Jazzless, but a great pizza

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(2010)

Nice long weekend it was. On Friday we went out to the Café 322 in Sierra Madre for a pizza and there was a not very good screaming soul singer (with three back up singers in matching outfits) and a bar band trio…it was an all oldies revue, date night for the parents and divorcees who were getting drunk. The table of couples next to us, oh man. The women got drunk and soon all of them were talking about 80’s porn. The guys were driving apparently so were fairly sober and the women regretted things in the morning, I’m sure. As the night wore on the place got more and more crowded and the female percentage was probably 60% at least. Someone requested “I Will Survive” and the floor was flooded with bad dancers and it was surreal…I’ve lived in Silverlake so long I’d forgotten that it hadn’t always been a gay anthem. I was expecting they’d segue into “It’s Raining Men” but no. Anyway, we left long before the evening ended. I didn’t get outta work that night till 7 and we didn’t get down to the 322 before 9 so this is what happens when you go out for late dinner on a Friday night. Actually all the people were having one helluva good time, it was funny seeing the 322 turned into a bit of a meat market. They used to book jazz on Fridays but the bills gotta be paid somehow. Great pizza, too.

Celebrity sighting

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My latest celebrity sighting. Being mistaken for an actor at Enterprise Rent-a-Car. A stage actor, though. That was new. The mistaken guy was an actor. Thought he knew me. I said no, I’m not an actor. You’re not just saying that? No, I’m not an actor. You sure? Yes, I’m sure.

At least he didn’t hound me for an autograph. But then he was in the business. It’s the tourists who want the autographs, especially in Hollywood. I’ve signed a couple there to get them to leave me alone. Wrote simply Brick. Brick! I knew you were him. Look, honey, it’s Brick. Who? You remember. The guy on TV.

I’ve never been on TV.

I’ve been mistaken for movie actors, television actors, a guy in a commercial, a porn star (in younger, far better looking times) and the bass player who’d just been on stage at the Playboy Jazz Festival five minutes before. Man I played good, the guy said, pumping my hand. Just like Jaco Pastorius. I thanked him.

I could have gotten laid by a woman at a jazz club who was convinced I was the bass player there, too, but she fell off her bar stool. The actual bass player, behind me, fled.

Now back to rehearsal.

Stoneground A.D. 1972

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Stoneground opening up Dracula A.D. 1972 (the sixth and last of Christopher Lee’s Dracula run for Hammer Films, with Peter Cushing back as Van Helsing’s grandson) with Alligator Man. That’s Sal Valentino (of the Beau Brummels) on lead vocal. It’s an old cajun tune by Jimmy Newman, and their arrangement is groovy shuffling stuff, with solid ensemble playing (and back up vocals) in that San Fransciso style, always more about the band than about any specific player, and Sal’s rock’n’roll vocalizing was pretty unique, as were his dazed LSD expressions. Laugh, Laugh it ain’t. More like Magic Hollow on Exile on Main Street. I always liked this band, and love this song, and it’s a shame Stoneground never really took off, though Bay Area hippies that they were, I don’t know if they worried about it much. They recorded a couple albums, and Family Album, their second, is their best, one of those vast double LPs, like Sons of Champlain’s Loosen Up Naturally or the second Moby Grape album–that came out of San Francisco (or thereabouts) and went  nowhere. Who knows why.

Alas, this opening party scene with Stoneground is much more fun than most of the rest of the flick, late period Hammer not being what it had been. But hell, it’s Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the 20th century. Hippies and mini-skirts abound. Peter Cushing’s (i.e., Van Helsing’s) way hot granddaughter just told him she is neither dropping acid nor shooting up nor balling anybody. He looks at her, bemused, like why the fuck not? But he says nothing and smiles. I’m an alligator man. Or he was, in another movie. Or was that George Macready?

Artie Shaw

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So I was driving down one of the local boulevards on a moonless night, flipping across the Sirius dial looking for something I could stand and having no luck. Then I hit a pothole and out came Artie Shaw. “Blue Skies” even. I got the car stabilized again–for a second there I was a B-17 in Twelve O’Clock High, going down over Stuttgart–and tried to remember between what wives he recorded this. Judging from the hipness of the arrangement, it would have been between Kathleen Winsor and Doris Dowling. I think around 1951.

He’d just busted up that kinda bebop big band of his. Big bands were a hard sell on the road after the Second World War, and his crowd weren’t into that newfangled stuff. Things change, fans don’t. So Artie packed it in, again. He quit music like he quit wives. You can see it in this picture. His ex-wife Ava is glomming onto him like a night’s worth of sex, he’s got a splitting headache worrying about the biz and Lana Turner has just walked into the room.

Ava Gardner and Artie Shaw in 1949

Poor Artie. He should have stayed in the Navy. Air raids were easier than this.

So he cuts the band loose (about the time he cut Kate Winsor loose) and goes back to the old Gramercy 5 thing, plus one, and minus the harpsichord. Swinging little sextet, lots of solo room. Artie Shaw is an underrated jazz player anymore, which is a shame. He certainly proved his mettle on the small group dates. But when he wants to do a big band date by this time he cheats and just pulls in a bunch of studio cats. Results are nice. That’s what this “Blue Skies” was, a studio date with studio players. Driving along in the dark, I was really taken with the extended tenor sax stretch. That’s no old fashioned dance band run. There’s some story telling there. Had to look up the session at home later. It was Herbie Steward, who you likely never heard of. He was one of Woody Herman’s Four Brothers, the phalanx of sax players Woody put out front because they were so goddamn good. Good but, uh, had issues. All the same issue. Herbie’s issue affected his lifetime output more so than brothers Stan Getz and Zoot Sims, but considerably less than brother Serge Chaloff. You have to be a historian to know Serge Chaloff, which is sad. He was a visionary baritone player. He also once drove on a railroad track for a mile without knowing it.  Some guys you don’t let drive. But we’re not talking about the Thundering Herd here, are we. We’re talking about Artie Shaw, his wives, and whatever happened to Herbie Steward. Well he was busy, that Herbie was. One of those 1950’s jazz musicians with two careers. Your ax or your arm, baby, one or the other has to come first. One becomes a way of doing the other. Herbie eventually cleaned up, stuck to the one career, put out a few LP’s, which unfortunately I’ve never heard. At least he had the opportunity to make a comeback. Serge not so much. Though it wasn’t the heroin that killed him. Cancer got him first.

Several years later….I have absolutely no idea where this essay was going. I found it among the drafts.  I just kind of petered out with that last line. It was a good start anyway.

The seventies

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Saw a Tonight Show late last night from the late seventies. My god look at those ties my wife said. Johnny Carson was uptight, mildly paranoid, his timing off, the monologue died in a series of unfunny Jimmy Carter jokes. It was hot today he said. How hot was it shouted an audience member. Shut up! Johnny yelled back. Ed was laughing hysterically as each flop followed the other. Carnac the Magnificent began with Johnny fluffing the trip schtick so he nearly fell and then blowing the delivery of the lines. Again, Ed laughed all the harder. Out came the first guest, Tony Curtis, is a flaming white disco outfit and so buzzed he radiated paranoia. He stood, frozen, as the audience applauded and unable to think of what to do he nearly saluted. He walked over stiffly, introduced himself to Johnny with a formal handshake, then to Ed, and sat down and gave an interview so coke freaked it was uncomfortable to watch. Johnny wasn’t much better. Tony was not exactly at the peak of his career in 1978 and was promoting The Bad News Bears Go To Japan. One got the impression he did not like children. The clip shown was Tony explaining to a five year old why people get naked when having sex. These were obviously the pre-McMartin preschool days.

Next guest was Steve Landesberg. He comes out supercharged, rubbing his nose, and delivers a rapid fire series of jokes and random ethnic accents at an adenoidal high volume shout, and looking coke dazed each time the audience laughed. Then he strutted over to his chair where he and a slightly more relaxed Johnny and Tony began a strange conversation that veered back and forth, everyone stepping on each others lines, Landesberg doing assorted foreign accents way too loud, and all having a very excited good time. Next up was Bess Armstrong, very cute and a little too chemically edgy and funny but not quite as high strung as Tony or Steve. She said she was from Baltimore. BALLIMER!!! shouts Steve. Tony makes an unannounced trip backstage. Returned very excited. All four were having a grand old time talking and joking and laughing way too loud at the wrong time. Oddly, though, even with the combination of coked out Tony Curtis and Steve Landesberg and a pretty young single actress it never got dirty. Not even a little bit. Not even after that Bad News Bear clip. Then came the very charming and witty eighty-nine year old Merie Earle. No wonder it never got dirty. Grandma was in the house. Tony, Steve and Bess froze, completely silent. Not a peep till Johnny winds up her interview (which was the only coherent part of the night) and Steve shouts out something random in a loud Puerto Rican accent. As the credits rolled, Pete Christlieb (probably, from the tone anyway) took off on a gorgeous saxophone solo.

Ya gotta love the seventies.

Exorcist 2: The Heretic

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Which reminds me, I recently watched Exorcist 2: The Heretic. Well, it was on as I was writing. My wife abandoned it for better fare, but I somehow could not get myself to turn it off. I mean, it’s the greatest movie ever. I assume Sir Richard Burton was smashed the entire time, raging in his trailer, quoting Shakespeare till he was blue in the face. Then back out to utter more humiliating profundities on camera. Egad. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf come to life. Who must one have coitus with to escape this production? Sir Richard beseeched the gods. They answered not. Then back to the trailer. Ya gotta love catastrophic sequels. Godfather III with ectoplasm. How do these things happen?

crochet-exorcist

Alas, I have no idea whose this is, but my pal Lynn Kelley found it on the Gallery of the Absurd Facebook page, thus validating the entire concept of the internet.

Down on me

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James Gurley back home in Detroit at the Grande Ballroom and losing his psychedelic mind on a guitar solo. I had a pal way back in the 80’s who used to come around and service our xerox machines at work, he’d lived in the Motor City in the sixties and went through all his cash and brain cells every night at the Grande. Said he’d been at this show. He’d been at every show, but he was at this show for sure. I asked him how it was. He had no idea, he’d been so high. Lights and sounds, he said. No one ever seemed to remember anything back then except lights and sounds. I loved that guy. We’d talk and talk and I’d get nothing done. But that’s how you get material, you find yourself a story teller and plunk yourself down and listen. Alas, he died in a motorcycle accident not long afterward. Thus do a million stories disappear.

Robert Plant

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Watched Robert Plant on Austin City Limits tonite. Pipes sound great, he looks good, and he has a killer band. Love the old Led Zep covers done anew, love the new stuff, love the roots and stuff that goes over big at WOMAD. Nothing too mellow, either, no pop crap or power ballads. This is probably the best band he’s had since Houses of the Holy. Fuck rock star reunions anyway, you should always do something new. If people want old bands playing old tunes the old way let them buy the CDs. The past is done, it’s dead, it was already, and life is far too short to waste on nostalgia.

 

Stanley Cup

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(2016)

Been rooting for the San Jose Sharks for a couple of play off rounds now, an odd thing for an L.A. Kings fan, but I figured it’d be cool to have all three California teams as Stanley Cup champions. So I was hoping the Sharks would win this sixth game of the series at home and skate with the Cup in Pittsburgh. Sharks were good too, very good, and Joe Thornton, the geezer with the vast and hideous beard, was a force of nature. But it wasn’t enough, and the Pittsburgh Penguins were the best team, again. Now I can go back to loathing the Sharks this fall like a good Kings fan. In the meantime, I can stop hating the same stupid commercials every game and forget all about hockey all summer.

Now where’s that Slap Shot DVD?

Still, I couldn’t relinquish the hockey season just yet and watched the Pens long victory celebration in the hushed and mostly empty Shark Tank. Most of the Shark fans had already moped out to the parking lot and headed dejectedly home. In the near silence you could hear almost everything the Penguin players said as they took turns skating around the ice with the Stanley Cup, and it occurred to me that this is the only time you will ever hear ‘fucking A’ shouted on television over and over in French, Russian, Finnish, Swedish and assorted central European accents. Finally the cup gets passed on to the assistant coaches, then the equipment managers, the physical therapists, the front office people and on down to the lowliest members of the Pittsburgh Penguins organization. The towel boy nearly topples over when it’s finally his turn with the trophy, but he rights himself, gains his footing, and skates round the ice holding tightly onto the Stanley Cup. He looks fifteen years old and there he is, desperately clinging to a trophy nearly as big as he is, feeling deep down that he had somehow earned that cup too. He’d done his part. He was there with the towels when the players needed them. It wasn’t much, he knew that, but still there he was, spinning around that deeply rutted ice surface for a minute or two with the greatest sports trophy in the world. As he comes round an ESPN reporter is interviewing the great Sydney Crosby. Fucking A, the towel boy yells, unnoticed by anyone on the ice but clearly audible to everyone watching on TV.

stanley-cup6/12/2016

Skip E. Lowe

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I’d totally blanked on the name of the strange only-in-Hollywood real life character who hosted a public access interview show in which he’d interview stars, sometimes famous stars. The interviews could be pretty great, actually. His name was on the tip of my tongue. Jiminy Glick was basically Martin Short’s impression of him in a fat suit. I remember he’d been a child star. His and Dr. Franklin Ruehl’s–who is broadcasting on Facebook–were my favorite public access shows, hand down.

Skip E. Lowe. That was it.

This came up because John Altman and Terry Gibbs were talking about Red Buttons and I remember that Red gave a terrific, revealing interview on that little public access show, which I thought was pretty classy.

I miss the days of public access television. It was endlessly entertaining. I remember for a while we got WOR, the NYC station (well, New Jersey station).  I tried watching the NYC public access. It was appalling. Howard Stern was Shakespeare in comparison. LA’s was almost professional in comparison, though you wouldn’t think so until you saw the NYC public access. Back there it was a guy named Vinnie and a couple aging fat strippers talking about masturbation, out here it was all about the movies.

Incidentally, WOR’s local news was all New Jersey. There were always bodies dumped in the river and an angry Teamster named Sal who looked like Chris Christie but without his tailor. And Joe Franklin, who was New York. The show may have been broadcast outta Jersey, but Joe Franklin was New York. He’s hard to explain to Angelenos. One surreal night it was I think was Fay Wray and the 1910 Fruitgum Company. If it was possible to love a band, Joe loved that band. They played Yummy, Yummy, Yummy but to their credit couldn’t remember it, and it spluttered to a dismal end and Joe stood up and applauded them for the effort with complete sincerity. If it’s possible to love a band, he said, he loved the 1910 Fruitgum Company. They thanked him. You are New York, Joe, they said, yes you are. Joe beamed.

Actually I was on the Skip E. Lowe show one night. We were in the audience to see our friends, Oozing Thumb. Somehow Oozing Thumb were on Skip E. Lowe’s show, filmed in a club I can’t recall, somewhere in Hollywood. Skip peered into the beautiful people out there in the dark and saw this enormous hulk of a man. Me. I was big gnarly dude back then, strong as an ox. Skip had the camera pan my way. He asked how tall I was. Six foot five, I said. Skip shivered. He asked my wife if she liked her men big. She rolled her eyes. He giggled. Skip E. Lowe was Hollywood.