’s way.
As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that the period covered by this compilation was a period of particular importance in American history, the covering of which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on wrestling with the phenomena of one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, all-around political chameleon and off-hand common criminal. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on the rising curve of his never ending “comeback” trail to his fated (yes, fated) demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went out of his way, way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon, as Robert Kennedy in one of his more lucid comments noted, represented the "dark side" of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work.
Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to earn a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway-searching in Idaho, the non-student left in the 1960’s, especially the earnest early 1960s before the other shoe dropped and we were all confronted with the madness of the beast, unchained , the impact of the ‘beats’ on the later counter cultural movements and about the ‘hippie’ invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his ‘failed’ (according to him, not others) initial stab at “gonzo” journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, “The Great Shark Hunt”, and his ‘tribute’ to his friend the “Brown Buffalo” of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson’s career. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.”
As for the pieces here, mainly the journalistic pieces that form the core of this compilation, the format of the book is divided up into decades starting from the pre-gonzo days of the1950s (although you can detect a certain flare for putting himself inside the story even then, note Prince Jellyfish) to the woe-begone mad efforts (on local law enforcement’s part) to legally destroy Brother Thompson in the early 1990s. In between, Thompson runs through side commentaries on the whys and wherefore of his famous “fear and loathing” works that were the bedrock of his version of gonzo journalism. Additionally, in the 1980s he makes, to my mind, something of a comeback with his reportage on the Pulitzer divorce proceedings in Palm Beach and some of his work (published more extensively elsewhere in another compilation as well) for the San Francisco Examiner. One piece, one short piece that may sum up what Hunter Thompson was trying to do, and what make be his best individual piece of flat-out king hell king good Hemingway/Fitzgerald writing is High Water Mark from Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. That is “high” Thompson as well as very good exposition of where and when the tide ebbed for those of us seeking a “newer world” in the 1960s. Buy the ticket; take the ride as he would say.
Book Review
Songs Of The Doomed; Gonzo Papers Volume Three, Hunter S. Thompson, 1978
In a review of Hunter Thompson's early journalistic work compiled under the title , The Great Shark Hunt, a retrospective sampling of his works through the early 1970s, many which appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine during its more radical, hipper phase, I noted the following points that are useful to repost here in reviewing Songs Of The Doomed, another later , similar compilation of his journalistic pieces:
“Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists, like Karl Marx. Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and other less radical progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense if nothing else, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a man of big, high life appetites, a known dope fiend, a furious wild man gun freak, and all-around edge city lifestyle addict like the late, massively lamented, massively lamented in this quarter in any case, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far, very far, from any thought of a socialist solution to society's current problems and would reject such a designation, I think out of hand, we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us-but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of mad truth-seeking journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.
I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself, or wanted to been seen, as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968, my generation, being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu, coming of adult age in the drab Cold War, red scare, conformist 1950s that not even the wildly popular Mad Men can resurrect as a time which honored fruitful and edgy work, except on the coastal margins of society. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson’s career, the part culminating with the demise of the arch-fiend, arch-political fiend, Richard Nixon. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time-lines and for mass circulation media, these pieces show an uneven quality. Hunter's manic work habits, driven by high dope infusions and high-wire physical stress, only added to the frenzied corners of his work which inevitably was produced under some duress, a duress that drove his hard-boiled inner demons onward. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others, hopefully, will push on further.
One should note that "gonzo" journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within a story by interposing himself/herself as an actor in that story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in the formal schools of other disciplines like history and political science, is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter’s way.
As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that the period covered by this compilation was a period of particular importance in American history, the covering of which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on wrestling with the phenomena of one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, all-around political chameleon and off-hand common criminal. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on the rising curve of his never ending “comeback” trail to his fated (yes, fated) demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went out of his way, way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon, as Robert Kennedy in one of his more lucid comments noted, represented the "dark side" of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work.
Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to earn a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway-searching in Idaho, the non-student left in the 1960’s, especially the earnest early 1960s before the other shoe dropped and we were all confronted with the madness of the beast, unchained , the impact of the ‘beats’ on the later counter cultural movements and about the ‘hippie’ invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his ‘failed’ (according to him, not others) initial stab at “gonzo” journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, “The Great Shark Hunt”, and his ‘tribute’ to his friend the “Brown Buffalo” of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson’s career. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.”
As for the pieces here, mainly the journalistic pieces that form the core of this compilation, the format of the book is divided up into decades starting from the pre-gonzo days of the1950s (although you can detect a certain flare for putting himself inside the story even then, note Prince Jellyfish) to the woe-begone mad efforts (on local law enforcement’s part) to legally destroy Brother Thompson in the early 1990s. In between, Thompson runs through side commentaries on the whys and wherefore of his famous “fear and loathing” works that were the bedrock of his version of gonzo journalism. Additionally, in the 1980s he makes, to my mind, something of a comeback with his reportage on the Pulitzer divorce proceedings in Palm Beach and some of his work (published more extensively elsewhere in another compilation as well) for the San Francisco Examiner. One piece, one short piece that may sum up what Hunter Thompson was trying to do, and what make be his best individual piece of flat-out king hell king good Hemingway/Fitzgerald writing is High Water Mark from Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. That is “high” Thompson as well as very good exposition of where and when the tide ebbed for those of us seeking a “newer world” in the 1960s. Buy the ticket; take the ride as he would say.
Book Review
Songs Of The Doomed; Gonzo Papers Volume Three, Hunter S. Thompson, 1978
In a review of Hunter Thompson's early journalistic work compiled under the title , The Great Shark Hunt, a retrospective sampling of his works through the early 1970s, many which appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine during its more radical, hipper phase, I noted the following points that are useful to repost here in reviewing Songs Of The Doomed, another later , similar compilation of his journalistic pieces:
“Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists, like Karl Marx. Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and other less radical progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense if nothing else, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a man of big, high life appetites, a known dope fiend, a furious wild man gun freak, and all-around edge city lifestyle addict like the late, massively lamented, massively lamented in this quarter in any case, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far, very far, from any thought of a socialist solution to society's current problems and would reject such a designation, I think out of hand, we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us-but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of mad truth-seeking journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.
I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself, or wanted to been seen, as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968, my generation, being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu, coming of adult age in the drab Cold War, red scare, conformist 1950s that not even the wildly popular Mad Men can resurrect as a time which honored fruitful and edgy work, except on the coastal margins of society. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson’s career, the part culminating with the demise of the arch-fiend, arch-political fiend, Richard Nixon. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time-lines and for mass circulation media, these pieces show an uneven quality. Hunter's manic work habits, driven by high dope infusions and high-wire physical stress, only added to the frenzied corners of his work which inevitably was produced under some duress, a duress that drove his hard-boiled inner demons onward. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others, hopefully, will push on further.
One should note that "gonzo" journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within a story by interposing himself/herself as an actor in that story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in the formal schools of other disciplines like history and political science, is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter’s way.
As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that the period covered by this compilation was a period of particular importance in American history, the covering of which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on wrestling with the phenomena of one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, all-around political chameleon and off-hand common criminal. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on the rising curve of his never ending “comeback” trail to his fated (yes, fated) demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went out of his way, way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon, as Robert Kennedy in one of his more lucid comments noted, represented the "dark side" of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work.
Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to earn a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway-searching in Idaho, the non-student left in the 1960’s, especially the earnest early 1960s before the other shoe dropped and we were all confronted with the madness of the beast, unchained , the impact of the ‘beats’ on the later counter cultural movements and about the ‘hippie’ invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his ‘failed’ (according to him, not others) initial stab at “gonzo” journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, “The Great Shark Hunt”, and his ‘tribute’ to his friend the “Brown Buffalo” of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson’s career. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.”
As for the pieces here, mainly the journalistic pieces that form the core of this compilation, the format of the book is divided up into decades starting from the pre-gonzo days of the1950s (although you can detect a certain flare for putting himself inside the story even then, note Prince Jellyfish) to the woe-begone mad efforts (on local law enforcement’s part) to legally destroy Brother Thompson in the early 1990s. In between, Thompson runs through side commentaries on the whys and wherefore of his famous “fear and loathing” works that were the bedrock of his version of gonzo journalism. Additionally, in the 1980s he makes, to my mind, something of a comeback with his reportage on the Pulitzer divorce proceedings in Palm Beach and some of his work (published more extensively elsewhere in another compilation as well) for the San Francisco Examiner. One piece, one short piece that may sum up what Hunter Thompson was trying to do, and what make be his best individual piece of flat-out king hell king good Hemingway/Fitzgerald writing is High Water Mark from Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. That is “high” Thompson as well as very good exposition of where and when the tide ebbed for those of us seeking a “newer world” in the 1960s. Buy the ticket; take the ride as he would say.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Willy Held Forth-“Union Station”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Union Station.
DVD Review
Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching (or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. Be still my heart, at the name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).
So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. See said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hijinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.
DVD Review
Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching (or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. Be still my heart, at the name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).
So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. See said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hijinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Where Have The Girls Gone- When Young Women’s Voices Ruled the Airwaves Before The British Rock Invasion, Circa 1964- Early Girls, Volume Five
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing their classic Tonight's The Night.
Early Girls, Volume Five, various singers, Ace Records, 2001
As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I noted there that I had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I would expand that observation here to include girls’ voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here.
As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.
And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. It Hurts To Be Sixteen by Andrea Carroll, but what about a guy, a sixteen year old guy; Blue Summer by The Royalettes, make mine blue summerwinterfallspring; Sneaky Sue by Patty Lace & Petticoats, give me a call Sue; Richie by Gloria Dennis, an unworthy guy for sure; Poor Little Puppet by Cathy Carroll, self-explanatory; Lonely Sixteen by Janie Black, ditto it hurts to be sixteen; Jimmy Boy by Carol Shaw, it's always jimmy boy, how about marky boy?; Be My Boy by The Paris Sisters, okay, just call; Kookie Little Paradise by Jo Ann Campbell, I'll settle for the beach, blanket or not; and, Tonight's The Night by The Chiffons, this one hurts to the core, the not tonight core. I might add here, as I did with volume four, that as we have with volume five gone well over the one hundred songs mark in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the “speak to” problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice.
So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.
Early Girls, Volume Five, various singers, Ace Records, 2001
As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I noted there that I had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I would expand that observation here to include girls’ voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here.
As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.
And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. It Hurts To Be Sixteen by Andrea Carroll, but what about a guy, a sixteen year old guy; Blue Summer by The Royalettes, make mine blue summerwinterfallspring; Sneaky Sue by Patty Lace & Petticoats, give me a call Sue; Richie by Gloria Dennis, an unworthy guy for sure; Poor Little Puppet by Cathy Carroll, self-explanatory; Lonely Sixteen by Janie Black, ditto it hurts to be sixteen; Jimmy Boy by Carol Shaw, it's always jimmy boy, how about marky boy?; Be My Boy by The Paris Sisters, okay, just call; Kookie Little Paradise by Jo Ann Campbell, I'll settle for the beach, blanket or not; and, Tonight's The Night by The Chiffons, this one hurts to the core, the not tonight core. I might add here, as I did with volume four, that as we have with volume five gone well over the one hundred songs mark in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the “speak to” problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice.
So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
*When “Doctor Gonzo” Was "King Of The Hill'-The Master Journalism Of Hunter S. Thompson-"The Great Shark Hunt"
Book Review
The Great Shark Hunt; Gonzo Papers Volume One, Hunter S. Thompson, 1978
In a review of Hunter Thompson's later journalistic work compiled under the title , Song Of The Doomed, a retrospective sampling of his works through the early 1990s, many of the early pieces which appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine during its more radical, hipper phase, I noted the following points that are useful to repost here in reviewing The Great Shark Hunt, an earlier, similar compilation of his journalistic pieces:
“Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists, like Karl Marx. Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and other less radical progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense if nothing else, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a man of big, high life appetites, a known dope fiend, a furious wild man gun freak, and all-around edge city lifestyle addict like the late, massively lamented, massively lamented in this quarter in any case, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far, very far, from any thought of a socialist solution to society's current problems and would reject such a designation, I think out of hand, we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us-but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of mad truth-seeking journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.
I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself, or wanted to been seen, as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968, my generation, being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu, coming of adult age in the drab Cold War, red scare, conformist 1950s that not even the wildly popular Mad Men can resurrect as a time which honored fruitful and edgy work, except on the coastal margins of society. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson’s career, the part culminating with the demise of the arch-fiend, arch-political fiend, Richard Nixon. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time-lines and for mass circulation media, these pieces show an uneven quality. Hunter's manic work habits, driven by high dope infusions and high-wire physical stress, only added to the frenzied corners of his work which inevitably was produced under some duress, a duress that drove his hard-boiled inner demons onward. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others, hopefully, will push on further.
One should note that "gonzo" journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within a story by interposing himself/herself as an actor in that story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in the formal schools of other disciplines like history and political science, is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter’s way.
As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that the period covered by this compilation was a period of particular importance in American history, the covering of which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on wrestling with the phenomena of one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, all-around political chameleon and off-hand common criminal. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on the rising curve of his never ending “comeback” trail to his fated (yes, fated) demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went out of his way, way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon, as Robert Kennedy in one of his more lucid comments noted, represented the "dark side" of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work.
Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to earn a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway-searching in Idaho, the non-student left in the 1960’s, especially the earnest early 1960s before the other shoe dropped and we were all confronted with the madness of the beast, unchained , the impact of the ‘beats’ on the later counter cultural movements and about the ‘hippie’ invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his ‘failed’ (according to him, not others) initial stab at “gonzo” journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, “The Great Shark Hunt”, and his ‘tribute’ to his friend the “Brown Buffalo” of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson’s career. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.”
The Great Shark Hunt; Gonzo Papers Volume One, Hunter S. Thompson, 1978
In a review of Hunter Thompson's later journalistic work compiled under the title , Song Of The Doomed, a retrospective sampling of his works through the early 1990s, many of the early pieces which appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine during its more radical, hipper phase, I noted the following points that are useful to repost here in reviewing The Great Shark Hunt, an earlier, similar compilation of his journalistic pieces:
“Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists, like Karl Marx. Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and other less radical progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense if nothing else, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a man of big, high life appetites, a known dope fiend, a furious wild man gun freak, and all-around edge city lifestyle addict like the late, massively lamented, massively lamented in this quarter in any case, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far, very far, from any thought of a socialist solution to society's current problems and would reject such a designation, I think out of hand, we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us-but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of mad truth-seeking journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.
I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself, or wanted to been seen, as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968, my generation, being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu, coming of adult age in the drab Cold War, red scare, conformist 1950s that not even the wildly popular Mad Men can resurrect as a time which honored fruitful and edgy work, except on the coastal margins of society. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson’s career, the part culminating with the demise of the arch-fiend, arch-political fiend, Richard Nixon. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time-lines and for mass circulation media, these pieces show an uneven quality. Hunter's manic work habits, driven by high dope infusions and high-wire physical stress, only added to the frenzied corners of his work which inevitably was produced under some duress, a duress that drove his hard-boiled inner demons onward. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others, hopefully, will push on further.
One should note that "gonzo" journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within a story by interposing himself/herself as an actor in that story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in the formal schools of other disciplines like history and political science, is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter’s way.
As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that the period covered by this compilation was a period of particular importance in American history, the covering of which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on wrestling with the phenomena of one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, all-around political chameleon and off-hand common criminal. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on the rising curve of his never ending “comeback” trail to his fated (yes, fated) demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went out of his way, way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon, as Robert Kennedy in one of his more lucid comments noted, represented the "dark side" of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work.
Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to earn a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway-searching in Idaho, the non-student left in the 1960’s, especially the earnest early 1960s before the other shoe dropped and we were all confronted with the madness of the beast, unchained , the impact of the ‘beats’ on the later counter cultural movements and about the ‘hippie’ invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his ‘failed’ (according to him, not others) initial stab at “gonzo” journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, “The Great Shark Hunt”, and his ‘tribute’ to his friend the “Brown Buffalo” of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson’s career. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.”
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Where Have The Girls Gone- When Young Women’s Voices Ruled the Airwaves Before The British Rock Invasion, Circa 1964- Early Girls, Volume Four
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Cookies performing Don't Say Nothing Bad About My Baby.
Early Girls, Volume Four, various singers, Ace Records , 2005
As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I noted there that I had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I would expand that observation here to include girls’ voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here.
As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.
And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. Dum Dum leaves me with no choice but to be dumb dumb;Sincerely by the McGuire Sisters,hell I would have taken insincerely but just call; Sad Movies (Make Me Cry), alone in the dark, dungeon balcony; It Hurts To Be In Love, say that again; and The Cookies Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby), I wish I could have had that choice. I might add here that as we have, with volume four, gone over one hundred songs in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the “speak to” problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice.
So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.
Early Girls, Volume Four, various singers, Ace Records , 2005
As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I noted there that I had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I would expand that observation here to include girls’ voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here.
As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.
And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. Dum Dum leaves me with no choice but to be dumb dumb;Sincerely by the McGuire Sisters,hell I would have taken insincerely but just call; Sad Movies (Make Me Cry), alone in the dark, dungeon balcony; It Hurts To Be In Love, say that again; and The Cookies Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby), I wish I could have had that choice. I might add here that as we have, with volume four, gone over one hundred songs in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the “speak to” problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice.
So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.
Friday, June 17, 2011
*As Father’s Day Approaches- Fritz John Taylor’s Tribute- “I hear my father's voice....I hear an early morning front door slam.”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the D-Day Campaign, a campaign Fritz’s father participated in, during World War II.
One of my old North Adamsville classmates, Fritz John Taylor, Class of 1961, had some things, some father’s day things that he wanted to get off his chest so he asked me to help him write this belated tribute to his late father, Earl Jubal Taylor. The words may have been jointly written but, believe me, the sentiments and emotions expressed are strictly those of Fritz John Taylor. I do know that it took a lot of work for him to transfer them into written form.
******
In honor of Earl Taylor, 1920-1990, Sergeant, United States Army, World War II, European Theater and, perhaps, other North Adamsville fathers.
Fritz turned red, turned bluster, fluster, embarrassed, internal red, red with shame, red as he always did this time of the year, this father’s day time of the year, when he thought about his own father, the late Earl Jubal Taylor. And through those shades of red he thought, sometimes hard, sometimes just a flicker thought passing, too close, too red close to continue on, he thought about the things that he never said to Earl, about what never could be said to him, and above all, because when it came right down to it they might have been on different planets, what could not be comprehended said. But although death now separated them by twenty years he still turned red, more internal red these days, when he thought about the slivers of talk that could have been said, usefully said. And he, Fritz John Taylor, would go to his own grave having that hang over his father’s day thoughts.
But just this minute, just this pre-father’s day minute, Fritz Taylor, Fritz John, for those North Adamsville brethren who insisted on calling him Fritz John when he preferred plain old Fritz in those old-time 1960s high school days, wanted to call a truce to his red-faced shame, internal or otherwise, and pay public tribute, pay belated public tribute to Earl Taylor, and maybe it would rub off on others too. And just maybe cut the pain of the thought of having those unsaid things hang over him until the grave.
See, here’s the funny part, the funny part now, about speaking, publicly or privately, about his father, at least when Fritz thought about the millions of children around who were, warm-heartedly, preparing to put some little gift together for the “greatest dad in the world.” And of other millions, who were preparing, or better, fortifying themselves in preparation for that same task for dear old dad, although with their teeth grinding. Fritz could not remember, or refused to remember, a time for eons when he, warm-heartedly or grinding his teeth, prepared anything for his father’s father’s day, except occasional grief that might have coincided with that day’s celebration. No preparation was necessary for that. That was all in a Fritz’s day’s work, his hellish corner boy day’s work or, rather, night’s work, the sneak thief in the night work, later turned into more serious criminal enterprises. But the really funny part, ironic maybe, is grief-giving, hellish corner boy sneak thief, or not, one Earl Taylor, deserves honor, no, requires honor today because by some mysterious process, by some mysterious transference Fritz John, in the end, was deeply formed, formed for the better by that man.
And you see, and it will perhaps come as no surprise that Fritz John, hell everybody called him Fritz John in the old days so just so nobody will be confused we will use that name here, was estranged from his family for many years, many teenage to adult years and so that his father’s influence, the “better angel of his nature,” influence had to have come very early on. Fritz, even now, maybe especially now, since he had climbed a few mountains of pain, of hard-wall time served, and addictions to get here, did not want to go into the details of that fact, just call them ugly, as this memorial is not about Fritz John’s trials and tribulations in the world, but Earl’s.
Here is what needs to be told though because something in that mix, that Earl gene mix, is where the earth’s salts mingled to spine Fritz against his own follies when things turned ugly later in his life. Earl Jubal Taylor, that middle name almost declaring that here was a southern man, as Fritz John’s name was a declaration that he was a son of a southern man, came out of the foothills of Kentucky, Appalachian Kentucky. The hills and hollows of Hazard, Kentucky to be exact, in the next county over from famed, bloody coal wars, class struggle, which-side-are-you-on Harlan County, but all still hard-scrabble coal-mining country famous in story and song- the poorest of the poor of white Appalachia-the “hillbillies.” And the poorest of the poor there, or very close to it, was Earl Taylor’s family, his seven brothers and four sisters, his elderly father and his too young step-mother. Needless to say, but needing to be said anyway, Earl went to the mines early, had little formal schooling and was slated, like generations of Taylors before him, to live a short, brutish, and nasty life, scrabbling hard, hard for the coal, hard for the table food, hard for the roof over his head, hard to keep the black lung away, and harder still to keep the company wolves away from his shack door. And then the Great Depression came and thing got harder still, harder than younger ears could understand today, or need to hear just now.
At the start of World War II Earl jumped, jumped with both feet running once he landed, at the opportunity to join the Army in the wake of Pearl Harbor, fought his fair share of battles in the European Theater, including D-Day, although he, like many men of his generation, was extremely reticent to talk about his war experiences. By the vagaries of fate in those up-ending times Earl eventually was stationed at the huge Clintondale Depot before being discharged, a make-shift transport army base about twenty miles from Adamsville.
Fritz John, interrupted his train of thought as chuckled to himself when he thought about his father’s military service, thought about one of the few times when he and Earl had had a laugh together. Earl often recounted that things were so tough in Hazard, in the mines of Hazard, in the slag heap existence of Hazard, that in a “choice” between continuing in the mines and daily facing death at Hitler’s hands he picked the latter, gladly, and never looked back. Part of that never looking back, of course, was the attraction of Maude Callahan (North Adamsville Class of 1941), Fritz’s mother whom Earl met while stationed at Clintondale where she worked in the civilian section. They married shortly thereafter, had three sons, Fritz’s late brother, Jubal, killed many years ago while engaged in an attempted armed robbery, Fritz John, ex-sneak thief, ex-dope-dealer, ex-addict, ex-Vietnam wounded Marine, ex-, well, enough of ex’s, and a younger brother, Prescott, now serving time at one of the Massachusetts state correctional institutions as a repeat offender, and the rest is history. Well, not quite, whatever Earl might have later thought about his decision to leave the hellhole of the Appalachian hills. He was also a man, as that just mentioned family resume hints at, who never drew a break, not at work, not through his sons, not in anything.
Fritz John, not quite sure how to put it in words that were anything but spilled ashes since it would be put differently, much differently in 2011 than in, let’s say, 1971, or 1961 thought of it this way:
“My father was a good man, he was a hard working man when he had work, and he was a devoted family man. But go back to that paragraph about where he was from. He was also an uneducated man with no skills for the Boston labor market. There was no call for a coal miner's skills in Boston after World War II so he was reduced to unskilled, last hired, first fired jobs. This was, and is, not a pretty fate for a man with hungry mouths to feed. And stuck in the old Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, come on now let’s call a thing by its real name, real recognizable name, “the projects,” the place for the poorest of the poor, Adamsville version, to boot. To get out from under a little and to share in the dream, the high heaven dream, working poor post-World War II dream, of a little house, no matter how little, of one’s own if only to keep the neighbor’s loud business from one’s door Maude, proud, stiffly Irish 1930s Depression stable working class proud Maude, worked. Maude worked mother’s night shifts at one of the first Adamsville Dunkin’ Donuts filling jelly donuts for hungry travelers in order to scrap a few pennies together to buy an old, small, rundown house, on the wrong side of the tracks, on Maple Street for those who remember that locale, literally right next to the old Bay Lines railroad tracks. So the circle turned and the Taylor family returned back to the North Adamsville of Maude’s youth.”
Fritz John grew pensive when he thought, or rather re-thought, about the toll that the inability to be the sole breadwinner (no big deal now with an almost mandatory two working-parents existence- but important for a man of his generation) took on the man's pride. A wife filling damn jelly donuts, jesus.
He continued:
“And it never really got better for Earl from there as his three boys grew to manhood, got into more trouble, got involved with more shady deals, acquired more addictions, and showered more shame on the Earl Taylor name than needs to be detailed here. Let’s just say it had to have caused him more than his fair share of heartache. He never said much about it though, in the days when Fritz John and he were still in touch. Never much about why three boys who had more food, more shelter, more education, more prospects, more everything that a Hazard po’ boy couldn’t see straight if their lives depended on it, who led the corner boy life for all it was worth and in the end had nothing but ashes, and a father’s broken heart to show for it. No, he never said much, and Fritz John hadn’t heard from other sources that he ever said much (Maude was a different story, but this is Earl’s story so enough of that). Why? Damn, they were his boys and although they broke his heart they were his boys. That is all that mattered to him and so that, in the end, is how Fritz John knew, whatever he would carry to his own grave, that Earl must have forgiven him.”
Fritz John, getting internal red again, decided that it was time to close this tribute. To go on in this vain would be rather maudlin. Although the old man was unlike Fritz John, never a Marine, he was closer to the old Marine Corps slogan than Fritz John, despite his fistful of medals, ever could be- Semper Fi- "always faithful." Yes, Fritz John thought, as if some historic justice had finally been done, that is a good way to end this. Except to say something that should have been shouted from the North Adamsville rooftops long ago- “Thanks Dad, you did the best you could.”
One of my old North Adamsville classmates, Fritz John Taylor, Class of 1961, had some things, some father’s day things that he wanted to get off his chest so he asked me to help him write this belated tribute to his late father, Earl Jubal Taylor. The words may have been jointly written but, believe me, the sentiments and emotions expressed are strictly those of Fritz John Taylor. I do know that it took a lot of work for him to transfer them into written form.
******
In honor of Earl Taylor, 1920-1990, Sergeant, United States Army, World War II, European Theater and, perhaps, other North Adamsville fathers.
Fritz turned red, turned bluster, fluster, embarrassed, internal red, red with shame, red as he always did this time of the year, this father’s day time of the year, when he thought about his own father, the late Earl Jubal Taylor. And through those shades of red he thought, sometimes hard, sometimes just a flicker thought passing, too close, too red close to continue on, he thought about the things that he never said to Earl, about what never could be said to him, and above all, because when it came right down to it they might have been on different planets, what could not be comprehended said. But although death now separated them by twenty years he still turned red, more internal red these days, when he thought about the slivers of talk that could have been said, usefully said. And he, Fritz John Taylor, would go to his own grave having that hang over his father’s day thoughts.
But just this minute, just this pre-father’s day minute, Fritz Taylor, Fritz John, for those North Adamsville brethren who insisted on calling him Fritz John when he preferred plain old Fritz in those old-time 1960s high school days, wanted to call a truce to his red-faced shame, internal or otherwise, and pay public tribute, pay belated public tribute to Earl Taylor, and maybe it would rub off on others too. And just maybe cut the pain of the thought of having those unsaid things hang over him until the grave.
See, here’s the funny part, the funny part now, about speaking, publicly or privately, about his father, at least when Fritz thought about the millions of children around who were, warm-heartedly, preparing to put some little gift together for the “greatest dad in the world.” And of other millions, who were preparing, or better, fortifying themselves in preparation for that same task for dear old dad, although with their teeth grinding. Fritz could not remember, or refused to remember, a time for eons when he, warm-heartedly or grinding his teeth, prepared anything for his father’s father’s day, except occasional grief that might have coincided with that day’s celebration. No preparation was necessary for that. That was all in a Fritz’s day’s work, his hellish corner boy day’s work or, rather, night’s work, the sneak thief in the night work, later turned into more serious criminal enterprises. But the really funny part, ironic maybe, is grief-giving, hellish corner boy sneak thief, or not, one Earl Taylor, deserves honor, no, requires honor today because by some mysterious process, by some mysterious transference Fritz John, in the end, was deeply formed, formed for the better by that man.
And you see, and it will perhaps come as no surprise that Fritz John, hell everybody called him Fritz John in the old days so just so nobody will be confused we will use that name here, was estranged from his family for many years, many teenage to adult years and so that his father’s influence, the “better angel of his nature,” influence had to have come very early on. Fritz, even now, maybe especially now, since he had climbed a few mountains of pain, of hard-wall time served, and addictions to get here, did not want to go into the details of that fact, just call them ugly, as this memorial is not about Fritz John’s trials and tribulations in the world, but Earl’s.
Here is what needs to be told though because something in that mix, that Earl gene mix, is where the earth’s salts mingled to spine Fritz against his own follies when things turned ugly later in his life. Earl Jubal Taylor, that middle name almost declaring that here was a southern man, as Fritz John’s name was a declaration that he was a son of a southern man, came out of the foothills of Kentucky, Appalachian Kentucky. The hills and hollows of Hazard, Kentucky to be exact, in the next county over from famed, bloody coal wars, class struggle, which-side-are-you-on Harlan County, but all still hard-scrabble coal-mining country famous in story and song- the poorest of the poor of white Appalachia-the “hillbillies.” And the poorest of the poor there, or very close to it, was Earl Taylor’s family, his seven brothers and four sisters, his elderly father and his too young step-mother. Needless to say, but needing to be said anyway, Earl went to the mines early, had little formal schooling and was slated, like generations of Taylors before him, to live a short, brutish, and nasty life, scrabbling hard, hard for the coal, hard for the table food, hard for the roof over his head, hard to keep the black lung away, and harder still to keep the company wolves away from his shack door. And then the Great Depression came and thing got harder still, harder than younger ears could understand today, or need to hear just now.
At the start of World War II Earl jumped, jumped with both feet running once he landed, at the opportunity to join the Army in the wake of Pearl Harbor, fought his fair share of battles in the European Theater, including D-Day, although he, like many men of his generation, was extremely reticent to talk about his war experiences. By the vagaries of fate in those up-ending times Earl eventually was stationed at the huge Clintondale Depot before being discharged, a make-shift transport army base about twenty miles from Adamsville.
Fritz John, interrupted his train of thought as chuckled to himself when he thought about his father’s military service, thought about one of the few times when he and Earl had had a laugh together. Earl often recounted that things were so tough in Hazard, in the mines of Hazard, in the slag heap existence of Hazard, that in a “choice” between continuing in the mines and daily facing death at Hitler’s hands he picked the latter, gladly, and never looked back. Part of that never looking back, of course, was the attraction of Maude Callahan (North Adamsville Class of 1941), Fritz’s mother whom Earl met while stationed at Clintondale where she worked in the civilian section. They married shortly thereafter, had three sons, Fritz’s late brother, Jubal, killed many years ago while engaged in an attempted armed robbery, Fritz John, ex-sneak thief, ex-dope-dealer, ex-addict, ex-Vietnam wounded Marine, ex-, well, enough of ex’s, and a younger brother, Prescott, now serving time at one of the Massachusetts state correctional institutions as a repeat offender, and the rest is history. Well, not quite, whatever Earl might have later thought about his decision to leave the hellhole of the Appalachian hills. He was also a man, as that just mentioned family resume hints at, who never drew a break, not at work, not through his sons, not in anything.
Fritz John, not quite sure how to put it in words that were anything but spilled ashes since it would be put differently, much differently in 2011 than in, let’s say, 1971, or 1961 thought of it this way:
“My father was a good man, he was a hard working man when he had work, and he was a devoted family man. But go back to that paragraph about where he was from. He was also an uneducated man with no skills for the Boston labor market. There was no call for a coal miner's skills in Boston after World War II so he was reduced to unskilled, last hired, first fired jobs. This was, and is, not a pretty fate for a man with hungry mouths to feed. And stuck in the old Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, come on now let’s call a thing by its real name, real recognizable name, “the projects,” the place for the poorest of the poor, Adamsville version, to boot. To get out from under a little and to share in the dream, the high heaven dream, working poor post-World War II dream, of a little house, no matter how little, of one’s own if only to keep the neighbor’s loud business from one’s door Maude, proud, stiffly Irish 1930s Depression stable working class proud Maude, worked. Maude worked mother’s night shifts at one of the first Adamsville Dunkin’ Donuts filling jelly donuts for hungry travelers in order to scrap a few pennies together to buy an old, small, rundown house, on the wrong side of the tracks, on Maple Street for those who remember that locale, literally right next to the old Bay Lines railroad tracks. So the circle turned and the Taylor family returned back to the North Adamsville of Maude’s youth.”
Fritz John grew pensive when he thought, or rather re-thought, about the toll that the inability to be the sole breadwinner (no big deal now with an almost mandatory two working-parents existence- but important for a man of his generation) took on the man's pride. A wife filling damn jelly donuts, jesus.
He continued:
“And it never really got better for Earl from there as his three boys grew to manhood, got into more trouble, got involved with more shady deals, acquired more addictions, and showered more shame on the Earl Taylor name than needs to be detailed here. Let’s just say it had to have caused him more than his fair share of heartache. He never said much about it though, in the days when Fritz John and he were still in touch. Never much about why three boys who had more food, more shelter, more education, more prospects, more everything that a Hazard po’ boy couldn’t see straight if their lives depended on it, who led the corner boy life for all it was worth and in the end had nothing but ashes, and a father’s broken heart to show for it. No, he never said much, and Fritz John hadn’t heard from other sources that he ever said much (Maude was a different story, but this is Earl’s story so enough of that). Why? Damn, they were his boys and although they broke his heart they were his boys. That is all that mattered to him and so that, in the end, is how Fritz John knew, whatever he would carry to his own grave, that Earl must have forgiven him.”
Fritz John, getting internal red again, decided that it was time to close this tribute. To go on in this vain would be rather maudlin. Although the old man was unlike Fritz John, never a Marine, he was closer to the old Marine Corps slogan than Fritz John, despite his fistful of medals, ever could be- Semper Fi- "always faithful." Yes, Fritz John thought, as if some historic justice had finally been done, that is a good way to end this. Except to say something that should have been shouted from the North Adamsville rooftops long ago- “Thanks Dad, you did the best you could.”
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