-July 2005-

Other Fein Messes

1st Record/1st concert

I inherited my first records... a 78 r.p.m. of the Italian folk song “E La Luna Mezzo Mare,” which I broke at the age of 2 and learned the ultimate lesson; take good care of your records. I still have no idea the artist and will never be able to replace this. Next, it was “Let’s Go Trippin’” by Dick Dale & his Del-Tones, which belonged to my sister. Shortly afterwards it was “Surfin’ Safari” by the Beach Boys, which to me is still heavier than Black Sabbath. Dick Dale & his Del-Tones played across the street from my childhood home, at the Barnes Park Community Center in Monterey Park, California... this is early 1963, from what I can gather, and I was 3 years old. I went to everything that was happening at the park with my sister, so I have vague memories of the ticket booth, and being inside the gym, and that the Beach Boys (the Del-Tones supporting act) looked like all the other neighborhood kids, but Dick Dale was this awesome prescence.

A year later, Adrian & the Sunsets, an offshoot band from the Rumblers of “Boss” fame, played at the Barnes Park Bowl, also across the street. The band was giving away their single, and I took about 5 of ’em. A few years later I threw them all out, as the picture sleeve looked pretty dorky by 1968. That year, I saw Big Brother & the Holding Company, again at the Barnes Park Bowl in Monterey Park. It was a Love-In, a free concert, I heard the music playing from my house and just walked over there. I was eight years old. The opening groups were the Mugwump Establishment (who cut a few singles later comped on Pebbles) and Blue Cheer. I saw Janis Joplin get out of a limousine behind the stage, and she looked at me. It looked like, to me, she was thinking “what is this little kid doing here”... but I was there every day, I lived across the street.

I started buying 45s around 1965/1966 but have no real recall of what the first single I personally bought at our local store, Sound Stage Records, was. I was in awe of the Beatles U.S. “I Feel Fine” picture sleeve on their wall, and they had it positioned next to the Yardbirds U.S. sleeve for “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”. The photos on those two sleeves were always something to aspire to, in terms of how to be cool. I do remember my first album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly, which I had to buy because the 17-minute version of the title track would never fit onto a single. At least that was a better-arranged track than any other album-side length song of that period, now that I look back on it. Perhaps that’s why it was such a hit. That year, I bought “Venus” by the Shocking Blue and “The Thrill is Gone” by B. B. King on 45, and had a band that aspired to be like Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Abbey Road LP-era Beatles (fat chance, for a group of 10-year olds). We “rehearsed” a lot at Johnny Thompson’s Guitar Shop on Garvey Ave., a real Psychedelic place that the Rolling Stones, Dr. John and others would drop into on occasion... pictures of these people in the shop were above the counter.

Someband Barnes Park Bowl 1970
The Blockbusters, 1969. Domenic P. 3rd

There was another show at Barnes Park Bowl in 1970, I took pictures that time because, as you know, the last show there had someone who went on to become a legend, Janis Joplin... alas, the bands I photographed never went on to beans... one sounded like Cream’s Disreali Gears album, another was kind of Pop-py and then the headliners sounded like the Turtles. I still have the photos. I didn’t pay to go to a show until 1975, when I saw Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffitti tour at the Forum. At heart, I knew Adrian & the Sunsets and all the other bands I’d seen in the ’60s were cooler, and it wasn’t until the L.A. Punk bands of 1976-1978 that I felt like something was really happening for my teenage years. The best show was the Masque Benefit at the Elks Lodge across from MacArthur Park (X, Screamers, Bags, Germs, Eyes, Zeroes etc.)... this was “my Woodstock.”

There were a few other great Punk shows at Whisky a Go Go before Elmer Valentine finally threw in the towel and it sucked forevermore. The hessians ruined it for good... this had been the place where Buffalo Springfield, Them, Love and the Doors played, fer chissakes, gimme a break! At least my family drove me down the Sunset Strip once on a weekend night in 1966, when it really counted.

-- DOMENIC PRIORE , author of BEATSVILLE (Outre Gallery Press, 2004), SMILE: THE STORY OF BRIAN WILSON’S LOST MASTERPIECE (Sanctuary Publishing, 2005), Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE! (Last Gasp, 1995) and the forthcoming RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP: ROCK ’N’ ROLL’S LAST STAND IN HOLLYWOOD 1965/1966. He is also the founding editor of DUMB ANGEL magazine, which released issue #4 in June of 2005.

AFM - July 2005
AF Stone’s Monthly

The Name Game1

--Sitting at the airport, I heard “Ward Cleaver” paged several times. (“Ward” didn’t respond.) It was funny to look around and see who was smiling. And I’ll bet even today there is a young woman answering a phone in a bar and calling out for “Mike Hunt.”

--When my French friend heard that a girl was named Lureen, he blanched. In French it means, well, l’urine. Which puts in mind the girl’s name my fr saw in Louisiana -- Latreen. It does have a nice sound.

1 Shirley Ellis’s other hit, “The Nitty Gritty,” is a great record but you never hear it. “Name Game” has the odd and off-putting “Lincoln, Lincoln, bo-blinken” at the lead bec its writer is Lincoln Chase.

The Battle Of Tangier


A fr of mine went to Tangier (concert room) to see Ramblin’ Jack Elliot.

At 8:30 he bought a Standing Room Only tkt for $20. When he entered, the only space was on the floor sitting cross-legged. This is difficult if you don't normally sit that way. Bob Forrest was on the stage, he of Thelonius Monster. My fr’s leg-to-hip muscles began to strain. Then Ramblin’ came on. The crowd was young folks, laughing at anything ("Could you turn down the treble?"), and Ramblin' was really ramblin' (“We played in Phoenix yesterday. It's very hot there”).

In time the place filled so that standees were piled one behind the other. The place is as big as a two-car garage and is OK’d for 150 people2. There must’ve been 130. (His hazy memory. Actual figure may vary.) Felt like 200. He became bugged seeing more and more people crush in. Jack was too rambly, and a guy to the right was a loudmouth but noone shushed him. He decided to leave. He had to move people aside, as there was no path through the standees. He was not claustrophobic, but the place was a fire-trap.

As he walked thru the exit curtain the gal was taking money. "You're not selling more tickets to that room, are you?" he asked incredulously. She said they were below the legal limit2. He asked for the mgr. He said, "It’s crowded bec people are sitting. Do me to go in and tell everyone to stand up because you’re uncomfortable? I could do that. Some people are very selfish." My fr, who was initially asking nothing, now said he’d like his money back. Mgr said no, friend said goodbye and called the Fire Dept. He doesn’t know if the firemen came, but hopes so.

2 Apparently a room’s capacity is based on sardine-packing.

Ads Nauseum

I see an ad for Adelphia Cable. “You don’t have to have a separate cable input -- and a separate charge - for every tv, like SOME cable services. You have one cable, and it connects to ALL your sets.”

That’s Adelphia “classic.” It’s so basic you can’t get HBO etc., which is designed to push you to their digital service -- which charges seperate fees per set!

Advertising “We’re not like those other crooks” when they ARE the other crooks is nothing new. I enjoyed Tropicana’s orange juice ads that crowed that they’re fresh from the tree: “None of that nasty reconstituted stuff.” Unless you counted their other, reconstituted line3.

3 When I was in NY in 1979 or so, I found that Tropicana sold fresh-sqeezed OJ: in L.A. it was solely reconstituted. I wrote them a letter** asking why they weren’t selling fresh-squeezed in, of all places, California. “There is no market for fresh-squeezed juice in that market” they wrote back. I have the letter somewhere. I wrote all kinds of letters back then. I wrote to High Fidelity magazine that all in-print pre-60s albums were ruined by phony and intrusive stereo-ization, and should be returned to original mono. Got back a snotty letter “We’re not interested in this.” I thought they were interested in sound. CDs eventually corrected it.

I Watch Movies 4U

“Animal House,” made in 1978, set in 1962 was recently shown on AMC with ‘annotation.’ Here’s my notes:
- When Belushi crushes a beer can on his forehead it should be noted that beer cans in 1962 were metal4, not aluminum, hence very hard to crush.
- The Elvis picture on the Dean’s wife’s nightstand is from 1969.
- National Lampoon has portrayed all-Black settings as dangerous more than once. In AH they go to an all-Black nightclub and are frightened and manhandled. In “Nat Lamp Vacation” the family veers off the freeway into a Black neighb in St. Louis and are threatened. John Waters addresses this situation far better in “Hairspray.”
- The annotation says that in the late 1970s the nation was going liberal. This is wistful.
- One character says “I’m out of here.” I’d thought that was wrong-dated when I heard it on The Wonder Years,” set vaguely in 1969 because I thought it was a coinage of David Letterman. But there it was in 1978.

Also, seeing An American In Paris for the first time (I always thought it was a “girls movie”: it was) I noticed that a woman is identified as “the daughter of Jack Bouvier.” This was long before Jackie. And Kelly says he knows Caron isn’t married bec she has no ring on her left hand: In Yurp, that’d be the right hand, wouldn’t it? After the movie, the dreadful goateed TCM creep previewed the next film promising “her-mee-own” Gingold. Obviously he didn’t watch tv in the 1950s when Hermione (“her-mie-oh-nee”) Gingold was a frequent guest. (It is also a name in Harry Potter books. I had to fight younger parents of my kid’s friends when I insisted their “her-mee-own” pronunciation was wrong.)

4 But I have two 7 oz aluminum Coors cans from 1969 with slits cut into the top to store “real” dimes and quarters. Probably the cans are worth more than the coins.

Critical Loss

In a long 5/22/05 L.A. Times think-piece, Scott Timberg considered the sad state of ‘criticism’ today. What really caught my eye was a quote from Doug McLennan, editor of ArtsJournal.com (I should have that title!) and “longtime Seattle music writer.” Citing their declining influence, McLellan says forlornly, “They say Frank Rich was the last critic who could close a show.”

The statement is bald: WE CRAVE POWER.

He didn’t say they missed attending plays or art openings, or discovering new talent, or advancing the arts. (This thought comes later in the article. I’m hammering at the lede.) He says instead that they lament the ability to make a million-dollar stage musical go belly-up in a night.

If I Were ... Him

Richard Carpenter, on a Carps docu, seemed saddened that the rock world perceived them as softies. But that is what they did, very well!

That they got brickbats from the turbulent rock world was natural. These poor siblings actually went deep into off-the-record antisocial behavior and debauchery to fight it: it’s a rare case of rock writing having an effect, and a bad one.

A ‘rock journalist’ was shown holding their album cover saying “Look how they were presented, like two goodie two-shoes.” (Carpenter winced remembering a review calling them “Goodie Four-Shoes,” but that’s funny!) I guess they should have been showed swinging axes, or in a drugged haze. He contrasts their image to what else was going on - Hendrix, Grateful Dead, whatever - and laments that they did not fit in. “A&M didn’t know how to market them” he says.

Don’t they have credibility tests for rock-writers? Or sanity tests? The Carpenters sold millions of records to fans who liked their music and embraced them as an alternative to what was “going on.”

Stop Already

In a 5/23/05 article in the NY Times, Julie Salamon writes that Jonas Mekas paid $14.95 a month for an apartment in NY in 1955. Later she repeats that figure and observes that it would cost $2000 today.

Fifty years ago Mekas’s Lower East Side (I hate those caps) area was undoubtedly more decrepit than now. And you could live in NY on a $40/wk salary. So he paid. the equivalent of ...$250? $400? Give us the adjusted figure, Julie!

Tempus Fugit

Trying to get my daughter to remember her mom’s cellphone number I said of the first half of the last quadranumeral “It’s 57. Just think of the ketchup bottle, and Heinz 57 Varieties.” She looked at me in patient stupefecation and said “Dad, nobody reads ketchup bottles.”

Whence came blonde jokes? When I was a kid you said “Why did the moron throw a clock out the window? He wanted to see time fly.” The moron is sorely missed. He was a good pincushion. You never hear of them medically anymore: more specific terms have come. In the late 60s “Polacks” came into vogue. This was deeply disturbing; not quite racist but bad (and europeanist). In the 90s, someone took the “dumb” off “dumb blonde” and a whole hair-sector was vilified. Who thinks blondes are dumb, per se? It’s lousy. Bring back the moron.

Born Too Late

Recent History Channel bios on Eisenhower and Roosevelt cited their ‘girlfriends.’ So everything has to have a sex angle now? If the piece is “Sex & The Presidents” (pause, puke), OK, but why is it included in a summarial history? Who does it serve? It’s the new co-standard of high dudgeon/titillation.....

Apparently when you get power, women come: I’ve read it about Ben Franklin, Gandhi, Mao, Castro, LBJ, JFK and of course every french premier. Prior to the Victorian age it was considered healthful and necesarry for men to have regular sexual contact, and accomodations were readily available.

(Tho a masculist5 by birth, I hate injustice to women too: see Letters.)

5 Masculists are defensivists, fighting the insults and woes that trouble our gender.

Confusion

People sometimes buy records for the wrong reason.

-- In 1963, Lorne Greene, star of tv’s ‘Bonanza,’ did an album of western songs. One was called ‘Ringo,’ using a name common to movie cowboys. In October 1964, RCA rushed out a single of ‘Ringo,’ and kids, thinking it was about Ringo as a cowboy, made it #1 nationwide by Xmas.

-- In 1967, a producer in England made a record called “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman.” It was an old-timey, “Winchester Cathedral” type instrumenal, meant for British consumers: a batman is an aide who carries the bat for a cricket player. He called the artist Whistlin’ Jack Smith. When American kids saw “Batman” they figured it was about the Caped Crusader and they rushed out and bought it. It got to #20.

Crit
s

I once felt bad because I was losing my mind, then I meet a man who had none. He was a friend of a friend. I said I was bummed at crits sneering at others’ tastes.

- But what if what they like is lousy?
- It can’t be if they like it.
- Of course it can be. There are standards!
- No there aren’t. It’s individual taste. Has anyone ever played a Michael Bolton record for you?
- Yes.
- Did you tell them they were wrong?
- I tried to tell them there was something better. Like Percy Sledge’s version of When A Man Loves A Woman.
- Sledge’s is unavoidable. I’m sure they heard it. But they also like Bolton, so they like his version. It’s not wrong.
- Of course it’s wrong! The guy overdoes it so much.
- So? Some people like things overdone.
- But it’s wrong! They should be told!
- Do you read rock critics?
- Sure.

This came up after I saw the movie “Office Space.” Great movie, but the character named Michael Bolton loathes his name. I smell a rock-crit.

PHOTO GALLERY



restaurant shot: Breakfast at the Good Neighbor on Cahuenga: Norton Records’ Billy Miller and Miriam Linna, AF, Domenic Priore

Book Signing in Larchmont: Tony Asher, Domenic Priore, Van Dyke Parks



The Worm Turns!

Built shelves in our pantry. Bought slotted vertical runners and screwed them to the wall. Beams, in which to screw, are not apparent behind the wall, you must use a magnetic or sonar stud-finder. I used one, then screwed in and learnt I was in soft wall material. The system doesn’t work. What should take an hour took six.

I needed some more material, and returned to Anawalt Lumber on Highland with two unnecessary pieces to return. At checkout the clerk said, with what looked like fear, “I have to Xerox your original receipt.” What? Never heard of that, most places run returned stuff over the scanner and it’s done. When she returned from that, she called on the PA for a manager to approve the return. Three times. It took five or six minutes. No one was in line behind me.

I was actually cheerful. The clerk was relieved: she said that customers hate the returns procedure, and she has to take their anger. Their store had five managers, each not responding, hoping someone else would come, so I decided to turn another one of life’s draining agonies into something fun. I walked through the store pleading at high volume “Someone help me! I need an approval! Can anyone get me an approval? I want to leave the store!!!!” I canvassed the whole store. No one came, but customers smiled. And employees cracked up: my checker had tears in her eyes. “Please come back and do this when the owner is here” she said.

I take chances like this often, and often they blow up in my face. This one worked. Dramatically, I mean. No manager came except one who routinely returned from a task. “Oh, you should have called over the PA” she said.

June 5, 05 “The Case Against Pareles: The grandiose, calculated argy-bargy of this day’s most insufferable critic”

Jon Pareles’s diatribe against Coldplay in the 6/5/05 NYT was another “worm turns” moments, but he’s still a worm. He’s had enough of Coldplay, and their damned popularity! Their songs are carefully crafted. Fah! Their emotions are simple. PU! The guy’s voice -- well, it’s hard to say what he objects to6. Jonny is fed up that Coldplay’ ... arranges their music into dramatic surges, keeps their instruments tuned and on-key, plays all together, writes songs that appeal to their audience.

Doesn’t U2 do that, too?
Yeah, but they’re still not goddam Coldplay!

Pareles finds the singer’s sincerity questionable: “it sounds like hokum to me.” What makes his antennae so special? Don’t most performers refer to their act as an act? He lambastes the band’s audience as “moony high school girls and their solace-seeking parents,” of which he is neither. That he’s not the intended audience is what’s he complaining about?

He’s complaining bec he has to do something to show his worth! His worth is throwing the gloves down and socking someone, but someone who won’t punch back. He has a bully pulpit and thinks he’s using it literally.

When petulant spoon-on-high-chair banging like this is turned into the paper, doesn’t some one ever say “You are a silly man, can’t you write something worthwhile? This doesn’t do the paper’s reputation any good.”

Jonny, you’re too bad.

6 He says the singer voice sounds somewhere between a yodel and a hiccup. I’ve tried to do that and still cannot figure what he means. Maybe I should get a Coldplay album.

History Express

Saw the “Smile” special. Very moving to see his development with the band, the fan interviews. But it jumped from the doldrums of the late 70s to his wedding in 1995. Didn’t he have a solo album in 1987? I coulda sworn I had him on my show around that time.

Couldn’t be that David Leaf omitted mentioning this project because of Dr. Landy’s involvement, could it? No, that would have been dishonest.

The Greatest

Watching “End Of The Century,” the Ramones docu-bio, on PBS, I was struck dead by footage from the 1970s. The power of that band, the amazing pleasure-attack they delivered, hit me anew and I wondered “Is this the best band I ever saw?” Maybe not best band, but the best rock & roll I ever experienced. They opened for the Flamin’ Groovies at the Roxy, and it was like a bomb had exploded. Shreds of the status quo hung in the air. Seeing it and hearing it on tv recreated, in miniature, that first blast from their rock-jet exhaust.

They didn’t show a full half-hour set, so I didn’t get to re-feel the ache I got from grinning wider than I’ve ever done, with tears of joy streaming from my eyes. Brother, the Ramones were something.

More News For Youngies

In a movie I saw a parody of the Iron-Eyes Cody PSA7 in which he, a braided-hair American Indian8, had a tear in his eye beholding the traffic and pollution visible behind him.

Kids, this was a tv station “signoff.” By that I mean it was the last thing seen on tv before a tv station left the air. By that I mean tv once stopped broadcasting around midnight, and all that was on the screen was snow9. There were no computers, there were no video games. People must’ve read or sumthin’. Or wrote on paper.

7 Public Service Announcement

8 Actually an Italian-American.

9 Today’s cable stations run 90% sales pitches through the night. Because of this, the L.A. Times has ceased to print 12-7 a.m. listings in their tv guide. This has terrible repercussions for people who are up all night and want to see Dick Van Dyke at 3 am, or set a VCR to tape the all-night Turner Classic Movies: I wrote to their mealy-mouthed “customer relations” person and was told that those hours are not important, or some such shit. I was then surprised to learn that this bit of cost-cutting was not unique to the shady L.A. Times, but in fact initiated by the real TV Guide some. Which drives more people away from newspapers and magazines.

More Oldies News

On tv recently, someone couldn’t think of the name of the L.A area town that was known for card-playing clubs. I said Gardena” and then asked “What’s the rock & roll significance of Gardena?” Nobody knew that (Portland, OR-based)10 Paul Revere & The Raiders’ first chart record (1961), “Like Long Hair,” was on Gardena Records, a label ringed with playing cards and suit images.

This could puzzle the contemporary archivist twofold.

1. Long hair, before the 1960s, referred to intellectuals and classical music buffs: they were so effete, so impassioned, that they let their hair go long, like Einstein; obsessives. The Revere song was a rocked-up version of ‘The William Tell Overture,’ in line with other similar treatments of the time such as Bee Bumble’s “Bumble Boogie” (‘Flight of the Bumble Bee’) and “Nut Rocker”11 (‘The Nutcracker Suite’), and “Asia Minor” (Grieg’s ‘Concerto In A Minor’) by Kokomo.

2. The notion of a label may baffle younger enthusiasts. The label was the piece of paper glued to the record, its name and image far larger than the musician’s. Today the word label is more outdated than the term record, since a CD or a download is still a recording but a label is just a tiny line identifying the manufacturer.

10 The Northwest explosion of the early 60s is rarely noted: “Tall Cool One” by the Wailers, “Like Long Hair,” the Fleetwoods, Bonnie Guitar, the Ventures. The Wailers, with personnel changes, established themselves anew in the mid-1960s as furious rockers in sheep’s clothing, and Paul Revere, also with some personnel rearrangment, moved to L.A. (from Portland, OR) and got huge in 1966.

11 The first Bee Bumble was Ernie Freeman; the second Al Hazan.

The Killer Is In The Details

Robt. Hilburn’s think-piece in the 6/12/05 L.A. Times about Jerry Lee Lewis says that he was banished in 1959 after a mere 18-month career. In fact he had a 10-month career, from July, 1957, when “Whole Lotta Shakin’” went national12 to May, 1958 when his marriage scandal hit England. To make it an 18-month career necessitates backing it up to December, 1956 when Elvis came into Sun and did gospel songs with him and Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, but that was hardly a career start, since no one heard it until 1980. His early 1957 career consisted of a small country record, “Crazy Arms,” and southern regional touring on bills with Carl Perkins and other Sun and country artists.

12 Thanks to an appearance on the Steve Allen tv show. He was tv-made, like Elvis

Tell That Girl To Shut Up

Interviewing 60’s writer/producer Jeff Barry, the LA Weekly’s Kate Sullivan asked some weird, as in screwy, questions that included her own wild speculations:

“Sometimes I wonder how much of the Phil Spector ‘wall of sound’ was Jeff Barry.”

Translation: I have inane thoughts based on incomplete information. Would you like to comment on my inaccurate impressions?*

“Sometimes I suspect you wrote ‘Be My Baby’ all by yourself.”

Translation: And sometimes I think George Martin wrote all the Beatle songs. Can you tell I have a screw loose?

“The fact that you’re a die-hard romantic only makes me feel justified in loving your music and taking it seriously.”

Translation: Enough about you, let’s get back to me, your only defender.

“Here’s the thing: how the hell did you invent an entirely new sound, a kind of music that had never been heard before?”

Translation: Hear me good: I’ve already established I was born last goddam Tuesday, so don’t be surprised at my overlooking men who wrote songs for the Shirelles, Chantels and hundreds of other girl groups before you.

Another Installment From One Of Our Favorite Writers:

EXTRA!! EXTRA!!
I WAS A HOLLYWOOD NEWSBOY
By Robert Leslie Dean

FADE IN:
Back in the summer of ‘61, the world that I knew and played in as an 11-year-old consisted primarily of two neighborhoods.  One was the Aliso Village Housing Project in Boyle Heights, one block east of the L.A. River.  Located in "the flats", just below what is now known as "Mariachi Plaza" at 1st and Boyle, the skyline west from my ‘concrete ghetto' home consisted solely of City Hall and a couple of cylindrical oil storage tanks.  That was it, no other high-rise buildings.  My other "playground" was the streets of downtown L.A., Broadway, Hill, Spring and Main.  My dad owned a small jewelry store/watch repair business, first on Broadway between 3rd and 4th, then later, on Hill near 5th, across from Pershing Square.  Dad struggled to support his small family, which included Mom, my older brother Larry, and me.  But creditors, bills, "Going Out Of Business" and "Lost Our Lease" signs were always following closely behind Dad.  Hence our little two-bedroom apartment in the low-income City-funded "Village".

(For more, Continued at End )


The Flame Is Extinguished....

KSRF - AM, the station that played oddball and offbeat 50s/60s rock is gone. It has been replaced with “music of your life,” Sinatra, Tijuana Brass, etc. It was an exciting year-and-a-half.

and the torch is passed

In the car, I told my daughter and her friend that the good oldies station was gone and they said “Then turn on KRTH.” I switched to the standard oldies station with its 50-song playlist, and my heart sank hearing “Do You Love Me.” But from the back seat I heard, “Turn that up, I like that” and I realized that market-research works: the same old stuff is new to a new audience.

Speaking of Speaking

When I told someone about the guy calling the fire dept he said “So he dropped a dime on him.” I didn’t know the expression; but I don’t watch NYPD Blue. It means putting a dime in the phone slot, an expression perhaps intentionally outdated to show you’ve been around the track a few times.

The weird beard-guy on Bravo, interviewing the cast of the Simpsons, asked “Apu,” whose Kwik-E-Mart prices are high, the price of a 29-cent stamp, and he answered “a dollar eighty seven.” Did no one but me notice he was asking the price of postage from 1992? The ELVIS STAMP was 29 cents! Was this show that old? Or were the questions written back then.

I told fr Rip to bring his VCR to my guy for repair. He said “I’ll bring it with, as you Chicago guys say.” I couldn’t hear anything wrong. “With” as a sentence-finisher sounds perfectly logical, like “bring it along.” Doesn’t it?

A guy who took his wife on business trips was accused in the LA Times of
”mixing business with pleasure.” That sounds like he took a pleasure trip and did some business, doesn’t it? Am I wrong? If he took his spouse on a business trip I think it would say he “mixed pleasure with business.”


Thank goodness this poor gal finally got some modeling work. I’m sure the folks at Samsonite are paying her well.

- 57 -


Letters

From a musical correspondent:

Dear Pop Art,
Here's another story for you.
When I was a child of 4 in Seattle (1966), my mother could no longer handle caring for (both financially and emotionally) myself and my two brothers, who were 7 and 8. So, (without informing my father) she packed our little duffle bags, drove us to my father's house in her blue station wagon, dropped us off on his door step, honked her horn and peeled off down the road. Needless to say I was scared to death. I hardly knew my father and he had remarried with a woman named Peggy Sue who had 3 sons, ages 9, 12 and 15. The Brady Bunch did not yet exist! And we were not them! It turns out my father and his wife worked all the time and often went out together at night, leaving all of us children alone in the house. Peggy Sue’s sons were incarnations of the Devil. I kid you not. They stole, they cheated, they lied, they were violent, they took drugs--fucking monsters. They were my teachers, yes. My father is a very nice fellow and oh so mellow. Laid back, easygoing -- oblivious! Meanwhile, they molested me everyday of my life (@4!), threatening to beat the crap out of me if I ever told. If you had to see the movie of these events you would probably want to kill somebody, because it is so unbelievable. They forced me to perform every sexual act you can possibly imagine and it was often all 3 of them at once on my sweet little innocent body. (Hard to believe isn't it?) Well, this went on for 2 and a half years right under my father’s oblivious nose until one day my mother came to kidnap us back, without letting my father know. I didn't speak about it until I was about 14 years old, which is when I began drugging, sexing and Rock-N-Rolling. Peggy Sue’s maiden name is (BiG Name In Computers). She is the dark sister of BNIC’s mama. Therefore, I was once the step-cousin of little BNIC himself. We used to go to family gatherings with him, dinners, etc...My father still loves to talk about how he built his own TV from scratch. And how he would tell all the adults at the table how to run their businesses. (By the way, I went through years of therapy over all this shit!)

AF note: The writer filed a suit against the three brothers in 1997, well past the statute of limitations, just to air her grievances. The two brothers did not respond (the third was dead from drugs).

----------------------------

EXTRA!! EXTRA!!
I WAS A HOLLYWOOD NEWSBOY
By Robert Leslie Dean
 

(Continued)
Being born and raised in Boyle Heights and Downtown, this was the only world I knew.  By the time I reached the age of 11, Dad decided that it was time to help support myself by getting a part-time, after-school job.  I was still in elementary school, but Dad reasoned that since he started working at 11, then so should I.  My brother had already been given the ‘no work..no eat' ultimatum a year or two earlier, and had gotten a job selling newspapers in Hollywood.  His ‘territory' was the television ‘fantasy factory', Desilu Studios!
 
So, in the summer of ‘61, with my brother's help, I got my first part-time job, selling the  Herald-Examiner on one of the Desilu Studios lots.  At that time, Desilu had three properties.  The biggest one was at Melrose and Gower, where the former RKO Studios once existed (it's now owned by Paramount).  The second lot was on Cahuenga, one block  north of Melrose, known as Desilu-Cahuenga (it's now Ren-Mar Studios).  The third lot was in Culver City, known as "40 Acres", it was formerly the Hal Roach Studios, and was primarily used for exterior, location filming. Brother Larry had recently been given the Desilu-Gower paper route, so he got me introduced and acquainted with his former route,  Desilu-Cahuenga..
 
After school, a Herald-Ex ‘gang boss' would pick me, my brother, and a few other kids up in his station wagon and drive us from 1st and Boyle over into Hollywood.  Once there, my brother and I were dropped off at the corner of Melrose and Vine,.  Leonard Glickman, a crusty old news vendor, had his kiosk there, and was in charge of the newsboys for that area.  Later, it was discovered that he was skimming extra profits from the boys under his charge, like me, and was forced into retirement.  Welcome to Hollywood!
 
I was given a coin-changer, a double-sided newspaper pouch, with "Herald-Examiner" printed on both sides, and an old shopping cart to haul my papers.  My route also included the Musicians Union, Local 47 on Vine St., but I was too young to know, care or recognize any of the fine musicians doing business there at the time.  Meanwhile, as the tv industry's summer hiatus ended, Desilu began gearing up for the fall season.  And I was right in the midst of the "golden age of television".  The shows that I peddled papers to were all sit-coms, the "Andy Griffith", "Dick Van Dyke", "Danny Thomas", "Joey Bishop" and "Jack Benny" shows.  Many of the cast and crew were my regular customers, and some were only occasional buyers.  The only one I recall never wanting a paper was Mary Tyler Moore.
 
Here's a partial list of the stars who purchased papers from me on the Desilu-Cahuenga lot: Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, Elinor Donahue, Danny Thomas, Marjorie Lord, Dick Van Dyke, Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie, Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard, Richard Deacon, Jack Benny, Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, and Joey Bishop. Also Frances' Aunt Bea' Bavier, Howard 'Floyd the Barber' McNear, Sid Melton and Hans 'Uncle Tonoose' Conried.  My autograph book (long-since lost) included all these names, as well as guest stars like Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante and Bill 'Jose Jimenez' Dana.  Wow! Additionally, Ronnie 'Opie' Howard was a part-time playmate/friend. He lived right across the street, on Cahuenga, with his parents and little brother Clint.
 
Special memories include: First, hearing a familiar voice call out to me one day, "Oh Sonny!", and turning around to see Jack Benny!  He asked for a paper, handed me a quarter, and as I began to give him his change, he said "Keep the change.".  I was stunned, and I gasped "I don't believe it!".  I made Jack laugh, knowing that this little newsboy was aware of his decades-long "cheap miser' persona.  That's my favorite memory, because after all these years, Jack Benny is my hands-down favorite and his show and supporting players were/are as good as it gets.  Classic comedy.
 
Second, when I saw Bill Dana on the lot one day, I asked for his autograph.  He answered in his comical ‘Jose Jimenez' voice, "One for a quarter, two for 35 cents!".  Funny guy.
 
A third fond memory was when Joey Bishop noticed me, one day, chewing on a red-licorice whip, and asked me to bring him one next time.  I went home that night and bought a couple more (they were a dime each) at the market, and when I saw him next, I handed one to Joey and he rewarded me with a dollar bill!  Son of a gun!
 
In November ‘61 we moved from Aliso Village and East L.A. to a duplex near Beverly and Western on the west side, close to the Wilshire District.  After being jumped and mugged twice earlier in the year, and with brother Larry starting to get involved with delinquent activities and friends, and me soon to graduate from Utah St. Elementary and move over to Hollenbeck Junior High (where I was fore-warned of a personal safety ‘insurance' program that I would soon be paying for with my lunch money), Dad decided that it was time to move out of the barrio before something worse happened.  Dad had been hired to work at Macy Jewelry Co. on Hollywood Blvd. at Cahuenga (it's now a Popeye Chicken franchise) after his shop on Hill St. failed.  I transferred over to Van Ness Elementary School, then moved on to John Burroughs Junior High for a few months until I again transferred, this time to Bancroft Junior High in Hollywood.  Brother Larry also transferred, from Roosevelt High over to Hollywood High.  During this time, Larry got a small bit-part on "My Three Sons" as a messenger/delivery boy. It was a thrill to sit around our little black and white tv watching his small-screen debut.  Mom was temporarily separated from Dad and being cared for/confined at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk after suffering a breakdown/mid-life crisis (but that's a whole different chapter/story).  Then in March ‘62 we moved once again, this time to a duplex on Highland Ave. (It's now a Sizzler franchise).
 
At Desilu, The "Andy Griffith Show" cast and crew were like a family to me.  For Christmas ‘61, they bought me a warm winter parka/coat, and also included some big tips tucked inside holiday greeting cards.  Additionally, Andy's producer Aaron Ruben and manager Dick Linke bought me my first camera, a Kodak Brownie ‘Starlet'.  That was the start of my fledgling photo career.  However, I didn't shoot too many rolls, as film and processing was a little too expensive for this 11-year-old kid.  I know I missed many great photo-ops, but, I couldn't see very far into the future back then.
 
I was even hired as an extra for one day, attending studio school with Ronnie Howard.  My small-screen debut was in the now-classic "Pickle Contest" episode.  I was a little ‘face in the crowd' during the climactic ‘county fair' scene.  I'm forever frozen in time, holding a balloon in one hand and a bag of popcorn in the other.  I ate a lot of popcorn that day, enduring all the retakes and alternate angle shots.  I also had to get a Social Security card to work this one-day job.  I was asked what name I'd be using and not thinking too far ahead, I decided that "Bobby Leslie Dean" would be my professional work name.  It wasn't until a couple years ago that I finally got an up-dated card.
 
At the season-end wrap party in May ‘62, I was invited to join the "Andy Griffith" cast and crew for dinner and was even coaxed, along with Ronnie/Opie, to get up on the bandstand with the hired ‘casual' trio of musicians to ‘demonstrate' the new dance craze, The Twist.  I sure wish I had film footage of that cute caper!
 
When the studio went on summer hiatus, so did I.  My dad decided to send me to Chicago to spend summer vacation with my mom's relatives. I'd never been out of L.A. before, and now I was going half-way across the country to spend my "Summer of ‘62".  Dad took me over to the Santa Fe ticket agency on Vine St. (it's now a Bed, Bath and Beyond store) and got me a round-trip coach-class seat on the El Capitan train. They still offered "Fred Harvey" services then.  Now all that's left is Amtrak.  There's no comparison. So, when school let out in June, Dad took me down to Union Station.  And off I went.
 
When I returned to L.A. in September, I found my former route had been given over to someone else.  Temporarily disappointed, but not for long.  Brother Larry had outgrown his desire to be a paperboy (he was now 16), so I was handed the bigger responsibility of having the Desilu-Gower lot as my new territory.  As part of this route I also got KHJ Radio and TV, Channel 9!  And also, next door to it, Nickodell's restaurant/bar!  Now I had twice as much ground to cover, and my new ‘customers' were the cast and crew of "Lassie", "Ben Casey", "My Three Sons", "The Untouchables", "The Lucy Show", and later on, "My Favorite Martian", "The Eleventh Hour" and a couple other shows.  Incredible!  My customers now included Fred MacMurray, William Frawley, Vivian Vance, Vince Edwards, Sam Jaffe, June Lockhart, and occasionally, Robert Stack, Bill Bixby, and...Lucille Ball, the owner of the place!  And at KHJ-TV, the legendary kid's show host "Engineer Bill" Stulla was a friend and customer.  Once during his afternoon show, he noticed me on the set with my pouch of papers and acknowledged me to his audience, having one of his cameramen zoom in on me as he warmly greeted "Bobby The Newsboy".  Man!  What a thrill.  I also made a ‘guest' appearance as "Bobby The Newsboy" on host/station announcer Wayne Thomas' afternoon movie program, where he ‘interviewed' me during the film break.  Meanwhile, over on the ‘radio' side of the building, (pre-Boss Radio) KHJ was still programming non-rock, easy listening sounds.  Every so often, the guys in the music library/office would see me eyeing the big stack of 45s that had come in (and were never going to get played) and they'd allow me to take whatever I wanted.  In retrospect, I could've built a great collection of discarded 45s.  But, not being a greedy vinyl freak at the time (never was), I would only ‘cherry-pick' a small handful of disks.  I later abandoned or played frisbee with my few 45s in favor of LPs.
 
One of  my favorite memories at Desilu-Gower was watching them film "The Untouchables" on a watered-down soundstage street, meant to recapture old  Chicago, while G-men and mobsters, in old 1930s cars with tires squealing and Tommy guns blazing, shot it out with each other around false storefronts, stoops, and fake alleyways.                                                                                                                     
Also, once, I was quite surprised to discover that the great actor. Sam "Dr. Zorba" Jaffe had mentioned me in an interview with a tv fan magazine.  He had seen me wrapping up a couple of sandwiches from the "Ben Casey" craft services table, to take home to Mom.  He overheard my intentions and found it very thoughtful and endearing.  Darn!  I wish I'd saved a copy of that magazine.
 
Another important moment occurred on that studio lot.  It was where I learned how to ride a bicycle. After dark, when "My Three Sons" wasn't filming, I'd  borrow co-star/'son' Stanley 'Chip' Livingston's studio bike and try to navigate it without getting caught or injured.  I bounced, bumped, crashed and fell numerous times.  But eventually I got the hang of it.  I thought no one was aware of my bicycle training course on the back streets of Desilu.
 
My greatest moment at Desilu occurred just days before Christmas ‘62.  The tips and gifts I received from my many customers at KHJ and Desilu at Christmastime were generous, to say the least.  But, less than a week before Christmas, the "Ben Casey" music editor, Dick Berres, asked me to arrive a little early the following day.  That day, he said he wanted to walk with me over to the studio park.  When we arrived at the park, there to meet and greet me were dozens of Desilu workers, along with staff and crew from "Ben Casey" and Bing Crosby Productions (which produced the show).  And front-center among the throng was a brand-new, bright-red, fully-equipped Schwinn bicycle!  The Herald-Examiner had even sent a photographer and reporter to capture the special moment.  Two days later, there I was, in the paper, under the headline "Bobby Gets A New Bike".  It was something I will never forget.  They just don't make stories like that these days.
 
The following summer of ‘63, during the studio's hiatus, I was again shipped East.  This time it was to stay with my Dad's brother, Uncle Marcus, and his family in Detroit.  After spending the summer in The Motor City I returned to L.A. in September and learned I had, once more, forfeited my route at Desilu.  I was disappointed again, but had now learned to accept it.  I'd had a good run at Desilu.  It was time to move on.
 
My new (and final) paper route was now the territory of Santa Monica Blvd. from Cahuenga to Las Palmas, and included Consolidated Film Industries, Glen Glenn Sound and National General Studios on Seward and Romaine. This was less glamorous than the side of Hollywood that I'd been used to.  I was still making decent pocket/spending money, but I was getting older and the new route wasn't half as fun or exciting.  My bundle of papers would be dropped off after school at the corner of Santa Monica and Wilcox.  I was still attending Bancroft Junior High School down the street, with girls and other assorted interests now beginning to capture my attention.  But it was one day, late that year, that seemed to drive the wedge between what had been and what was to come.
 
It was November 22, 1963.  I was in Art Class when the news came over the PA that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  Stupidly, I let out a muffled "Yay!",  then quickly shut up when the teacher gave me a stern, but tearful, look.  After school, I went over to get my papers.  When the delivery man dropped the bundles on the curb, all I recall is the bleak, black headline "President Shot".  That was the news that day, and for the days that followed. (On a personal note:  It was also the day that my parent's divorce was finalized!)  I sold every single paper that day.  After the weeks of grief and sadness, 1964 arrived.  And with it came The Beatles.  And once more, the world that I knew, would change, and never be the same again. Camelot and Mayberry were gone forever.
FADE OUT.

Robert Leslie Dean


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