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Another Fein Mess
AF Stone’s Monthly
August 2012

(You can’t) beat LA

I live in the tranquil heart of America. There are rivalries among cities and countries around the world, but we have none.

Oh sure, LA teams hear “Beat L.A.” from San Francisco, but despite it we love Frisco. And we say “New York is a wonderful place” despite what they say about us.

This summer (by early August) we’ve had no heat. It’s been unseasonally 1 tranquil, but summer lasts til November, it will get hot. The earth quakes from time to time, but that’s the price of living in Paradise.

1 What is “unseasonable”? French fries are seasonable, omelets, tacos. But all weather is unseasonable.

Team LA

LA (and Brooklyn) Dodgers announcer Vin Scully’s been many places and seen many things in his 84 years .

“When I was in the Dodger clubhouse after Bobby Thomson’s home run” is not a sentence you hear everywhere. Describing a skinny pitcher August 1st he said he was 6 foot -whatever and “maybe on Thanksgiving evening he’d weigh 170.” That may be a bromide but it’s new to me. He’s a treasure chest of baseball and language history.

‘Round Town

July 6 Went to Big’s in Fullerton, about 40 miles south of Hollywood, to see Karling & The Atomics. A long drive for a great show. For the drive back at 12:30 am the average speed on the freeway was 80 mph.



July 14. Swamp Dogg’s 70th birthday party at his house in Northridge was a stone gass. Guitar Shorty played with a lineup of soul musicians on the back porch. The only photo I could round up was this partial restaging of the “I’m Not Selling Out I’m Buying In” album cover with Bob Merlis, myself and Gene Sculatti -- and eager interloper Greg Earls.



July 15 Brian Hogan holds forth at the Messaround at Viva Cantina.

Troy entrances the crowd

July 18 Troy Walker’s big bday bash in the back room of Viva Cantina followed a sterling performance by Jimmy Angel. After that I hied on over to Joe’s American Bar & Grill to catch Rip Masters’ catchable and always catchy set.



July 20 I helped daughter Jessie obtain the Ivar Castle for her birthday party, renting it for the night (through 12:30) am) with the help of owner Jimmy Maslon. The tall 1930’s Hollywood Hills house with the castilian appointments features lounges and a hot tub and party accouterments on its top 3 floors with a stunning view of LA. She gladly celebrated her 21st sans parental presence.



Went with San Francisco visitor Joel Selvin (left) to Long Beach to visit John R. Johnson (center), late of the LA Times and co-author, with Selvin, of “Peppermint Twist,” a history of the song and scene. The Queen Mary’s in the distance behind us.

July 28 Chuck E. Weiss held forth at the Piano Bar. He is the King of L.A. You can’t see this show and not be happy. Everyone leaves smiling. Earlier in the day I missed New Jump Blues’ appearance at the South Central Jazz Festival. That new band tears it up.


Paul Body makes peace while Chuck E. gets Europa in a headlock.

Grinnin’ Scott Simon takes a break from ivory-ticklin’, with Art Fein.

July 29 Took a day trip (35 minutes) to Cantilini’s Italian restaurant in Vista Del Mar, an appendix of LA that feels like a little coastal town, which it is. I was in the back seat of Jim Dawson’s car, with Mary Katherine Aldin in the passenger seat, and asked questions like a kid on a trip. What is that, Mommy? “Oh, that is the Belonna Wetlands.” We saw Ian Whitcomb perform in a scalene triangle corner of the restaurant, alternating between ukulele and accordion accompanied by guitarist Fred Sokolow and bassist Dave Jones. Food was fine, fun was had. A family evening.

July 31 Ruby Friedman killed at the Federal Bar in North Hollywood. The Lonely Wild were likewise unique and marvelous, a hugely pleasant surprise. Jefferson Airplane with Yoko Ono choral interludes. Different, distinctive, delightful.

Music

A Vincent Minelli movie includes two songs later done by the Everly Brothers. A Billy Wilder movie includes “The Hut-Sut Song.” I bet usage fees were peanuts. What movies? (answer at end) ... a featured record at the baseball All-Star game in KC was Little Richard’s “Kansas City,” an odd, inspired choice ... In the 1970s, my friend Ken worked at UA Records and compiled a Best of Bobby Goldsboro album without “Me Japanese Boy.” In fact that song did not chart high (#74) but it held a special sting for Ken, a Nisei or Sensei or whatever you call an American kid of parents from Japan. That song caused him great pain his high school years in Denver ... I didn’t watch the 1966 movie “Intimacy” when it ran on Antenna TV, but I was struck to see “Introducing Jackie DeShannon” in the credits. It came on right after a Paul Anka movie ... the “Grease”like song in the current Nissan ad that seems to suggest “Glee” dogged me til I realized it sounded like “Gator Tails And Monkey Ribs” by the Spats. Wonder what the royalties are on that great South Bay L.A. tune ... listening to “Sunny” on the ‘Cher’ album on Imperial and thought again how great their/her early stuff was with the Spectorish but not Spectorlike sound they created at Gold Star. Also thought how my girlfriend back then thought it said “Now the doctors are gone and the new days are here.” It was “dark days” ... Among other Antenna TV absolutely unwanted movies has been “Cha Cha Cha Boom,” the Perez Prado feature, and “Calypso Heat Wave” starring the Jamaican phenom Johnny Desmond. 2 Also in that one the Tarriers - look, there’s Alan Arkin - the Mary Kaye Trio, Lord Flea, the Treniers. Bonkers ... An LA Times feature on Louie CK said the theme song was “Louie Louie.” Understandable mistake. It’s Ian Lloyd’s rerecording of “Brother Louie,” the song he made with Stories.

2 Maybe they meant to get Desmond Dekker. I never go negative, it’s just an observation that Johnny Desmond has left no imprint. I assay ‘straight’ singers because I like songs but never come across his name or CD’s.

Keep breathin’

In the mid 70s my rock & roll focus was rocked to its roots when I discovered Louis Jordan. MCA had one hits album - in reprocessed stereo - and I wanted better, so I went to collectors houses with a cassette recorder and played their 78s into the mike. I treasured each discovery - Louis did nearly 200 songs on Decca alone. It was an a sport lost on kids (I was no kid) who today can get any artist’s output easily.

I met people on my quest. When speaking about Louis Jordan, first name pronounced Louie, a guy, Rich Reicheg, 3 told me to pronounce it like Lewis because that was the respectful way black people referred to him in his day. That stuck in my mind nearly 40 years though I never adopted it and just the other day I got turned around again. Leafing through a book about Louis at Mary Katherine Aldin’s house, I encountered this fact from author John Chilton: Jordan preferred ‘Louie’ and often signed his name that way.

Then this. The 2007 Blasters album was called “4-11-44.” Nowhere was it that reference explained. Years ago people in the Black community considered these lucky numbers and included them when placing bets. This was news to me. Then recently on a Bobby Mitchell & The Upsetters CD I saw a different “4.11.44” song, a love song from the early 1950s with those numbers chanted in the bg. I guess it was a coded message to Mitchell’s audience.

3 At his house I noticed the sheet music for “Looking For An Echo,” the stunning ‘singing in the stairwell’ song that so beautifully summarizes the doo-wop experience, framed on the wall. “You like that song, eh?” I said. “No, I wrote it” he replied. I was struck dumb with awe.

Words

According to current mangling of English, an impacted tooth is what you get when someone punches you in the mouth ... Is it really PC to name MSNBC’s heavy-with-women show 4 “The Cycle”? ... “The late Michael Jackson” is in a grave, and was not accused of anything, ever. Michael Jackson was ... and when the Antiques Roadshow assayer says that a 1940s watch is “retro,” what does he mean? ...

4 This chaotic assembly must be designed to draw in “yutes.” I can’t stand it.

Hey, Baby, It (was) the 4th of July

and no tire places were open. The night of the 3rd I found a bolt lodged in one of mine up atop Beverly Glen, and I raced, well, flap-flap-flapped, down to Ventura Blvd to a gas station, filled the tire and headed home hoping it would stay inflated. (The clicking stopped midway home. The bolt must have flown out. On the freeway. Oy.) Wensday morning I looked around Hollywood and no tire places were open, so I headed, with the tiny spare in place, up to Sherman Way in North Hollywood where the Mexican used-tire places are. One was open.

“Got a 195/etc.”? I asked. “Just these two” he said, handing me two Michelins like mine. Eureka! (Well, Caramba!) Twenty minutes and $70 later I was flying down the freeway, grinning like a fool at what a lucky guy I’m. Count on it!

Media Memo

Protest gatherings do not require bona fides. Troublemakers act freely in the cover of a crowd. When Fox News idiots say that Occupy Someplace was marked by theft and rape they ignore that IT WAS DONE BY CRIMINALS AND RAPISTS. When people in Anaheim protest a police shooting, it’s not protesters who throw chairs through Starbucks windows IT’S ASSHOLES WHO LIKE TO BREAK THINGS.

Look at footage of jerks assaulting police at the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968. They’re not hippies sporting peace signs, they’re local toughs having fun attacking cops. ‘The protest turned to violence’ my ass.

Bang Bang

Early one week the local ha-ha tv morning news opened with two shooting outbreaks - in the midwest and Canada. That meant there were no shootings overnight in Los Angeles and they had to fulfill somehow their obligation to open with gunfire news 5 . Then July 20 all tv news opened with mass murder at a Colorado movie theater. And I wondered how my daughter felt.

She turned 21 that morning. When I was almost 22 my parents were in Boulder for my college graduation one day after Robert Kennedy was killed. I was no fan or detractor of him, but his murder on top of the MLK killing somehow poisoned the day. I felt, as a representative of the emerging generation, somehow responsible.

These dark deeds were done by people way past my age and far removed from me, but I felt like I was stepping into a world that was somehow affected by me - with guns drawn. After all, the draft was the next on my horizon. I felt in no way responsible for ‘the world’ but I was now expected to deal with it. Maybe I intuited that these horrors only set the scene for the Democratic convention and Kent State and Jackson State and the Manson killings ahead.

She can’t possibly feel that, I hope.

5 I know everyone knows this, but the long-held local tv news mantra is “If it bleeds, it leads.”

NYTimes

Nate Chinen 7-21 commends two artists who “dare” to sing songs not of their own origination. This pass is given to some acts, not tolerated in others ... 7-16, Adam Nagourney, reporting on Beverly Hills’ objection to its high school being tunneled under for a subway, cites the school’s “roster of famous graduates.” The city is about 90% Iranian and yes, its graduates often became famous - because their parents were famous ... 7-15 Loren Feldman, Sunday Business, opens a front page story on the Goldman-Sachs debacle with the ugly past-prime “The business deal from hell.” (Also ‘Champagne’ is capitalized, as in corked. Really? Is this right?) ... The 6-20 article about changes to the freewheeling Venice/LA boardwalk by Adam Nagourney and Ian Lovett had a socko ending, revealing that one culprit behind its spoliation was longtime bodybuilder and change-mourner (quoted in the article) Arnold Shwarzenegger. It was a knockout punch .... Wendy Smith, 6-24, re a new biography of Walter Cronkite, says he “still knew where the best KC barbecue joints were in 1976.” Not 1977? Same page, Nick Owchar, re a newsman bio, writes that ‘Rather Unspoken’ lives up to its title “’in spades.” I’d rather it was said with originality ... 7-10, David Streitfeld’s lead on a story about a reality show filming in Silicon Valley asks whether the area is “ready for its closeup.” Ho HO!

LATimes

The hed on the Andy Griffith obit is “Mayberry’s folksy sheriff.” This obviosity sidesteps his long, varied career. And the August 4 Olympics hed, “Backstroke To The Future”? Humiliatingly asinine ... 7-23 “Bob Pool” backs up residents’ claims that an apartment bldg is historic by writing that three character actors and Al Pacino ”are said to have lived there.” Verification is overrated ... the Thursday July 19 shooting disaster in Colorado was bannered Saturday with giant headline “MIDNIGHT MASSACRE’ and a screaming photo as if it was news so long past the event. Whether the screaming man’s (pictured twice) son was one of the victims was not given ... 7-20, Business Section, Jerry Hirsch “Ferraris to be sold at Pebble Beach.” Not Watts? Pacoima? It’s not even local news; or news. “Well-known collectors” and ‘high-end’ sellers are expected. What organization paid whom for this claptrap? ... 7-20 Tina Sussman’s urgent article opens “just as New Yorkers are adjusting” to something, the city’s mayor wants them to do more. It is a STRICTLY LOCAL NEW YORK ITEM printed as if you need to know it. Damn NY-worshipping LATimes editors ... Geoff Boucher’s 7-13 article about a Superman movie says it was “tethered tied” to an earlier version. Must have no copy editor, like me ... World-roamer Henry Chu’s intro 7-13 to a piece on the upcoming Olympics refers to London’s “50 shades of grey summer.” Stifle yourself, Hank ... 7-15, Melissa Leu tells us that a woman has worn costumes “from Disney’s Cheshire Cat and Snow White to gender-reversed Superma’am.” What is in that range exactly? ... Ben Fritz, 7-12, says movie studios were spending less money on promotion at ComiCon because of “splashy presentations in the past that resulted in costly box-office duds like ‘Scott Pilgrim.’“ I didn’t know movies failed bec of a ComiCon presentation. What thin ice movies skate on ...

The Shootings

Network announcers assured the nation they were heading to Colorado. Why? Their first question surely was “Where is Aurora?” What are local news people for? THEY better than a New York mouthpiece know the area and can talk to survivors better and read official handouts.

Then, days later, we get “Aurora healing through prayer.” Nobody’s healing! People are wretched, full of despair. “Cards and flowers were placed at the site” is boilerplate.
Don’t insult us.

TV Jeebies

History Ch - “he was Luciano’s man on the ground at the docks.” Not suspended in mid-air? Certainly not Luciano’s words ... same show, a mobster is quoted as saying “At the end of the day.” Balderdash ... same channel, disaster show “was the reason in the backstory of its construction?” Murder in my heart ... same channel, re JFK “rumor has it” and “some have speculated” ... same channel, General George Washington “set the endgame” in motion. It’s more recent than that.

NBC News “the rebels jerry-rigged a gun.” Jury-rigged, jerrybuilt ... TV news speaker - “Three men wearing masks .. oh, I should say three suspects wearing masks.” KILLERS killed someone. Say it!!! ... The TMC Ernest Borgnine tribute: “He also had a happy side.” Hey, most people know him ONLY from McHale’s Navy. “Marty” is not a holiday favorite like “It’s A Wonderful Life” ... the cutline under a pic of G. Reeves and Phyllis Coates 6 in the 7-8 NYTimes Book Section review of a Superman book says they both starred in the tv show. She did 24 episodes, Noel Neill did 78. Did her identification with Lois Lane poison her subsequent career, considering how it poisoned Reeves’s? Maybe I should read the book. (Ya think?)

6 She was the first woman I was in love with. Maybe in her business suits and stern manner she was boyish, less alien than glamor girls. When she vanished she vanished good: I pined for her. Turns out she did plenty of other tv including a couple Perry Masons and shots on Leave It To Beaver. All along I thought she was lost to the world! Sob.

TV

A local tv ‘news’ programs starts a minute after the hour to jam in an extra commercial before it starts ... August 1, LA morning tv coverage of people picketing Chick Fill-A was effectively a recruitment promo. “When this one at A is over, at noon there will be another one at B” ... Featuring a “sofa king,” Der Wienerschnitzel chief, vacuum cleaner designer in an ad is from the same advertising-sales handbook I read in college: “If the client turns down your ad campaign, suggest he be in it. He will go for it” ... I got a kick from a documentary voice-overer calling the historic hotel here the Chateau Mar-MO, the french pronunciation. But no kick from the local post-teen news girl referring to an EN-voy. Well what do you expect, she’s barely out of school ... A speaker on the “Wages Of Spin” PBS expose of Dick Clark says of 50’s American Bandstand’s teen girls “It was the beehive era, nothing but hairspray.” No, that was the 60’s ... The Mars Rover landing on the NASA channel August 5 was as good as it gets. We couldn’t share this in-house excitement at the space lab at the first moon landing. Wonderful, exhilarating.

SNL movies

The number of cherished movies I don’t is enormous. Among good overlooked ones are Superstar! starring Molly Shannon , and It’s Pat! Although Julia Sweeney distances herself from that character, I’ve laughed myself senseless many times at this movie.

Politics

Why do I get to vote whether porn actors wear rubbers in movies? It’s personal choice. Can I vote on what music people listen to? I’d rather ... Why is blackmail illegal? If I know something about you and you pay me to clam up it’s business. More honest than the London stock exchange ... I said this already, but why is Edge persecuted for his building plans in Malibu? He can meet all environmental strictures but the NIMBY law ... I don’t want to be on the wrong side of anything, but what is wrong with voter ID? If none is asked, the whole country would be like Chicago where people vote all day.

Photos

Forty years ago in Colorado I took time-exposures on black nights, leaving the lens open for 5 minutes. The result would show light over the mountain from a nearby town and streaks in the sky where the stars moved.

I never thought about time-exposures in the digital era, but taking the air one midnight last summer I set the camera on a flat plane and pressed the shutter, which stayed down for about ten seconds - non-film is more sensitive than film.

First is the actual scene at midnight.
Below it is the time exposure.





Names

Every name I hear I consider for its ridicule potential. Both Art (Fart) and Fein (are you fine? hahaha) have not served me well. A man I know named Hard named his son Richard and calls it “the worst decision of my life.” (Last name first? Hard, Dick.) Now seeing a baseball player named Hunter Pence I wonder “Didn’t his parents see the potential of Underpants?” Maybe he was OK, I just worry.

Oh Babe

Have you seen a photo of Marilyn Monroe lately? The poor woman, nearly forgotten after all these years. Sometimes an entire day goes by that someone doesn’t post a photo of her on Facebook or discover something to write about her 7. But sex symbols in my early life were bold. Marilyn, Jayne, Brigitte, Ann-Margret maybe, Raquel Welch. Farrah Fawcett was for teen boys. Who in the past 20 years holds the whole world in thrall with her beauty? Lady Gaga? A Kardashian?

7 LATimes front page Aug 3. Feature Aug 5.

When Funnin’ Goes Wrong

A NY friend who visited summers was a word guy, so we often said mysterious things that the other had to figure out.

Once he spoke of “the Art Garfunkel role” in the movie ‘Catch-22’ and I said there was none. Furiously, he said “Twenty bucks!” I said I didn’t want to bet, but he insisted. The next day he presented me with a list of the actors and pointed to Art Garfunkel’s name.

“You owe me twenty bucks.”
No, you owe me.
“No, there it is. SEE? Art Garfunkel as Captain Nately.”
Yep, now show me the Art Garfunkel role.
“I just DID!!”
Yes, who did he play?
“Captain Nately!!!”
He played the role of Captain Nately?
“YES!! Now give me the twenty!!”
But who played the role of Art Garfunkel?

His face went red and he stormed off. I never saw him again, or the twenty. I guess I shouldn’t have grinned so widely when I got him.

I exhume the good ones

In 1969, when an album was recorded by Dr. Christiaan Barnard to salute his successful transplant of a human heart, a wag wrote that the soundtrack music should be by the Grateful Dead.

I don’t want to spoil the party so I’ll die

An ID question offered by Facebook is ‘What was the name of your third-grade teacher?’

Something in recent memory, a few years ago.

- 57 -

Mark On The Move
 
I missed the High Sierra Music Festival last year, and my return was something of a shock.  The festival (over 4 days at Placer County Fairgrounds in Quincy, California) has devolved closer to Coachella, Outside Lands or Lollapalooza.  There were many frat and sorority types wanting to ‘party’ and get wasted, alcohol seemed to be taking over from weed and the music leaned further away from the traditional High Sierra jam/folk style toward even more funk, reggae and electronic groups.  For instance, this year the deejay Mocean Worker (Adam Dorn, son of Atlantic producer Joel) played the Dance Tent and ex-Hassidic reggae-rapper Matisyahu headlined on the biggest stage. 

The flamboyant Burning Man style but not aesthetic is invading mainstream events as festival-goers spend more time dressing up than listening to the music.  Old timers in tie-dye (like me) sit in folding chairs while young ‘uns dressed as animals or in fluorescent bondage gear make noise and/ or stilt-walk through the crowd.  Hey kids, shut up! There’s a band on stage!
 
There were some reliable musical treats, however.  Heartless Bastards, whom I’ve seen in Austin several times, still make the most of their gritty rock sound and lead singer, the Lucinda Williams-like Erika Wennerstrom.  ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra) are tuneful, trippy and not afraid to show their roots, including Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ In the Years,” The Faces’ “Ooh La La” and Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” in their set alongside strong originals like “Speed of Dreams” and “Shapeshifter.”  On the jazz front, Marco Benevento (piano/organ), Skerik (sax) and Mike Dillon (xylophone/tabla/percussion) continue their policy of configuration-shifting with a variety of players from High Sierra bands including Skerik’s Bandalabra, Surprise Me Mr. Davis and Garage a Trois.  Skerik (real name Eric Walton) has a way of invigorating others with his humor and powerful fusion of John Coltrane and King Curtis, and as a kind of permanent “artist in residence” at High Sierra can really extend his range as far as it can go.
 
But my real awakening at the festival was seeing Steve Poltz, who’s been around for decades and somehow escaped my notice, aside from remembering that in 1996 he co-wrote Jewel’s big hit “You Were Meant for Me.”  He turned his 10 a.m. Friday show at the Big Meadow stage into a rambunctious, spontaneous blend of quirky tunes (think Loudon Wainwright, Todd Snider, Dan Bern, Jonathan Richman) and comedic improvisation.  After two little kids running around the field passed the stage twice, Poltz invented a little ditty about them (“run little kids, run!”), put it on a sound loop that blasted from the P.A. and stripped off his shirt, jumped the stage barrier and ran WITH them as the crowd chanted along.  At an indoor workshop Sunday titled “The World According to Steve Poltz” he got deep into storytelling about his upbringing in Halifax, his trials on the high school wrestling team, his fascination with the Hadron Collider and his adventures in the 90’s with then-girlfriend Jewel (Mexican drug busts included – you can Google it).
 
In Reno on July 15th I caught the last American date of the Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary tour.  California Saga, composed of some of their their children (Brian Wilson’s daughters Carnie and Wendy, Dennis Wilson’s son Carl, Carl Wilson’s son Justyn, Mike Love’s son and daughter Christian and Ambha, and Al Jardine’s sons Matt and Adam), opened the show.  They fared well on challenging harmonies during their 20-minute set, and I liked the choice of lesser-known rarely-performed Beach Boys tunes such as “Anna-Lee, the Healer,” “Friends,” “Till I Die,” “Believe In Me” and “Little Bird.”
 
Playing more than 40 songs in the two-part concert, the Beach Boys also weren’t afraid to go beyond “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Help Me, Rhonda” or “Good Vibrations.”  Brian was unfortunately way off key during the opening to “Do It Again,” and coughed a couple times during “Marcella” (from the often overlooked “Carl and The Passions” LP), but recovered to lead solid versions of “Sail On, Sailor,” “Kiss Me, Baby,” “Add Some Music,” “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” and “Heroes and Villains.” 

Like a lot of people I quiver when Brian takes a lead vocal, wondering if he’ll make it through.  He still has the blank face and awkward gestures that marked his performances this past decade, but fortunately he’s buried the hatchet enough to let Mike Love serve, remarkably affably, as m.c. of the show.  It was especially nice to hear Bruce Johnston sing “Disney Girls,” David Marks essay the guitar part of “Pet Sounds” and Al Jardine lead “California Saga,” and I loved that they found room for “Don’t Back Down,” a car song that puts “409” and “Little Deuce Coupe” in the shade.  (Okay, one quibble: a set that has room for “All This Is That” but not “Warmth of The Sun”?????)
    
-- Mark Leviton
 
(Mark’s sixties-themed radio show Pet Sounds can be heard alternate Wednesdays 10pm-Midnight PST on KVMR-FM 89.5 in the Sacramento area and streaming at www.kvmr.org)

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Chicago Mullings

Last month was impressions of New York.
Here’s a few of Chicago.
Me and Chicago.

- When I heard someone named Studs Terkel was on the radio, I figured he was famous because he was related to my shoe salesman at Red Goose Shoes, Mr. Terkel. He was his brother. That was back when you tested the fit of kids shoes by putting your feet in the hole at the bottom of the x-ray machine and wiggled your toes. I would do it for five minutes at a time. (I still have all my toes.)

- Cold, cold, cold. Ice turning to slush, seeping into shoes. Wondering why anyone would live like this.

- Took a bus to Riverview, the magical amusement park. Had five dollars, which was enormous at age 10. Saved a dime for the bus ride home but stayed too late and could not call my parents because nobody, but nobody, would give a kid a dime. Mind you, it was about $1.50 I suppose, but nobody cared about kids, or this one.

- Went to the printing plant where my dad worked on rare Saturdays. Played in cut-paper bins. Discovered felt-tip markers. A girl worker, probably a teenager, offered to “teach me about love” once. I was scared, as this made no sense. My dad pulled me away from her.

- Discovered rock & roll at age 10 and a half. Nobody my age shared this feeling. My neighborhood on the South Side was lower-middle blue collar Polish/Italian/Lithuanian/Irish home owners. Friends never suspected I was Jewish bec that was unthinkable. I suspected I had a big nose because I heard “they all do.” Mostly white except for kids from the projects. Not a lot of mixing. I stood in awe at the black kids who harmonized in the playground, the other kids sneered. My best friend John Davis was black, and in 1993 I submitted an article to the Chicago Tribune about trying to find him 15 year earlier. (The school flat denied me his ancient address, and try finding the right John Davis in the Chicago phone book.) The day after it ran he called me, from Florida, and we met a few months later at Farmers Market in L.A. He looked so different I would not have known him and even suspected he was an impostor, which makes no sense at all. But it was a fine meeting, if a little awkward. We’ve lost touch.

- Went often to the awesome Museum of Science & Industry. I’ve still never seen any better. A Spitfire and a Stuka hung from the ceiling. There was a coal mine underneath it. Pre-born babies in jars! Everything was giant. Photos from Chicago newspapers lined the hall leading to the lunchroom and each visit I would stare wide-eyed at the photo of Elvis in the gold Nudie suit 1 he debuted in Chicago.

- Went to countless Cub games, and often they won, a statistical anomaly. Went to one White Sox game on the dangerous South Side and while walking to the bus or subway something struck me on the head. I looked around and there was no one. Maybe a thrown pipe or rock. On a reverse note I’ve met black people who said they would never go to Wrigley Field because of the danger. It’s the way they keep peace in Chicago.

- Mosquitoes in the summer, hot afternoons in large public parks participating in all-age softball games played with an honest softball, a big, soft, pillowlike thing. Humid heat that makes you slow and sorry. Fireflies were a bright spot: I still don’t understand why they’re not harnessed for power.

...................................................................

1 One of the few times he wore it whole. Containing real gold, it weighed plenty. In oft-seen concert footage with Jailhouse Rock advertised behind him, he’s wearing just the coat, with black slacks.

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 Answer

1. The Bad & The Beautiful

“Don’t Blame Me”
“Temptation”

2. Ace In The Hole

Douglas and trapped miner swap verses.