Author Archives: Brick Wahl

Dirty Dozen

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The Dirty Dozen would be a lot more entertaining if I didn’t speak some German. I was never a big fan of the flick but the wife loves it. I like some of the training stuff–Sutherland’s general bit is by far my favorite scene–but once they knife those two German soldiers it starts creeping me out. The guy is talking about looking forward to seeing his family on his leave (Urlaub) and then gack. A really awful gack too. I especially hate the bit where Telly knifes the poor German lady. In English you assume she’s a whore, in German she could be a lover or wife or girlfriend. Then when they prepare to slaughter the people trapped in the basement their frantic talk and pleas are really hard to take if you can understand what they are actually saying. This is where it becomes a war crime. The dead sentry, well, that was war. The dead blonde, well, Telly’s character is a homicidal maniac. But the operation itself is the kind of thing we hung Nazis for at Nuremberg. You’ll notice that almost all the prisoners they lock in the basement are Wehrmacht, that is regular army, and not SS. And almost all are staff and support personnel, not generals. Notice how many are women–wives even. They are not even prisoners, soldiers are prisoners. Civilians are hostages. You’ll notice too that when the Dirty Dozen (or what was left of them) let the French help go they murder the German help–cooks, bell boys, whatever–in cold blood. That was killing prisoners. It was a more grisly Malmedy, except even the German army thought the SS who murdered the American prisoners in the snow were war criminals. The Dirty Dozen instead are heroes. The good guys. They were certainly on the good side, but I don’t know about being good guys. Think about what Jim Brown was doing when he died. That beautiful broken field run, plopping grenades down air shafts and murdering scores of prisoners and hostages.

That whole scene would have really bothered Americans in WW2, and as a matter of fact the whole flick would have been banned for the duration. That kind of stuff, in the European theater of operations anyway, was not OK. It usually meant a court martial, it certainly was hushed up. They were seen as incidents not to be bragged about. The fact that no one had second thoughts about it twenty five years later says volumes. Certainly the outright massacre of an entire village with fire arms and grenades as happened at My Lai would have been impossible in WW2, or had it happened the perpetrators would have been tried by the American army for war crimes. We did just that. We tried American soldiers who deliberately murdered civilians. We even tried soldiers in Europe who murdered prisoners. Though there’s a racial element here. We took no quarter (nor were we given any) in the war with the Japanese (something made worse by Japanese prisoners killing their captors with hidden grenades). It had happened before–during the Philippine Insurrection in the early 1900’s an entire village of Moros was annihilated in a nasty preview of My Lai–and would happen again, as in 1950 panicky American draftees under panicky officers could not tell the difference between South Korean refugees and North Korean soldiers at No Gun Ri and hundreds of innocent people were killed. But during World War Two there were no massacres of Japanese civilians by American troops on Saipan or Okinawa or in Japan. It was the Japanese Army who regularly gunned down civilians (or lopped off their heads or buried them alive or used them for bayonet practice), not the U.S. But by the time we were in Viet Nam only a generation after the Second World War, shooting civilians was not only acceptable behavior, but the perpetrators of a slaughter of an entire village were viewed overwhelmingly as heroes. Lieutenant William Calley was a beloved, lionized figure by a majority of the American populace apparently quite off its moral rocker.

Robert Bales, the U.S. Army staff sergeant who carried out that grisly calculated massacre in Afghanistan in 2012 was also seen as a hero by much of the American pubic. Not most, certainly, but by far too many. There was a huge change in American attitudes towards slaughtering unarmed civilians and prisoners by the 1960’s and it still lingers. Yet had The Dirty Dozen been a film made in Germany in World War II it would be held up as an example of Nazi depravity.

I’m not saying it’s not well made, exciting, well cast and even funny, I just find it really disturbing to watch once they start massacring all their hostages. And the scene where Telly kills the German woman is really disturbing. Notice how the camera has no pity for her. Pity is pointless, as she was to be killed anyway in the cellar with gasoline and grenades. She’s beautiful, she’s blonde, she’s looking for sex and gets a knife instead. That’s too much for me. Something is wrong with this picture.

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Lobby cards for U.S. release (above) and U.K. (below). Perhaps English test screenings had revealed some misgivings. Damn them or praise them, their tagline warns. American audiences seemed to have had no such problems. The film was released in June of 1967, smack dab in the Summer of Love.

Writer’s block

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(2011)

Damn….like another six or seven hours spent on a column.  I think it’s 800 words.  How the hell can it take me that long?  I was busy almost that entire time.  Stopped at one a.m. to let the thing incubate a half hour and do some laundry, then came back and wrote it out.  Took another 15 minute break around 3 a.m. I think to regenerate for the final push. Otherwise straight through.  It always amazes me that so much time can transpire.  I know I am a perfectionist.  Weird.  Well, I can catch five hours sleep now and get working on other stuff.

It’s a shame I do my best stuff at odd hours.

Balzac could write for 16 or more hours at a stretch, fueled only by endless cups of coffee and onanism. He would bring himself to the brink of satisfaction and then stop and use the unreleased tension to give him the edge to write and write.

I have not tried his method myself.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

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Even by Charlton Heston standards Charlton Heston is too Charlton Heston in Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

And I wonder if any tourists showed up at Red Rock on the day of the shoot and saw that regiment of apes marching around? What did they think? Uh oh, the Manson Family? And Red Rock wa a popular place for hippies to go tripping. Imagine that psychedelic experience. And the sky was all pink and green and the rocks were all red and purple and there were columns of apes grunting and waving guns around. Far freaking out. I’ll have what he’s having.

Actually I thought there were hockey games all day today. Nope. Not on Superbowl Sunday. I forgot this is America, not Canada. So instead Fyl’s watching these execrable Planet of the Apes movies. She loves these movies. I knew that when I married her. I figured she’d grow out of it. She never did. God damn it all to hell.

I’ve always wanted to use that word “execrable”. I learned it from a Jack Benny show. It was a running gag. Did you know execrable means lousy?, Jack asks the audience. I didn’t. Mel Blanc used it later. He was robbing Jack’s house. I think Bob Crosby used it too, before singing one of his execrable songs. No Bing he, Bob. Had a great band though.

Now James Gregory’s going bonkers killing everybody, sounding like Inspector Luger in an ape suit. This is soooo pre-Dian Fossey.

Charlton Heston just Charlton Heston’d “you ape bastard!” and pressed the button and the phallic god bomb exploded. James Gregory, Victor Buono and the whole simian planet just vaporized. Poof. I thought that meant the end of the series but nope, here’s another. Apes coming out of a space capsule. Goddamn it all to hell, this is execrable.

Auntie Mame

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(2013)

I confess I’ve never been an NFL fan–I’m an NHL fanatic, and football is too damn slow–but when I realized that I had completely forgotten about the Super Bowl and was watching Auntie Mame I grew concerned. Rosalind Russell prancing about in a feather boa, all butch and bitchy…. You go girl, I said, give it to that babbitty Fred Clark. I laughed every time the servant giggled, laughed at the Irishman’s poetic allusions, was delighted at all the witty repartee at her soirees. Gosh, I thought, how I would have loved to attend one of her parties. Then I checked out Twitter and thought that the young trumpet player’s jazz speak was even harder to understand than usual. Arcane references to players and playbooks and plays and he totally lost me. Way too metaphorical, whatever it was. Suddenly it hit me: those aren’t metaphors, he’s talking about football. The Superbowl. I had completely forgotten about the Superbowl. Instead I was watching Auntie Mame. I shuddered. Is this what living in Silver Lake for thirty years will do to a man? Feather boas instead of a football game? What’s next, The Music Man? Actually The Music Man was next, with Robert Preston prancing around in a shiny uniform, all red and fringe and leather. Seventy six trombones he sang, dancing and high kicking, and the townspeople followed him, singing and dancing and high kicking. I watched, petrified, wondering if I liked this now. I didn’t. Relieved, I changed the channel to a documentary on the Salton Sea. It was narrated by John Waters. Everybody looked like Divine. Uh oh.

Did I mention the Cabaret trailer? No? Never mind, then.

Moss Hart

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(2013)

Just watched Act One, about the early playwriting life of Moss Hart. And if George Hamilton here was anything like the real Moss Hart, which he wasn’t, then Moss Hart was one of the most precious little two dimensional loathsome creeps on the Great White Way. It’s hopeless. He’s not even funny.  An unfunny Moss Hart. I write comedies, Hamilton’s Moss Hart says, and he can’t even read comedy. Why him, I think, why George Hamilton? I have no idea. Not even supporting actor Jason Robards could save this turkey. Eli Wallach nearly smothered it by, you know, actually acting. Was Moss Hart still alive when this came out? I hope he sued someone, at least. Or offed someone, at best. What a nightmare it would be to have future generations see you like this. I’ve never met a writer as lifeless and devoid of character as George Hamilton’s Moss Hart. Some critics, maybe, but never a writer.

At one point I was wishing I could unleash Moss Hart’s Sheridan Whiteside on George Hamilton’s Moss Hart. But that got too Escher, even for me. Sometimes you’re so beautiful, Moss Hart once wrote, you gag me.

Police Story

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(2015)

Last night after the drunk plowed into my parked car and took off, the LAPD showed up within a half hour. Being that it was 2 a.m. on a Saturday night (or Sunday morning, actually)–the Witching Hour–I was amazed they were so prompt. Out of the car stepped a very handsome thirty something male officer and from behind the wheel this gorgeous little blonde. She was a knockout, in fact, and for a moment I thought I was in a TV show. I wasn’t. Apparently Silver Lake gets only the most telegenic police officers. We didn’t used to but we’re gentrified now. They were both extremely polite and we had a pleasant chat for half an hour. Finally I said that I’d better let you two go and thanked them. They thanked me. As they drove off they waved. I waved back. I’m told this is not the way it happens in other parts of town.

Very nice ladies

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(Found this one…it’s maybe a decade old, and the party was ten or fifteen years before that.)

I’m reminded of a party many years ago where, slightly bored, I wound up in the parlor, just me and a bunch of older pretty ladies (probably all pushing 40 then).  We just sat around talking. I remember we talked about vacations and where me and my wife like to go, about wine which I didn’t actually know much about but they did, about who it was we knew there. They were all very charming and they thought I was just perfectly charming as well. I can be, sometimes. They asked about my wife. You two enjoy doing things together? I said yes, we’re real tight. That’s so sweet, they said. None of them were married. None had kids. A few had tattoos which was still a little novel at the time. They sipped white wine and I drank a beer. We kept chatting and then I finally took my leave. Later, outside, someone took me aside. Saw you in the living room there, he whispered. You know who those women were? I had no idea. He told me that every one of those girls was a retired hardcore porn actress. A few were stars, even. Or had been. I shrugged. You didn’t recognize so and so? Who? He rattled off a few more names. I didn’t recognize any of them. You don’t look at a lotta porn, do you? I said no, a little ashamed. He snickered. You just figured they were all very nice ladies, didn’t you. I blushed and said yeah. Which, actually, they were. He laughed. When I went by the living room again, the ladies were cooing over someone’s child. One looked up, smiled a beautiful smile, and waved.

Tony Curtis

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(2010)

Tony Curtis died a couple days ago. And Tony Curtis was just so freaking cool that everybody in this town needs somehow to make a personal connection with him.  When so much coolness up and disappears from the planet all the hipsters feel an odd bit of desperation; they just have to, somehow, reach out and touch that coolness while it still lives. For coolness lasts beyond the grave, but not for long. It  fades in an eerie way, still alive, before becoming history. Once history all the coolness is gone, that kind of tactile coolness you can get high with, or drink coffee with, or fuck or fight or just run into on the way to the elevator. The real, corporeal coolness. History renders the living cool dead, stone dead…turns it over to academics and poseurs and biographers who, let’s face it, someone as cool as Tony Curtis wouldn’t be caught dead with. But to actually have a story based on something real life, where you and Tony were in the same space together, interacting or even not interacting but conceivably could have in a way that a historian never ever can…well that kind of coolness is addictive. It is the power of the story. The time that you and Tony Curtis were together. When your universe and Tony’s came together, briefly, and somehow a tiny bit of his coolness rubbed off on you. Just because.

I have one of those stories. And to be honest, a lot of people have those kind of stories. They just don’t write them down, like this:

Sometime back in the mid eighties we had a friend, Jeanne Lynn, this crazy cool chick, older than us, a red head with one of the big Southern gal personalities. Jeanne Lynn was really hip. She worked on films, knew gallery people, actors, directors, jazz musicians, artists, beatniks, hippies, and punks, she was a  fine bassist and great partier. She snagged one of Dolph Lundgren’s training jacket from wardrobe which I wore for years without ever knowing who Dolph Lundgren was. Jeanne Lynn  loved to laugh and tell crazy stories and dirty jokes and smoke weed and we were all great friends. She was the first person we knew I think that was able to exist in that world without losing any of her hip, cool edge. Anyway, she took us to a gallery opening….no, a store opening, some kind of pricey, big boutique on what had been a dull little nothing street called Melrose Place.  This was just before Melrose Place became Melrose Place, and Melrose itself was still a new concept, not yet overrun and tacky. This was that long ago. The party was packed with people, all these Beverly Hills types slumming it on Melrose Place.  There were a lot less rich people back then in the city, and fewer rich neighborhoods, so that end of town below West Hollywood (WeHo hadn’t been coined yet) was thoroughly middle of the middle class with a smattering of struggling bohos  and wanna be show biz types. I remember my wife and I and the others with us, whoever they were, were decidedly out of place at this bash, but enjoying it nonetheless. The food was great., a long long table full of food.. The open bar was even better.  Their was a fine band, too, subdued but all killer players…everyone said that guy there was Sinatra’s guitar player (which meant, I know now, that he was Ron Anthony), and the harmonica player was the guy who did the theme from Midnight Cowboy (though I doubt that now). I watched them for a long time, saying hey to the people who said hey to me, and checking out the westside babes—jeans were still very tight at the time. Yowza. I was just digging it all and polished off a drink–I was drinking greyhounds back then–and went back for another. Jeanne Lynn, stoned, pulled me close, quietly squealing with excitement. Did you see who you were standing next to?  I hadn’t. You didn’t see who you were standing next to all that time? Honestly, I hadn’t. She rolled her eyes. Obviously I’d blown it somehow. I said sorry, but I hadn’t noticed. Jesus, Brick, that was Tony Curtis! Really? Standing next to me? Aghast, she blurted out Yes! You were looking right at each other! How did you not see him? I shrugged, helplessly. Damn, Brick, he’s a real movie star! We didn’t say icon back then, but saying somebody was a real movie star meant something back then. Jeanne said she had wanted me to talk to him so that she could come up and introduce herself. Tony Curtis  had been her idol. And I was right there next to him, utterly oblivious.

I think we’d even exchanged pleasantries, me and Tony. Just a word or two. But I didn’t put the face with the legend. I was too stoned, probably, or maybe just listening to the music, or distracted by coked out westside babes. Jeanne just shook her head. My wife, laughing, said he doesn’t know anything about actors. I didn’t. Still don’t. I’ve lived in Hollywood most of my life and never see any movie stars.

Tony was gone by the time I turned around. Apparently he’d only been at the party ten or fifteen minutes. He would have been flying on blow back then. Everyone knew he’d gone all to hell. But still, he was Tony Curtis. And we could, maybe, have had a nice little chat. But I never recognized the guy. I always regretted that, I mean, Tony Cutis was so cool. Oh well.

That’s it. That is my Tony Curtis story.

It’s not much. In fact it’s not even a story at all, just a seeing but not seeing Tony Curtis story. Probably the worst Tony Curtis story ever. But he’s dead now and I wanted to tell it one last time.  I wanted to tell it while his memory still glowed, and that feeling that he’s not really dead still hung about. It takes a little while to get used to the dead thing. You can’t quite let go till the body is stone cold and buried, and even afterward he hangs about, a living memory, a marathon on Turner Classic Movies.

But yeah, Tony’s gone. I can never tell him this inane story. And he can never show me one of his goddamn paintings.

Sigh….

Another sigh even.

Ya know, I began this story trying to be funny. But it’s not funny at all. Maybe I left my sense of humor in my other suit.

Out on the sidewalk

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(2009)

Last nite we got invited to some Brazilian party at a hip club in Santa Monica.  Some kind of press event. We got there late but they’d pushed back the start time so the bouncer made us wait back outside on the sidewalk. OK. Later the publicist throwing the party told us and some others out on  the sidewalk to come on in. Within minutes the bouncer saw us and we were outside again. So we hung around on the sidewalk again.  About 15 minutes later the booker was back at the door and said you still out here? and ushered us in again. The bouncer kicked us out again. Enough. We split. Later that night got a bitchy note from the publicist’s assistant about not showing up.

The place never did made it into Brick’s Picks again. They asked, but somehow they always wound up outside on the sidewalk..

The sidewalk. The benches were nice.

The sidewalk. The benches were nice.

Rich people everywhere

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(2010)

Last nite we went to a show at the Bowl. Showed our press passes to the usher and went to turn right and head up the stairs as ujsual.  The usher said no and pointed us down the stairs. We kept going down and down, past all the places I thought we were gonna sit, through steadily rising income levels. Then through a special gate. I was about to head to a spot tucked in the corner when the usher led us down to the very front. Then across to the very center. There we were, front row center at the Hollywood Bowl, the stage maybe four feet away. Apparently some billionaire died or something and we got his seats.  Whatever, there we were with our picnic backpack full of home cooked fried chicken, some Lake-to-Lake cheese, Ritz crackers, tortillas, some fruit, whatever we found in the fridge. A ten dollar bottle of wine I got for half that. Rich people everywhere. There were menus on the table. The Beef was $41. Appetizers pushed $20, desserts a mere twelve or so. I didn’t even ask to see the wine list. I sat there kinda stunned. Fyl acted as if this were normal everyday stuff for her…she’s getting jaded. The server was oh so perky. I said we weren’t going to order off the menu and she looked a little disappointed—no big tips from table numero uno tonight. She did offer us place settings, glasses, to open your wine, anything, sir. I declined, but we did order Fyl a beer. Who knows how much that cost. Anyway, we have this really nifty picnic backpack I got once for test driving car far too small for me. I wanted that backpack. Like a sixty dollar deal, free.  Really nice plates (plastic), really nifty wine glasses (plastic), stainless steel silver ware (plastic handles), a cutting board (wood) and some cute little checkered napkins (cloth). We love this thing. We pack it full of food, put a wine bottle in the wine holder, I mean it’s perfect.  The envy of all picnickers. My god did it look cheap and plastic and tawdry amid that little sea of rich people. I opened the bottle and poured it into one of the little glasses. A server looked and I swear rolled her eyes. This unctuous little man, nattily dressed, went from table to table chatting with the rich people, anything I can do, etc. He studiously passed right by us, eyes averted. Suddenly the program director of KKJZ (the jazz station) pops up. His wife is holding a picnic bag. The look completely dazed that they’ve been plunked down front row center at the Bowl. They pull out their picnic dinner. Grapes, some sandwiches, a bottle of wine from Trader Joes. She was crazy about our plastic wine glasses. I had to show her the picnic pack. Tell the test-drive story. Then pops up a writer and a pal. Dazed, both. And so broke we all shared our wine and food with them. All around us tinked fancy silverware on fabulous china. Champagne bottles popped. It was surreal. The people stared at us, sitting at that table, knowing we had to be somebody, but if we  were somebody how could all of us be so cheap?

A wonderful evening. Two excellent Latin jazz bands and a hackneyed Sergio Mendes set, made up for by an army of near naked Brazilian dancers who strutted all around us. They were between us and the non-rich people and we got about five solid minutes of 99% bare Brazilian tushes shaking it for the people. The night before there’d been a symphony there…. It ended and we finally got out of the parking lot and I had to get home to write my column so of course I said hey, there’s a party, let’s go, and off we were to Highland Park and caught the last dregs of an obviously uproarious party. A couple dozen boho wackos old enough to know better. Lots of slurred sentences. People with the munchies bad. We stayed till 1:30. Home by 1:45. We had left the house at 6:45…..

Btw, we never did pay for that beer.