It Happened One Night-Indeed-When Clark Gable And Claudette Colbert Wouldn’t Let Some Ratty Blanket Come Between Then-Except For That Damn Hollywood Code

It Happened One Night-Indeed-When Clark Gable And Claudette Colbert Wouldn’t Let Some Ratty Blanket Come Between Then-Except For That Damn Hollywood Code  

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

It Happened One Night, starring Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, directed by Frank Capra, 1934  

There is no question in my mind that the 1930s and 1940s were the Golden Age of screwball comedies with the likes of the director of the film under review the Oscar-heavy It Happened One Night  Frank Capra, Preston Sturgis, hell, even Howard Hawks taking a run at it, leading the way. Maybe it was the Great Depression and people needed a little welcome relief from their pressing daily troubles putting one foot in front of the other, and putting food on the table (one later screwball comedy Sullivan’s Travels made basically that same point. Maybe it was just the shear acting talent, direction, and script-writing coming together to form a perfect storm during the period0. Whatever it was It Happened One Night was the benchmark for later efforts.

Here’s Oscar’s why. Ellen, played by Claudette Colbert, is a spoiled socialite who for kicks, or just to tweak her father elopes with a gold-digger from her circle and runs away, or tries to, when her stern father wants the whole affair annulled. The “runaway” part is to reunite with that gold-digging husband in New York while she is stuck in Miami. Since her father, once Ellen flew the coop, had put an all-points bulletin for her return with a reward attached she surreptiously sneaked passage on a plebian travel bus. That bus trip with accompanying antics is where Ellen meets the wandering ex-newsman Peter, played by Clark Gable, who will provide plenty of action in trying to have her come off her high horse and get down in the mud with regular folk.

Of course the hijinks also include plenty of tensions between the pair as they do their dance around each other for a while getting in and out of scrapes which show Ellen at least that here was a real man, a man to challenge her in plenty of ways including her virtue. I wonder what really went on that night they spent in the cabin with the skimpy clothesline and a ratty blanket the only thing separately them. Might that be the “it happened one night.” See this film and make your judgment.     

Artie Hayes, Famed 1950s Hollywood Screenwriter Passes At 94 (1925-2019)-A Fragment Of A Remembrance

Artie Hayes, Famed 1950s Hollywood Screenwriter Passes At 94 (1925-2019)-A Fragment Of A Remembrance

By Sam Lowell

[Several weeks ago I mentioned in my version of a film review of an old film noir Clash directed by legendary Fritz Lang originally done in this publication by Sandy Salmon the name of the famous old-time Hollywood screenwriter Artie Hayes. I mentioned in passing as well that he had also been something of a bit player in a number of movies, especially if it called for a scriptwriter or other minor literary figure.

The specific role that I mentioned was from the Oscar-winning Sunset Boulevard. Let me just quote that segment-“If you remember that far back Artie, in one of his few basically cameo film appearances naturally as a screenwriter for a Hollywood studio laid on some serious advice to the William Holden character in Sunset Boulevard  about avoiding the high numbered residences on that street. Of course, the character didn’t listen and wound up face down in a swimming pool with two or three slugs in him courtesy of the female addressee at one of those high-numbered places.”

Somebody unknown to me saw the piece and forwarded me Artie’s obituary from the Hollywood Express. He had passed away almost unknown at 94 earlier this year out in a nursing home in Del Mar. That got me to thinking a bit about Artie and an interview I had with him from my younger days when he was probably at the beginning of the downside of his illustrious career in the early 1970s. This industry chews up writers and others very quickly, but especially writers and their ilk so over forty and you are a has-been. 

Since we are on the subject of Sunset Boulevard I should mention not only the bit role Artie played but how he “saved” the film when things were at a stand-still. As I will expand upon below Artie was the fixer man, the guy, and it was almost all guys then, who tweaked the plot-line when it was sagging. Billy Wilder, not known to like outside help, brought Artie in when he was stumped about how to do the opening scene. Originally it was to be an aerial view of Hollywood with Joe, the failed studio scriptwriter, the role that William Holden played going on and on about how he had made some serious wrong choices taking a job with faded silent screen actor Norma Desmond. Made a serious wrong choice winding up very death in her residence on high-numbered Sunset after she put a few slugs in him. Then cut to the back story-line that brought him there. Artie knowing that all those Boulevard estates had swimming pools suggested that the lines would go down more smoothly, would peak the audiences’ curiosity more having him land in the pool after being shot. Once they tried that scene and Artie sensed it wasn’t strong enough he had Billy have Joe graphically facing down in the water as the coppers get ready to drag his corpse out of the deep. Beautiful.

Artie did a few things around the middle too when the thing was dragging by having the “kept” Joe (by Norma) start an ill-starred romance with a fellow female writer more his own age which enraged Norma and set up the downfall and some suggestions on having the ending, having Norma coming down the stairs like it was an old-time vintage movie opening. But that opening scene magic which may have been the tipping point for the Oscar was the key. Sam Lowell]   

   

Artie Hayes, one of the last of the old-time screenwriters from Hollywood’s “golden age” has passed on at 94. When I say old-time I meant he was unlike the teams that work through the material today out there was what they called, a fixer, a lone wolf, a rare breed of talent who came in at high wages to work out a “hook” on some film that was going nowhere, nowhere fast and some producer who had sunk a ton of dough in the stinker needed him to get it in the can, and occasionally past the Hollywood Code censors. That Artie could do with his hands tied behind his back.

I knew him when I first headed west to San Francisco in the 1970s to work on a series of what were then called alternative newspapers, all of them now long gone except maybe the Bay City Gazette although the last time I looked a few years ago you could not distinguish it from a Hearst publication or maybe something from the Kane newspaper chain. I had been assigned by Ben Gold (still going at it at Literature Today which I write for occasionally, but which is also a publication a long way away from those halcyon days when the world was young) to do an interview with Artie. He had been in town working on fixing up I think one of those Steve McQueen car chase movies (which he did by cutting out three minutes of chase filler which had been making a test audience sick to their stomachs with the cars bouncing over the seven hills of that city) and had agreed to an interview. Not because he was some devotee of alternative newspapers, he didn’t know anything about them and what he did know he didn’t like being from the older generation and that even he admitted was clueless about the youth generation’s actions on the streets.       

The interview was fascinating for a young guy who was “faking” it mainly in the film reviewing business. Mainly reciting the plotlines and giving some banana ball twists about some scene or usually about how some actor, some female actor, was hot or not, or some male actor had no chemistry with whoever his leading lady was. Mostly filler since I was obliged in order to be paid, which even in the best of times was an iffy thing, to write about three thousand words to make my meat. In those days I was deep into drugs and booze as well (clean for twenty years now but it was close, very close) so half the time I would take the studio press releases and write a few opening remarks, slide in the studio gaff, and close with some pithy sentiment. Yeah, bullshit. But even if I had been stone-cold sober, had been a health nut let’s say I would have still not known anything about the inner workings of a film. Like what a fixer like Artie, was or the cut and paste done on most film scripts. Artie clued me in a little and gave me reference material to chew on. I probably never got all of it right but a good part.

During the interview which lasted several hours (and over drinks which were mandatory then in interviews with Hollywood-types) Artie gave me a ton of examples of what he had done, what he had fixed in his career. Of course the one thing I did know from my lonely and poor 1950s growing up was movies since I would almost every Saturday hit the local theater for the matinee double-headers presented there (and kept body and soul together for the afternoon with candy or pastry snuck in after purchase at the local variety store against the outrageous prices at the movie candy counter). That was Artie’s heyday, so I knew most of the films, or the plotlines anyway. Artie as did most writers in those days before Iowa Writers Workshops sprouted up never went to college, winged it but knew he could write. Just after World War II before the veteran deluge a young kid could catch a break in the studios. Artie did and as far as I know never had to look back.            

  

Right from the beginning Artie, remember this is Artie giving his presentation of himself, saw that to get anywhere, to make dough you had to get out of the “stables,” get out of the factory-like writing rooms filled young, ill-paid young writers with train smoke and dreams. He caught on first with the film Out of the Past from 1947. Maybe making a few dialogue changes, a little scene setting nothing big. But after a few weeks everybody knew the thing was sagging of its own weight. Not enough tension for a late 1940s film noir with femme Jane Greer and tough guy Robert Mitchum going down the silky sheets road and some foregone doom (unseen of course then). After Jane got her claws in him down in Mexico where she fled, and he followed her after being hired by a Reno gangster to bring her back they decided to slip back into the United States on the low. There was something missing though, some “drag” as Artie called it while they went through their paces on the run.

Now femme Jane was not above firing a few well-paced gunshots. she had done that, winged the Reno gangster in her getaway. Who knows with a gun simple woman how many before she had bang-banged when they got in her way, or she tired of them.  But nobody saw that side of her doing her evil work. Artie to the rescue to lift the drag but also to make everybody know Jane was poison. He had an originally minor character, a detective partner of Robert’s get hired by that gangster to find his partner and dear Jane. And the snoop does. Except things don’t go as planned for him or Robert. Not when Jane feels cornered. Jane shoots the guy and leaves a knocked-out Robert to take the heat, and plenty of time and space to get over his wounded heart. The plotline moves again with everybody in the audience knowing that these star-crossed lovers are doomed. Beautiful again.             

I have already mentioned the film Clash where the drag was that restless Mae had no female to talk to until Artie mentioned that Fritz Lang would do himself some good if Mae talked to her younger brother’s girlfriend who turned out to be a totally photogenic young Marilyn Monroe lolling around who added eye candy to a basic slow-mo plot that was heading nowhere once Mae took up with some grifter once she tired of her oafish husband married on the rebound. Not beautiful but a nice trick. Coming right up against the Hollywood Code he was the guy who had Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in that hot beach wave fade scene and you can figure the rest out to show times were changing. Originally Burt and Deborah were to stay in the car and Burt was to grab Deborah for some big but awkward embrace and that was that. There were many others and now that I think about it I will do a separate piece on Artie’s fixer man works.

[I was rummaging through my old yellowed printed page files to see if I had anything left from the old days on Artie Hayes. Those were times filled with booze and drugs, all kinds of both so my archival sense and skills were minimal-the only thing I found was part of some notes Artie made on the plot of Clash the one where he gave, unintentionally, Marilyn Monroe much more of a part on camera than she was to originally play. Yeah, Artie was the fixer man when that meant something. Sam Lowell]      

She returns to her small family home where her brother, a commercial fisherman, remember old-time Monterey was the sardine capital of the world, is enthralled by Peggy, played by Marilyn Monroe, who is a lot more forgiving about the fate of a lost sister than her brother who nevertheless lets her stay. While keeping a low profile as something of a home body her brother’s boat captain, Jerry, played by gruff and throaty Paul Douglas, a regular stiff comes a-courting. After a while, succumbing to a strong desire to have somebody take care of her, to be settled she accepts Jerry’s offer of marriage. Even in accepting Jerry’s proposal though she warned him that she was spoiled goods.           

Things go along for a while with Jerry and Mae, about a year, during which they have a child, a baby girl, but Mae begins to get the wanderlust, begins to get antsy around the very ordinary and plebian Jerry. Enter Earl, or rather re-enter Earl, Jerry’s friend, who had been interested in Mae from day one when Jerry introduced them. He, in the meantime, was now divorced and takes dead aim at Mae. And she takes the bait, falls hard for the fast-talking cynical Earl. They plan for Mae to fly the coop with the baby and a new life. [This is where Artie’s magic enters the scene-SL] Not so fast though once they confront Jerry with their affair, with his being cuckolded. This is where the dialogue gets right down to basics. Mae gives Jerry what’s what about her and Earl, about her needs. Jerry, blinders off, builds up a head of steam and in another scene almost kills Earl before he realized what he was doing.

This is the “pivot.” Jerry takes the baby on his boat. Mae suddenly realizes that the baby means more to her than Earl who as it turned out didn’t give a rat’s ass about the child. Having been once bitten though when Mae goes to Jerry to seek reconciliation he is lukewarm but as she turns to leave he relents. Maybe they can work things out, or at least that is the look on Mae’s face when she is brought back into the fold at the end of the film.  You really have to see this film to get a sense of the raw emotions on display, and on the contrary feelings each character has about his or her place in the sun. Nicely done Fritz and crew, nicely done.       

The Perfect Crime Busted-With Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M For Murder In Mind

The Perfect Crime Busted-With Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M For Murder In Mind

By Lionel Adderley

Ray Milland, the great English tennis star from the 1940s and 1950s not the famed Oscar-winning actor with the commanding voice and dapper manners, played his projected crime, his murder of his wife too cute. Did what every amateur criminal has done and had a plan, not a bad plan by any means, but a plan that just had too many moving parts. The kiss of death for any such venture. And the man who spoke those words Reginald Marsh, “Reggie” was a man who should know since he had spent almost half his life as a professional “hit man” for whoever had the dough and wherewithal to hire his services. Reggie used to laugh anytime he read a crime detection book where the perfect crime got snagged up in some not thought out item like forgetting to close a door which did the felon in. Did the same anytime he saw a movie where the suspect would build up and build up until that decisive climax where the villain of the piece would be nabbed for having his or her underwear on the wrong way or something.

Had had to laugh as well in contrast about his own experiences where he flitted in and out of airports (this before such events as 9/11 made getting through security more onerous if not impossible). He had gotten through a couple of times with a weapon so disassembled that even when the courteous airport security agents asked him what it was he was able to say it was a new invention he was going to a convention in hopes of getting venture capital to mass produce the item. Had passed through bus stations, and train depots without much trouble at all. Had had no problem keeping his freedom for so long by observing that one simple notion-keep it simple.

So one night when he mentioned to the guy sitting beside him, a guy he knew slightly, that the great English tennis star of yesteryear, of the war years and the early 1950s, Ray Milland had just been picked up for murder he figured that once again the plan was way over the top for what Ray was trying to accomplish. Simply in the end murder his wife through the legal process. The guy sitting next to Reggie, a mild-mannered sort, Henry Higgins, responded to Reggie’s comment by asking him about the known details of the Milland murder. That was all Reggie needed to hear as he went almost apoplectic to once again show how his “perfect crime” theory gone wrong by over-planning had been verified.    

Of course a guy like Ray Milland had certain expenses, had developed certain expensive habits while cavorting with the Mayfair swells who supported tennis in those days. And among the ladies provided the money and sexual favors that allowed Ray to prosper once his serious professional tour playing days were over. That was the bitch though. A guy like Ray, brought up on the British public school tradition and its finale, Cambridge or Oxford just couldn’t get used to living on high society hand-outs. That was when the no question handsome and surface debonair Ray took dead aim at Margo Kelly, yes the Margo Kelly whose father had all the dough in Philadelphia locked up in his vaults, and after some serious wooing took her hand.                      

The marriage might not have been made in heaven but for a few years Ray held off his temptation to bed every female Mayfair swell that crossed his path in the interest of keeping the money spigot running. Besides Margo was nothing to throw out of bed, at least at first before her (and his) ardor wore off. Then one day Ray found a letter from Margo to a guy in America, some kind of writer whom she had known back in the states, Robert Cummings. The letter contained explicit suggestions that this secret love affair was going to explode in his face as soon as this Cummings bastard hit the cliffs of Dover. The thought that after all the years of surface faithfulness he had been cuckolded by his wife and more importantly to place his financial future in doubt got him to the drawing board. Didn’t think twice, or for two minutes, about not doing the deed. Maybe it was depending too much on his Cambridge heritage, maybe it was his anger at Margo but he immediately went into overdrive in planning the caper. Made mistake number one right away by putting together an elaborate scheme based on anonymously blackmailing Margo over the love letter. Went way over the top there was no other way to explain it. Had stolen a Margo pocketbook some time before which contained a love letter and had been blackmailing her on that basis figuring she would come across with the dough rather than be exposed as an adulteress. Reggie speculated that Ray should have killed her, or better, had her killed by a professional like him outright then. Could have claimed some bogus over-heated blood-boiling bullshit that a friendly court might buy into.         

No, Ray let the whole thing fester until what he thought was an opportune moment when he made his worst mistake. Brought an amateur into the operation. Or if not an amateur not a professional killer. Seems Ray had been in his overheated condition looking for a “fall guy” to take the rap if necessary. Had been “channeling” an old rummy of a college acquaintance who had taken up small-time con jobs and midnight creeps, a guy who went under about six aliases but Reggie said he would just call him Smythe-Jones and that would do. Never ask a rummy to do anything, period. Ray’s idea was to blackmail this Smythe-Jones into murdering Margo in order not to be turned in by Ray to the peelers. Of course a rummy thinking about stir and having to dry out will fall to any scheme especially if there is some cash involved. And as Ray laid out the plan to Smythe-Jones he became all ears. Figured a big time guy like Ray would not leave him in the lurch.     

The whole fucking plan hinged on a key. See the idea was that Smythe-Jones was to strangle Margo in what was to look like a rummy doing a midnight creep burglary. But you can’t leave being able to jimmy open a window or a door to chance so Ray placed a key above the door to the flat for Smythe-Jones to use to enter, open a window from the garden to make the burglary idea plausible and hide behind a curtain in the study where the telephone was located when Ray made a call to the flat awakening Margo late at night. Then our rummy would pounce. One less beautiful Mayfair swell in the world. End of story.

No way, no fucking way. The whole thing went south. First Ray called late then, then half-drunk rum brave Smythe-Jones couldn’t subdue Margo and she killed him with a blow to his soft-boiled head. Christ what a mess. Ray was on the line while all this fiasco was going as Margo asked for bloody help. That is when Ray went into Plan B (Higgins mentioned to an associate after Reggie was long gone that he had never seem such a look of contempt on a man’s face when he uttered the words “Plan B” like there was no more heinous activity that a man could promote). He would set Margo up for the “murder” of Smythe-Jones using his, Ray’s, blackmail of his wife the past several months as the reason that Margo had had to kill the rummy. It worked, worked so well that Margo got railroaded right up to the hang-man’s noose.

See Ray worked some great moves to push Margo toward the gallows. Told Margo not to call the police until he got home.  Got home to do some nifty work like disappearing that guilty key from Smythe-Jones’s pocket into her handbag, putting that dastardly love letter that had burned a hole in his brain into the rummy’s pocket and best of all, an inspired move, getting rid of that so-called murder scarf  Smythe-Jones  was to use and replacing it with one of her stockings like she was sick unto to death of paying the bloody beast blackmail and was to finish it the only way possible with the sullen death of the blackmailer.

Some beautiful stuff, stuff guys will study for years trying to perfect. But the whole sorry thing unraveled in the end. That fucking key bothered the peelers and bothered this Cummings lover guy who fancied himself something of an amateur sleuth. So the day before Margo was to swing, the freaking day before Ray would have had it made, could have lived in splendor with every woman he could get his hands this Cummings decided to test the key theory. Found out that no way could Margo have had the key that Smythe-Jones was supposed to use to get into the flat to kill her. The coppers came into play too since one of their officers was not fully convinced that Margo had done the murder. Had been bothered by the key angle and Margo’s seeming inability to explain it away. So between the two forces opposed to him Ray had to cry “uncle.” That was all that Reggie knew about the case after what had come out after they picked Ray up in that high-end flat. Reggie told Higgins before he left a few weeks later that Ray would have been better off just slitting Margo’s throat after finding her and that American in bed together. He probably would not have swung for it in the heat of passion.              

That “left a few weeks later” should be explained. Reggie had been telling Higgins his simple art of murder theories while they were “bunk-mates” at Reading Gaol where the pair were awaiting execution. Reggie’s number had come up first. See, Reggie did not follow his own advice in the end and had only been enthralled by the Milland case out of a latent professional interest. Reggie had found his own wife in the arms of another man and like Ray had been outraged that he had been cuckolded. So he had hired a “hit man” to waste his wife and her lover. Except, acting in rage and not good sense he wanted to watch as the deed was done. Had planned it so that he would surprise the entangled couple in bed (in his own damn house which further enraged him) feign outrage, real enough as it was, then have the “hit man” come in and waste the guy, then her. While the “hit man” got away Reggie was spotted by a neighbor coming out of his own apartment right after the murders. He took the fall. Took the big-step off.  Jesus. Keep it simple.          

Memorial Day Thoughts-Phil Larkin’s War

Memorial Day Thoughts-Phil Larkin’s War     

Dulce et Decorum Est

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BY WILFRED OWEN

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Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, 

And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, 

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots 

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling 

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, 

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling 

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, 

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 

In all my dreams before my helpless sight, 

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace 

Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; 

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— 

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 

To children ardent for some desperate glory, 

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est 

Pro patria mori.

By Frank Jackman 

Those of you who know me and who have attended the Midnight Voices program that Veterans for Peace supports along with other organizations know that I periodically read some pieces about guys, mostly Vietnam veterans, guys from my generation who had a hard time coming back to the “real” world after “Nam.” Especially guys that I met when I was out in California after my own checkered military service. Guys whom Bruce Springsteen addressed in his powerful song-Brothers Under the Bridge. Most of the guys once they came to trust me, trust me as far as any guys could in that very here today, gone tomorrow world out under the bridges and along the railroad tracks of Southern California would want to talk about something, get something off their chests. Maybe it was about the war, maybe about some girl who sent them a Dear John letter which tore them up, and still did, maybe about the old neighborhood, especially if they were from the East and I might know about their town, maybe about buddies who got left behind in “Nam, whose names are now eternally etched in black marble down in Washington.

When I volunteered at our last VFP monthly meeting to be on the program today I knew I was going to be talking about one of those guys, talking about Phil Larkin, a guy from Carver down in cranberry bog country, down where the bogs provided work for generations of Larkins. Talk about him because the story he told me one night out in the Westminster railroad “jungle” while we were drinking cheap wine, cheap wine was all we had dough for fits in very nicely with what we are about here today. Phil, unlike a lot of veterans I met out West had had qualms about going into the service, had thought about jail, going to Canada, going underground you know the stuff a lot of guys from our time had to think through as we can under the threat of induction. 

He went in, went in when drafted and not before which he was very proud of, did the 11 Bravo route since cannon fodder was all they were looking for in late 1967, early 1968-later too. Took his physical beating, two purple hearts if I recall correctly, took his psychological beating which explained why he was drinking cheap wine with me out in some desolate railroad patch but that night he didn’t want to talk about himself but an uncle, no grand uncle, Frank O’Brian, whom when he said his name said it with a sneer. This guy, this grand uncle is why he wound up going into the service against his better instincts.                 

See Frank O’Brian had served in World War I, had died shortly after the war from some wounds he received during the war. Because of that, and because he was one of the few guys from Carver who had died in that war he had a square up by the town hall named after him, had a plaque stating as much. You know the corners and squares of most cities and towns in most countries of the world have such memorials to their war dead, needless to say far too many.  Probably you I and pass five, ten every day without even recognizing them as such, except maybe today or on Armistice Day when some organization puts a flag or something to acknowledge those deaths.

But see too that damn plaque was the final straw that got Phil into his olive drabs. Frank O’Brian was his Grandma Riley’s brother and when Phil tried to get counsel from that august, his word, old lady whom he loved dearly she tore into him said what would people think, what would her dead brother think if a Larkin/Riley/O’Brian son, a son of Carver did not do his duty. That ended any thought of Phil’s not going into the service. But you can see why he had that sneer on his face that night when he mentioned that uncle’s name. Maybe we should start naming the squares and corners of the world after those who would not serve in the military, the brave resisters who have languished in the prisons and stockades.  

Poets' Corner- On Memorial Day For Peace-War And Remembrance

Poets' Corner- On Memorial Day For Peace-War And Remembrance 

Not all war poetry can stand the test of literary greatness or longevity but it is almost all very poignant and to the point

The Search For The Great Blue-Pink American West Night-Part 32-With Western Artist Ed Ruscha In Mind

The Search For The Great Blue-Pink American West Night-Part 32-With Western Artist Ed Ruscha In Mind

By Art Critic Si Landon

Just then Bart Webber was in a California state of mind, was ready to chuck everything and go back on the road, the road to perdition to hear his wife, of thirty plus years, Betty Salmon, tell it when he went off on his tirade about the old days, and worse, the old guys, guys like Markin who had dragged him out West kicking and screaming. Now to hear him tell it Bart was the guy who propelled the sluggish Markin westward. We will get to the why of Bart’s new found interest in retracing his youthful fling in the bramble-filled West, out there where the states are square and you had better be as well on the way to the edge of the continent and the dreaded Japans sea for failure but first the what.

It seemed that Bart had jumped the gun somewhat because he found himself out in San Francisco, the place where he met up with Markin and some of the other North Adamsville corner boys in that fateful year of 1968 when he rode for a few months with the guys on Captain Crunch’s yellow brick road converted school bus come travelling caravan home, at a printing and media conference, what would be his final conference since he was putting his printing business in the capable hands of his youngest son who truth be told had been handling the day to day operations of the shop anyway and was itchy to run the operation himself. While riding on the BART into the city he noticed on a billboard that the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park was featuring a retrospective by the Western artist Ed Ruschua, an artist that Bart had always admire ever since he had seen his series on gas stations and their role in the great post-World War II golden age of the American automobile, the wide open highways and cheap gas.             

Taking an afternoon off he went over to Golden Gate and viewed the exhibit, a show that had well over one hundred paintings, photographs, prints and petro-maps. One set of photographs taken on one of Ruscha’s trips from his native Oklahoma to Los Angeles via the southern desert-etched route drove Bart to distraction as there he saw gas stations in places like Needles, on the California-Arizona border, Kingman, Flagstaff, Gallup, and a few other places he had passed through on one of his hitchhike or car-sharing trips to California. Saw too coyotes, Native American reservations, buffalos roam. Saw a series of prints and paintings of the famous Hollywood sign that told him the first time that he had seen the sign up in the hills that he had arrived in the land of sun and fantasy. Saw a darkly troubling painting all done in dark somber colors of the death of the Joshua trees in the high desert, a place where he had performed under the influence of serious dope inhalation the “ghost” dance with Markin, Jack Callahan, Josh Breslin and Frankie Riley. Saw plenty of photographs and paintings detailing the degradation of that part of California Ruscha had travelled through on those golden age trips. He was, well-known as a man not to show much public emotion, shaken almost to tears at the vistas that he witnessed. Could not get the thoughts of his old “hippie” minute out of his mind. (That “minute” then signifying that he finally came to a realization after a few months that unlike Markin, Josh, or Sam Lowell another late arrival in California from the corner boys who stayed on the road for a few years that he was a stationary person, missed old North Adamsville and missed old ball and chain Betty Salmon.)             

Here’s how the whole thing played out back then and maybe, just maybe you will begin to understand why Bart was shaken almost to tears for visions of his long lost youth. Despite the urban legend Bart tried to create lately around his role in sending Markin westward Markin, and only Markin was the guy who led the charge west. Had been the guy of all the guys on the corner who predicted, predicted almost weekly from about 1962 on that a big sea-change was coming and they had better be ready to ride the wave. They all, Bart included blew Markin’s predictions off out of hand because frankly if the subject around Tonio’s Pizza Parlor come Friday night wasn’t about girls, cars, money, getting drunk or any combination of those subjects they didn’t give a rat’s ass as Frankie Riley would say about some seaweed change.        

Things pretty much stayed that way all through high school although that didn’t stop Markin from his predictions especially when the blacks down south got all uppity (signifying that the corner boys except Markin didn’t give a rat’s ass about that subject either and maybe worse-around use of the common “n” word) and folk music, the urban folk revival minute as Markin called it, took off. All that meant and this was stretching it was cheap dates with girls who might “put out.” Bart was even less interested in the latter since Betty was still stuck in some Bobby Rydell crush and did not like folk music (and still didn’t so Bart only played it when she was out of the house). Stayed that way for a couple of years after high school as they went their separate ways except the Friday night reunions at Tonio’s to, well, kill time. Then the Vietnam War came on strong which they did give a rat’s ass about, wanted to see the commies bite the dust although except for Sal Russo and Jimmy Jenkins who laid down his head over there and whose name now is on black granite down in Washington and in granite in North Adamsville, they did not volunteer. (Those who were called eventually all went including Markin who lost a lot over there, had serious troubles with the “real” world coming back and in the end couldn’t shake whatever it was that took the life out of him.)

Then in the spring of 1967 Markin did two things, one, the fateful decision to drop out of Boston University after his sophomore year to go “find himself,” a characteristic of the times, of the generation, of the best part of the generation and the other, the less fateful but still fraught with danger decision to head west, to hitchhike west to California after he had read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road about six times and declared that now was the moment that he had been talking about all those Friday nights in front of Tonio’s. So he headed west with no compulsion, wound up hooking up with a caravan out there. The Captain Crunch yellow brick road caravan that would eventually be composed of at least a half dozen North Adamsville corner boys turned “hippies” for varying lengths of time. Bart was pretty late on that “train” didn’t go out until the summer of 1968 after he found out that due to a childhood injury that left him with a pronounced limp despite a couple of surgeries was declared 4-F, unfit for military service by the friends and neighbors at his local draft board. That pretty late also meant that Markin who shortly after he got out to San Francisco received his own draft notice and was an additional reason why Bart left the road early since he knew the ropes.  

Bart, despite whatever happened later, was happy to be heading out and once he decided to go he also decided that he would hitchhike out like all the other guys except Sam Lowell who to placate anxious parents, really an anxious mother went out by bus. Even Sam after five plus days on a stinking Greyhound bus with the usual screaming kids left to wander the aisles and the inevitable overweight seatmate who snored and despite a couple of pleasant days from New York to Chicago with a chick who caught his eye and whom he flirted like crazy with said later that he would have rather hitched than go through that again (and all his later trips would be done that way). Bart figured that although the road might be slow with the many false starts and being left in some strange places where grabbing a ride was not easy that it would be interesting once he got past the stifling East and Great Plains to see what was what in the West (that stifling Ruscha could attest to since he was nothing but a child of the Great Plains, hell, an Okie so he knew he had to head west in that big old Chevy Bart had heard he went out to L.A. in that fateful 1956 year when he entered art school out there).

Bart thinking about the experience, that first road out, that always served as a hallmark for every guy’s trip out remembered more or less vividly all those dusty side roads he got left on after his own trip through Oklahoma. Although the big Eisenhower-driven national security Interstate highway system made it easier in the mid-1960s to travel the hitchhike road than all the back roads and Route 66 that Bart had read about in Jack Kerouac’s travel the open road book On The Road that Markin made everybody read when they all were in high school even though he wasn’t much of a reader, didn’t think as much of the be-bop beats as Markin did who thought they were the max daddies he was waiting for even though by their time the “beat” thing was passe was old news, ancient history it was actually easier to get rides on the smaller roads where people could see you from down or up the road. In any case you were sure to be left off on more than one back road since that was just the way it was, nobody who was say going to Denver was going to let you off in the middle of Interstate 80 when you saw the sign for Cheyenne just ahead.  

Funny all the strange signs he saw out on the open back roads like  the mere fact of putting a sign up would draw people to your Podunk town , or your Podunk store. He had had to laugh when he saw Ruscha’s photograph of a town out in nowhere which probably had a population of less than one thousand but which had a sign documenting all the about ten church denominations that kept the good people of the town on their feet. He had seen more Jesus Save signs and the like than you could shake a stick at the further west he went until they stopped, stopped  dead the closer you got to coastal California. Saw more signs for cigarettes, beer, whiskey, dry goods (quaint), no trespassing, no loitering, no anything than he ever noticed back home. He wondered if people travelling through North Adamsville had that same feeling about his own Podunk town. He knew for sure that there were not top-heavy signs about all the religious denominations of the town at least not in the Acre where all you saw was a fistful of Catholic churches, Roman Catholic for the unknowing about differences.               

Had seen above all the signs that directed you to the nearest gas stations, almost a ritualistic sign that you were still in the golden age of the automobile, of the superhighway and of cheap gas. Hell even in North Adamsville right across from the high school he remembered the service station owners who had business right next to each other would have “gas wars,” would have signs out with prices like 30 cents per gallon versus say 29 cents. Yeah, cheap gas, and plenty of service too. Lots of guys, guys who needed to support their “boss” car habits worked as gas jockeys filling up tanks, checking oil and tires and wiping off windshields. Saw every kind of gas station from the one franchised out by Esso and Texaco to little fly-by-night operations with no name gas, a rundown coke machine that barely worked and bathrooms with stained sinks and broken plumbing and had not been cleaned since Hector was a pup. You had to use your own handkerchief to wipe your hands. Even some of the diners, diners like Jimmy Jack’s back home where all the guys hung out after leaving off their dates if they didn’t get lucky and wind up down at the far end of Squaw Road on Adamsville Beach fogging up some “boss” car into the wee hours of the morning had gas stations or at least pumps out on those long stretch deserted roads so nobody would get stranded on in the hot sun (and the owners probably figured that while stopping for gas the little family might as well have something to eat at the high carbohydrate steamed everything counters and booths).

Saw plenty of weird natural formations along the way getting twenty mile rides here from ranchers or farmers going up the road, fifty miles there from high-rollers taking the high side to Vegas, a few miles from high school kids joy-riding to while away the afternoon to avoid the dreaded chores that awaited them at home. Saw every kind dusty dried out tree seeking nourishment from the waterless ground. Saw rock formations hounded by the winds and sheered to perfection. Saw every color of brown, of beige, of grey. Saw too in Joshua Tree of a thousand tears, tears for the creeping civilization that was choking them away and tears one high doped up night when Markin and a few others channeled the shamans of the past in a ghost dance off the flickering canyon walls, hah, walls of brown, of beige, of grey. Bart never got over that experience, never saw what the white man, what his people had done so clearly even if he wasn’t about to do anything about it except load up on peyote buttons and ancient dreams of mock revenge.  

Saw above all as he grabbed that last one hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty mile stretch to Frisco town the refuge of the high speed road, the broken glass, the road kill, the busted fences where some fool had gone off the highway drunk or doped up so he didn’t feel a thing, saw stripped off bare truck tires blocking easy passage on the road ahead. Saw the bramble, the flotsam and jetsam of modern day life. Saw too though as he got closer to Frisco, as he could almost smell the ocean, the land’s end, the Japan seas or back home that the West was very different, that those who had make the trek, maybe were forced to make the trek were very different from the East that he knew. But maybe too they would have to run from a thing which they had built.

Later. after he arrived in San Francisco, met Markin, Josh and Frankie on Russian Hill and then joined them on the journey south for a few months (with a couple of trips back home in between) he would see Ruscha’s L.A. would see those luscious Hollywood signs, and would like any tourist from Podunk image that he had the wherewithal to make it as a star, or something like that name in lights. Got to know L.A. too well, couldn’t handle the freeway craziness, couldn’t handle the sameness of the endless strip malls, the endless rows of tickey-tack houses, couldn’t handle the sprawl that was turning a small town into a mega-town. Yeah he knew exactly what Ruscha was driving at, was trying to chronicle. Bot still he missed the opportunity to see if he did have what it took to survive in California, to have drunk in the scenes.     

And you wonder why Bart just then as he approached retirement as he approached his seventh decade was in a frenzy to repeat his past.    

From The Anti-War Archives-War And Remembrance- A Boston Veterans For Peace Memorial Day-(Updated)

From The Anti-War Archives-War And Remembrance- A Boston Veterans For Peace Memorial Day-(Updated)

A continuing cautionary tale

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Fritz, old battle-scarred and battle-weary purple-hearted Fritz Taylor, Vietnam, 1969-1971, Fritz John Taylor, RA048433691 to be exact, had to laugh as he made his way from Adamsville to the downtown Boston waterfront in the later spring of 2014. To the green jut of land Christopher Columbus Park, and that name, causing further bemusement when he first heard of the locale, could itself tell a big story about the old days of European-centered military adventures to the Americas and also to the days when the first Pilgrims like old F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Dutchmen on seeing the “fresh green breast” of Long Island  had the capacity to wonder about what the new land, to them, might bring forth, for what he was not sure, exactly, was either the third or fourth annual Veterans For Peace counter-Memorial Day commemoration (partnered in November with the counter-traditional Armistice Day, the original named reason for the observance in order to commemorate the armed truce which ended the blood-bath First World War).

Fritz had not laughed a funny laugh as he was prone to do these days when something struck him as unusual, but laughed out loud at the thought of a no-go, not even boot camp as far as he knew, commander-in chief of all the American imperial armed forces, United States President Barack Obama, suddenly warming up to his post-Osama Bin Laden kill authorization (after having , vicariously, watched the SEAL action in “real time”) very consciously earlier this day placing himself at the center of the Memorial Day action in Arlington National Cemetery trying to draw succor from the ghost of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. Talking aimlessly, or maybe better superficially, about valor, about the good of the cause, about the last full measure of devotion, and lastly, what war in the end is all about, saving your buddy’s ass, or he yours.

But see, to Fritz’s way of thinking, Lincoln at least had the advantage, the very distinct advantage, of not only having said those kinds of words and those kinds of sentiments first and therefore in a more free-lance, free-wheeling eloquent way but said them at humankind's hallowed Gettysburg in the wake of what turned out to the decisive great Northern victory (along with Grant’s Vicksburg victory) in a war, that by hook or by crook, turned chattel slavery times out the door.

What could one imperial chief, Barack Obama, today draw on for succor? Leading a 50,000 troop wind-down in Iraq [a wind-down fact to finish in  2015 in serious dispute what with the creeping “re-escalations” of recent years-FJ], a thoughtlessly unjust war if there ever was one, with more than its fair share of collateral damage, read American troop-driven civilian killings, and to call it by its right name, murder. Yes, yes, by all means Fritz Taylor knew, knew chapter and verse, that when it did not really count one non-president Barack Obama opposed George’s Follies but that was then, and this, this was desperately now with the latest headlines out of Baghdad announcing a 200,000 mass march calling for an American withdrawal post-haste.

Fritz Taylor, Fritz Taylor who had gotten “religion” on the subject of war, on collateral damage, on don’t give a damn about spending soldiers’ blood and lives since those lost Vietnam days, himself lost in some drug addiction time, some newspaper-strewn park bench time, some lost family connection time, took a moment to reflect on that fact, and to murmur softly to himself- Obama, Mr. President, since Fritz is putting things in a more kindly fashion now- get the hell out of Iraq, completely out, and stay out. [Ditto-2015-FJ]

Fritz had to laugh, and the nature of that laugh need not be repeated here, about how big bad Barrack Obama, whom almost every non-veteran of any battle, except maybe the battle for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008, or of the bar stool in some ill-lit barroom but those don’t count in real battle scars world, has been touted as some kind of Gandhian pacifist while constantly upping the ante in Afghanistan since about day one of his administration, the troop commitment ante, the one that really counts. And making that ill-conceived policy the lynch-pin for his whole world-wide war strategy, with no serious end date in sight (and no congressional oversight to stop him, according to a recent vote on the question of war budget authorizations-the real deal when it comes to war policy).

Fritz’s thoughts just then as well dwelled on the more recent, the more off-hand stuff, the several hundred drones attacks in Pakistan, the few thousand, give or take, cruise missiles (oops, that’s a NATO operation, he forgot, sorry) in Libya and the general policeman of the world carrying a big stick, a very big stick indeed, in the rest of the world. So he felt compelled to murmur under his breathe, no, really curse under his breathe, Mr. President, Fritz still being the soul of politeness these days, these got anti-war “religion,” drug- free, alcohol-free, stable home under his feet days, get the hell out of Afghanistan and stay out. [Ditto-2015-FJ.] And while you are at it, Mr. Obama, keep American hands off, way off the rest of the world, as he then saw the first of several white dove on black background Veterans for Peace (VFP) flags flying in the wind down near the ferry docks adjacent to this Columbus honor park.

And although a moment ago he raged with grievous anger at the American imperial state and its two-bit sheriff (oops, sorry again, President) he felt calmer, as he always felt calmer, when he spied the white-doved, black-background flags because that meant kindred, mainly Vietnam-era kindred but sprinkles of others as well. Guys, mostly, and a few women as well, now graying guys, seriously graying guys, now walking a little more haltingly due to life’s toll, now maybe not in that tip-top shape that made them prime Grade A cannon fodder back in the days, who had been through battles, real battles and post-war battles, some of them anyway just like him, whom he always argued had more than enough “cred” when anti-war talk time came around. And others, other anti-warriors, who only credentials were some well-written papers, some well-spoken speech, or a safely-protected street march in some big or middle-sized American city or town who knew, knew deep in their hearts that Fritz’s point was true. And they were deferential, sometimes just a little too paternally or maternally deferential, when the big brassy white flag-draped veterans came marching their way.

Oh sure, this third (or was it fourth) commemoration was not well-attended, maybe a hundred, not the thousands standing on those big and mid-sized city and town street corners, or walking past those benighted American flag-bedecked blessed sweet good night grave sites with their complements of still-grieving kin, but this place, this momentarily hallowed anti-war place is not measured by numbers this day but by remembrance, hard-earned remembrance, hard-earned rage against the night cannon fodder-used and folly remembrance. And, oh sure, the speeches, the speeches by those graying activists, with just the barest sprinkle of newer Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans, were directed at that hundred angel choir of kindred. And Fritz, having heard every anti-war argument before, having heard every political prisoner Private Bradley Manning story before [Now Chelsea to reflect her newer female sexual identity self, still a private but also still since her conviction in 2013 serving a thirty-five sentence for, in the end, spilling the beans about American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan mostly graphically and sickeningly the video called “Collateral Murder”], [Now mercifully released via last minute commutation of sentence by that same Obama whose administration went after whistle-blowers with a vengeance.] having heard about the collateral damage, foreign division, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Palestine, civilian horror story before; and every collateral damage, domestic division, devastated military families story before still drank in the words. And said his fair share of old-time protest “right on,” brother, or sister. And yelled loudly and proudly, “Free Bradley Manning.” [Chelsea now] Yes, these days Bradley [Chelsea] Manning’s fight is us, our younger fighting spirit us. The torch has now been passed to the new guys, and the core of that couple of hours as well. Fritz Taylor just for that moment felt ten feet tall for having made this day’s journey. He was charged-up again.

On the way home, or rather on the way to meet, over near the Adamsville River, his better other, Lillian, his “sweet pea” he had named her for her sunny disposition, and her tough determination to give him a home to feel planted in and, early on, a little anti-war “religion” bump start too he passed, as thinking about it later he should have expected, a very different Memorial Day celebration sponsored by the Adamsville Veterans Of Foreign Wars (VFW). Before he got “religion” he had spent many a cheap drinks drinking hour at that same VFW hall, or the American Legion hall farther up the street, and had thought nothing of retelling many bar stool battle stories to anyone who would listen. And listen they did because Fritz had another kind of “cred” in those days, battle-tested credentials, as against the state-side duty and or rear area supply sergeants that populate these VFW and American Legion barrooms.


But right now he was chagrined at this tactless “celebration” going on before his eyes, complete with family-friendly barbecue, pony rides and merry-go-round for the kids, and more thoughtless, neglected and discarded American flags than one could shake a stick at. Those quickly passed scenes momentarily brought back to Fritz’s mind ancient unhealed, unheal-able, wounds, and ancient, also unheal-able, angers as well. What was not ancient, although also unheal-able, was when, as he quietly passed by, some long-in-the-tooth ex- supply sergeant VFW honcho noticed Fritz’s still shirt-pinned buttons calling for Obamian troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and freedom for Private Bradley [Chelsea] Manning and called him a “commie”. Fritz thought, Jesus, where has this guy been the past twenty years or so but he also reflected, especially seeing the kids unconsciously drink in the warrior atmospherics that went with this celebration, that charged-up or not, he still had a hell of a lot of work to do. A hell of a lot.