When The Whole World Reached Out For One Sweet Breathe Of Hollywood Glamour When It Counted-In Honor Of The Commemoration of 100th Birthday Of Rita Hayworth-When Broadway Was Broadway- “Angels Over Broadway”- A Film Review

When The Whole World Reached Out For One Sweet Breathe Of Hollywood Glamour When It Counted-In Honor Of The Commemoration of 100^th Birthday Of Rita Hayworth-When Broadway Was Broadway- “Angels Over Broadway”- A Film Review

By Si Lannon  

You know the Internet is a wonderful tool at times especially for sites like this one very interested in history, of everything from governments to holy goofs. Most of the time you can find out information or information comes your way when you are perusing for something else. That was the case last year when I was looking something up at the archives of American Film Gazette and noticed they were doing a serious commemoration of the 100^th birthday of ruggedly handsome and versatile male hunk from the 1940s Robert Mitchum. That information led to a full-scale retrospective of his work, or the best of it anyway. The best being his noir stuff where he is hunk style and manly ready to take a few punches, throw a few, take an errant slug or two, bang-bang a few too for some dame, for some femme who had him all twisted up inside trying to find the mystery of her. Fat chance of discovering that as a million guys since Adam, maybe before have found out the hard way, although usually not  at the end of some femme fatale gun.

Not so with the way I got the information about 1940s sex siren and maker of guys, who knows maybe gals too and not just lesbians or bi’s either although they can have their stares just like anybody else but in their own right beautiful women who will concede that she has bested them, steamy midnight dreams Rita Hayworth. I was in Harvard Square on some unrelated business when I passed the famous and historic Brattle Theater a place I knew well in my 1970s cheap date period and have probably seen more films there than any other place. But video stores, studio comps, and lately Netflix and Amazon have taken the place of going to the big screen theater for me for many years now just because it is easier and more efficient to see the films at my discretion. For old-time’s sake I decided to take an “upcoming schedule” broadside which was provided in a little box in front of the theater entrance. When I opened it up later there was one of the icons of icons of Hollywood glamour when that burg was the only game in town and when glamour meant something to eye candy hungry soldiers and sailors, airmen too, during World War II and their waiting for the other shoe to drop anxious honeys sitting in dark movie houses too. Yes, Rita in a 1940s provocative, although what would now draw nothing but a snicker from even naïve eight grade girls, sun suit with that patented come hither if you dare look that every guy, every cinematic guy, begged to get next to. Was ready to take the big step off for like her then husband Orson Welles almost did in the fatal Lady From Shanghai.   

What the theater was doing and was famous for in the old days when the classic no money classic college date world was when I lived was a big retrospective of her work from early B-film stuff as she made her way up the Hollywood stardom food chain to some astonishing dance routines with Fred Astaire making you watch her moves not his something hard to do believe me to the later femme fatale classics like Gilda and the previously mentioned Lady From Shanghai  and then the drop back to B-films and cameos at the end of her career. Since the theater had treated her to this royal treatment I decided the least I could was to do a retro-review of those efforts for a now glamour-hungry world. That type of “innocent” glamour will never come back, the world is just a bit too weary and wary for that to happen but the younger sets should at least know why their grandfathers and grand-grandfathers stirred to her every move, pinned her photo up on a million lockers and in a million duffle bags.

My own Rita experience is like many things in the film business when Hollywood was top dog, rightly or wrongly, second hand from those cheap date retrospectives and earlier, high school earlier with Allan Jackson who used to rule the roost at this publication. In those old Acre neighborhood days, usually Saturdays, we would hike a couple of miles up the carless road to the old Strand Theater in Adamsville Center and watch plenty of 1940s films since to save money Sal Cadger the gregarious owner of the theater on first run features from the studios filled up the screen with this older material. We loved it, have loved it ever since. Bang-the first time I saw Rita sa-sashing into her hubby’s casino down in Buenos Aires, I think that is right, and stumbles onto ex-flame down and out gambler on a losing streak Glenn Ford, to find him working for her old man. Electricity beyond whatever words I could use to describe that tension in the air which spelled some hard times for somebody. I hope the reader will get an idea of that is this series as we commemorate Rita’s 100^th birthday year.       

  

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Angels Over Broadway.

DVD Review

Angels Over Broadway, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, screenplay by Ben Hecht, 1940

The first paragraph below is taken from other reviews about Rita Hayworth although the male stars playing against her are different here. Except they all have a similar feature; they all are smitten very smitten by Ms. Hayworth’s charms. Join the line, boys:

“Okay, let me bring you up to speed on the obscure meaning of the headline. See, a while back I was smitten by a film star, an old time black and white film star from the 1940s, Rita Hayworth. The film that sent me into a tailspin: the black and white noir classic Gilda where she played a “good” femme fatale who gets in a jam with a no good monomaniacal crook. But that part is not important femme fatales, good or bad, get mixed up with wrong gees all the time. It’s an occupational hazard. What is important though is that I got all swoony over lovely, alluring Rita. And as happens when I get my periodic “bugs” I had to go out and see what else she performed in. Of course Lady From Shang-hai came next. There she plays a “bad” blondish femme fatale (against a smitten Orson Welles). And then a couple of song and dance films partnered with Fred Astaire." And now this film under review, Angels Over Broadway. We are caught up.

After watching Ms. Hayworth going through her paces as a femme fatale and as a song and dance partner in other reviewed films it was somewhat surprising to see her play a “hayseed” (Brooklyn-born “hayseed”, okay) trying to get her big break on Broadway, one way or another. Old Rita had been around but had not lost faith in humanity, or what passed for humanity in her circles. Now this Ben Hecht vehicle is very much in the old Damon Runyon Broadway gamblers, con men, criminals, drifters, grifters and midnight sifters tradition with a full compliment of failed characters, a drunken playwright (naturally, its Broadway) played here by Thomas Mitchell, a fast-talking wanna-be con man who knows all the angles, and all the angels (played by Douglas Fairbanks, Junior), the wanna-be gold digger with the heart of gold (Rita) and a suicidal embezzler.

Said embezzler and his problem are the focus of the film as the playwright makes one last bid at humanity and attempts to come out of the alcoholic haze by helping the embezzler make restitution, the con man makes his big bid to play with the real hard guys (and to play, fitfully, with Rita) setting up the embezzler for a fall, and the failed gold-digger (Rita) gets “religion” and tries to bring that wisdom to Mr. Con Man. Needless to say this plot is thin, thin if you have been immersed in the serious Broadway shenanigans of one Damon Runyon, and the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired.

I would put it this way for those of you who, like me, sometimes go off the deep end and need to see or read everything about something or some one that has stuck your fancy lately. Take this as case study in artistic development; as a first, halting, unsuccessful step by Rita in femme fatale-ism. That makes Gilda just that much better. Still even here Rita has her charms.

*Writer's Corner- Raymond Chandler's "Little Sister"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Anglo-American detective novelist Raymond Chandler.

Book Review

Little Sister, Raymond Chandler, 1958

Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's classic noir hard-boiled, fundamentally honest private detective forever literarily associated with Los Angeles and its means streets is a bit off course here in his search for the inevitable exotic/diabolical `missing woman' (`dame' for the non-politically correct types) in trouble in the Hollywood film glitter mill. Old Marlowe is going uptown here, or so he is led to believe. But it seems to me that it is more than the geography that off Marlowe's beaten path here. I love Chandler as a great writer with a good ear for the West Coast American scene in the 1940's but hasn't Marlowe followed that woman, or her "sister", before in a previous novel? Except that she wasn't an actress, or had some little devilish sister from Kansas. You get my drift. Old Chandler's Marlowe is starting to run out of steam in the theme department. By the way, beware of those Kansas women; they are hell on your average California rough-and-tumble shamus.

Sure there is plenty of sparse but functional dialogue, physical action and a couple of plot twists but Marlowe needs to think about that rest home for worn-out indigent gumshoes (since he never made enough money). He has taken one too many hits on the head for the latest worthy cause. Give me those background oil derricks that sound like money churning out the wealth while looking for General Sternwood's Rusty Regan in The Big Sleep or the run down stucco flats in pursue of Moose's Velma in Farewell, My Lovely any day. However, even on his uppers, as always with Chandler you get high literature in a plebeian package. Read on.

The Stuff Of Dreams- Harry Madden, “The Grifter,” R.I.P.

“Hey, Peter Paul, long time no see,” yelled Harry Madden, seemingly forever known as “The Grifter” in North Adamsville childhood lore, from across Commonwealth Avenue near Kenmore Square, or better for those who do not know Boston, near Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox, on a hot summer’s day in 1967. Peter Paul Markin, a little high and in a funk thinking about his latest also seemingly endless problems with Joyell, took a couple flashes to recognized the Grifter, not having seen him in a couple of years. A couple of youth-changing 1960s years so that the Grifter’s eternal sharkskin suit, white shirt, thin, really almost stringy brown tie, and pattern leather black shoes, shined to a mirror look see, short 1950s style hair, short, with no facial hair showing anywhere, seemed strange in the new faded blue jeans, ratty tee-shirt, long-haired, bearded, scraggly or not, hard rock night.

What was not strange was the Grifter’s request, or rather demand, as he crossed the street and met up with Peter Paul, “Markin, lend me a hundred dollars, I’ve got a hot deal, a hot grass (marijuana, for the innocent, or unworldly) deal going down coming in straight from Mexico where I can make a score, a big score, and be on easy street, finally on easy street just like I said I would be back in those North Adamsville days when we dreamed our dreams. I‘ll pay you back double, hey, why don’t you give me two hundred and we can be partners and split down the right down the middle.”

Markin, warily and wearily in equal parts, replied quickly that he did not have two hundred dollars but that he could see his way clear to lending the hundred, for old times sake, and because, frankly, although not every word of their conversation is being restated here, the Grifter held a spell over the usually rational Markin, and everybody else whom he had ever encountered for more than two minutes. That was the Grifter’s charm, and his claim to North Adamsville fame. So the pair made their way a few blocks over to Markin’s tiny student ghetto apartment on Westland Avenue to get the money, share a little something for the head(that aforementioned grass, okay) from Markin’s stash, and talk over old times. That was the last time Markin saw Harry Madden, blessed childhood Harry Madden, alive.

Who knows when Harry became the Grifter. Maybe it was when they, along with a couple of other Adamsville South Elementary School classmates, decided that they would sell Kool-Aid one hot summer’s day in the early 1950s, Markin was not exactly sure of the year but it was when they were very young, in order to raise enough of a stake to go down to Carter’s Variety Store and load up on penny candy. Penny candy being the po’ boy’s (and girl’s too) way of satisfying their sweet tooth by buying it by the piece. Things like tootsie rolls, necco wafers, mary janes (no, not dope), chunkies, and so on. Stuff that dear mothers would not throw by the bagful into shopping carts on shopping days.

Well, the boys set up the Kool-Aid stand without much of a problem, using an old wooden crate for a stand, placing cups, and pitchers of Orange and Grape Kool-Aid on display for thirsty customers to dare to walk by at two cents a glass. And that day was a very hot one, and the neighborhood kids had a great thirst, a great thirst for those pitchers of Kool-Aid coming off the playing fields behind the old school. Harry, and he was just Harry then, came up with the bright idea that they could increase their profits and make enough money to get ice cream cones rather than just cheapjack penny candy if they added water, and, well, really just diluted the product a little. And that night, as they licked their chocolate, strawberry or vanilla cones amid satisfied chuckles, Harry had a band of brother that would follow him through hell.

Maybe it was when the band of brothers was twelve, perhaps thirteen, Markin again was not sure, when Harry, now already called the Grifter, came up with the idea that they should pool their lunch money together and buy a lottery ticket. And to hear the Grifter give his spiel they would thereafter all be on easy street, and maybe have so much money that they could leave dreary old school for the has-beens (the Grifter’s term for anybody who did not get in on one his schemes, without questions). Sold, idea sold as usual, when the Grifter put on the press for one of his “hot” ideas.

And the idea was sold solidly when they “hit,” for twenty dollars a few days later. What the others, Markin included, did not know was that the Grifter had just said they had made that hit, what after all did they know of lotteries except as the road to easy street. The Grifter had used his own money as the first prize, and all the later funds collected from his boys that whole school year went into his pocket for his real scheme- working some shell game that he lost the money on when a couple of rough customers stole his dough after telling him the facts of life. The facts of life being in this case that Lefty Looney held the exclusive rights to who and who did not promote shell games in Adamsville. It was only by accident that one of the band, Bizarre Benny not Markin, found out from a cousin the details of the Grifter’s game, having lost a few bucks at it.

Or maybe it was just from the womb that the Grifter had some gene, some grifter X or Y or G gene, embedded in his life system that made him an such an easy mark for the lure of easy street, for the bright lights of “being somebody,” some easy way somebody. In any case, in the end it was not pretty, as Markin heard the story a couple of years after that Kenmore Square chance meeting (or was it), while the Grifter’s friends and family were standing around the funeral home talking about his various schemes over the years, and about how he could have been somebody, somebody no question, if he had spent just a little less time worrying about easy street.

Apparently Harry, Markin says let’s call him Harry now at least to show a little respect for what he could have been and to kind of wash the grifter thing away from his memory, actually did use Markin’s hundred dollars to finance a wholesale drug purchase (marijuana, ganja, herb, weed, whatever you may have called it then, or call it now), sold the stuff on the street, making enough of a profit to make a bigger purchase, and more profit. Things looked very much like easy street just then. And in those early days selling dope to students, young working class kids, and even adults who hated their day jobs was as easy as hanging around the Boston Common, whispering a few words, and having people flock to you like lemmings to the sea. Especially if you had the good stuff, stuff like Acapulco Gold and Columbian Red, and Harry had it.

Then, as usual, Harry had to go one step beyond, although if you follow a certain logic Harry’s idea was not that crazy, starting out anyway. See the streets were okay for a while, but the legal questions, the surfeit of dealers and the decline of quality was killing the street market, or driving it indoors. Harry, sensing this, decided that he would take his tidy profits and buy into distributorship, a free lance distributorship. In short, sell to the street dealers and go indoors himself. And for a while he was again successful but the two things happened. The drug cartels at the higher levels were squeezing the Harrys out and putting their own people in the distribution system, and were moreover beginning to push high profit cocaine more than weed, and the profit margins at Harry’s level for the good stuff (that Gold and Red) were declining. Harry could daily see himself sinking, sinking back into Adamsville oblivion.

Harry though was never short of ideas, especially ideas on the fly. Harry came up with an idea, actually two inter-related ideas. First, to raise more capital he would cut his dope, cut it with oregano, twigs, whatever, to his street dealers. Second, he would, cut through the system and bring his own dope out of Mexico. Now cutting dope was generally something street punks did, did for the weekend “hippies” who were glad, glad as hell, to even have the idea, the essence of dope. However for a distributor this was poison. Now a lot of people have the image that your average street dealer, dealing out of his or her pocket, is just a mellow head spreading the good news.

But see Harry was dealing with street dealers from the ghetto and barrio then and cutting product on them was well, death. And before long Harry was forced to leave town or face the unknown wrath of several important street dealers who would just as soon cut up a skinny white hustler like Harry as look at him. According to one report, one unconfirmed report but with the ring of truth about it, Harry was within a day or two of “as look at him.”

And, of course, by then Harry had, straight-out had, to flee to Mexico to get right. Of course as well in Mexico, Sonora, Mexico as it turned out, Harry found out to his regret, while one could have all the money in the drug world if one was not connected, and more importantly as the structure of the cartels was getting in order, not part of the distribution system you were out of luck. Harry, naturally, believed he was born under a lucky star, he was still alive wasn’t he, and tried to arrange a large purchase to take out of Mexico, to make things right in Boston. But see in Sonora every drug deal went through Pablo Sanchez, or it didn’t go down.

When Senor Sanchez, or one of his agents, heard about it (through a guy who worked for the guy Harry was putting the deal together with from what was gathered) Harry was a marked man. The rest of the story is plain as day to see coming and, moreover, Markin got pretty shaky telling the rest of it but they found Harry looking very much like Swiss cheese in a back-alley Sonora street, face down. Yes, Harry, R.I.P.

Note: Markin wants one and all to know that Harry Madden was a grifter not a grafter. Harry was no ten-percent man taking some small piece of some other guy’s action, and practically on bended knees praying for that cut. No Harry, like a true grifter, small or large, made his own deals, big or small, good or bad, and he was the guy who gave the cuts, if that was his pleasure. Got it.

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Stuff Of Dreams- Harry’s Dreams- Richard Widmark's “ Night And The City"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Night and the City.

DVD Review

Night And The City , Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Herbert Lom, directed by George Dassin, Paramount Studios, 1946

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip- synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) Some, like the film reviewed here, Night and the City, while not strong on plot line or femme fatale-ness (ouch) get a nod for other reasons. Little reasons like having a young Harry Fabian, oops, Richard Widmark, practically scream out his grifter’s dreams with his expressive face. And have that face, the faces of other characters in the film, and places beautifully directed and captured on film. Not bad for a B-rated movie.

But now to the characterizations that make this such an interesting and well-acted (by Richard Widmark anyway) film. You know, know deep in your bones, if you were brought up in a working class or poor neighborhood, and maybe in other neighborhoods too, the grifter Harry Fabian played here by Widmark, The guy, and it was almost always a guy back in the days, who was smart, well smart enough, friendly, almost too friendly, always willing to accept a little dough, a little touch dough for his endeavor, always with a little larceny in his heart, always looking for easy street, always looking for the short cut to glory, and never quite getting there. And always, always, having to be fast of foot, and fast of sneak away to stay just the south side of the law when that surefire scheme also goes south. That’s our Harry.

And Harry was the guy that your mother warned you about from early on to not be like or you would "wind up just like him." And that was the magic mantra that held you in check, for a while anyway until you got your own Harry thoughts. And if I had to visualize my neighborhood Harrys then one Richard Widmark, a young Widmark would not be a bad way to do so. No question jut-jawed, slightly hazy wide-eyed, made for no heavy-lifting, light of foot and made to slip into small dark places Widmark would make the top of any crime noir aficionados idea of guy that fits the bill in this genre.

And grifter Harry had a dream which is central to the plot. The dream like those of a million other grifters, drifters and midnight sifters, hell just every poor guy looking to get out from under, to get out from under, and to, as Harry constantly put it, “be somebody.” Yes, that's the ticket, and that idea drives the story line (and Harry’s angst). See Harry’s dreams, Harry's immediate post World War II London-set dreams are not earth- shattering to say the least, at least on the face of it. Just to corner the wrestling racket market and become an important impresario to the plebeian masses that throng to such events. Problem is, as is always the grifter’s fate, the market s already cornered, already sewed up and already underworld muscle-protected.

So Harry tried an end-around using the head wrestling mobster’s (Herbert Lom) father to promote real wrestling, that is Greco-Roman wrestling which is said head mobster’s father’s specialty. Yes, I know already you can see Harry’s problem a mile away, even if he cannot. Other than about twelve hard-core Olympic Games aficionados nobody cares, wants to care, or will ever care about Greco-Roman wrestling. Certainly not against the masked marvel, bad boys, “real” wrestling that is (now) driven by teenage boys (and teenage girls, a little). But that is Harry’s opening and he is bound to take it, working his “magic” on the father who is some kind of Greco-roman aficionado maniac himself. The clash is on, including a stellar defense of Greco-Roman wrestling in the flesh by the old man.

Of course like all old men who try to do a young man’s work he overexerts himself and dies after the heat of battle. Such things happen, but for Harry this is the kiss of death because as it turns out head mobster was fond of his father, very fond. Harry’s number is therefore up. And watching the scenes and gritty faces of the actors in the process of that number being up drives the last portion of the film and makes this a true noir classic.

Note: No femme fatales here, obviously, but there are women who enter Harry’s life. One, an unhappy wife of a mid-level grafter, wants to use Harry to get out from under her own heavy burden of marriage to said grafter. More importantly, and a little incongruously, Harry has a straight girlfriend, of sorts, played by Gene Tierney, who loves/protects him through think and thin. And who Harry doesn’t have enough sense to stick by, except when he is in trouble- needing quick dough mainly. It was painful from my own knowledge of such things to see Harry rummaging through her pocketbook looking for dough to make some awry deal right, to allow him to “be somebody” for another five minutes. Whoa.

"Ain't Got No Time For The Corner Boys Down In The Street Making All That Noise"- The World Of Whitey Bulger And The Early Boston Corner Boys

Click on the headline to link to a Boston Sunday Globe article, dated July 10, 2011 concerning the old time corner boy life in Boston, the time of the now media-saturated Whitey Bulger and his cohorts.

Markin comment:

I have spent much time in this space detailing my own corner boy experiences in North Adamsville, a town very close to Whitey Bulger's South Boston haunts, in the 1950s. This article explores that same world, just a generation before. More importantly, if you look closely at the picture accompanying this article that could have been a picture of Markin, his pal Billy Bradley and his other pal Frankie Riley growing up. Fortunately for Frankie and me (although it was a close thing)we followed the Tom Waits lyrics- "ain't got no time for corner boys down in the streets making all that noise." Billy (and my two brothers), unfortunately didn't listen so well.

Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Hey Guys, Crime Doesn’t Pay- John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” - A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for John Huston's, The Asphalt Jungle.

DVD Review

The Asphalt Jungle, starring Sam Jaffe, Sterling Hayden, James Whitimore, (and a small, but striking, role by a very young Marilyn Monroe) directed by John Huston, M-G-M Pictures, 1950

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) I have even tried to salvage some noir efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the edgy musical score, with more zither than you probably ever thought possible, as well). That brings us this film under review, 1950's The Asphalt Jungle, starring Sam Jaffee as the wizened, harden old con trying for one last chance at “easy street” with a big caper, and Sterling Hayden as, well, the “hooligan,” the “muscle”, the guy who has to clean up after, but also is looking for his own version of that easy street.

From the headline to this review you can tell that I have kind of telegraphed the problem here; crime doesn’t pay, okay. But that “wisdom” has not stopped a million "from hunger" guys (and not a few dames) from taking the quick plunge to easy street since way back, way back in phaoroah’s times probably. And it has not stopped Hollywood directors and producers from using that theme as the plot line for their cinematic efforts, some good, some bad, here very good. But in this film the beauty of the thing, despite the familiarity of the plot line and the predictable ending, is that the acting carries the day, especially by Jaffee and Hayden.

Doc (the role played by Sam Jaffee), old time con that he is, just released from stir for some previous big plan crime, had plenty of time on his hands up at the pen to work through his latest plan for easy street. A big plan involving knocking over a big jewelry store, having the merchandise “fenced,” and then off he goes to sun and senoritas, young senoritas by the way, the dirty old man, down in Mexico. Mexico before the drug cartels.

Such an effort need up front cash, and some major backing, to procure the master safe cracker, the expert wheelman and, just in case things get rough, the hooligan,(here Bix, played by Sterling Hayden), the guy who takes all the pot-shots for short money and also to secure a conduit to fence this high roller stuff after the heist. And that is where things start to go awry.

See, one of reasons that crime doesn’t pay, pay in the long or short haul, is that not everybody is on the level. Sure the safe cracker, the wheel man, and the hooligan, the “proles” are on the level. Especially farm boy Bix turned loose in the ugly, asphalt jungle city just looking for a stake to get back home to Kentucky and out of the city soils. Problem is the up-front dough guys, one way or the other, are not on the level. One has no dough (although it was easy to see why that was so since he was, well let’s just call it “keeping time” with a young honey, played by Marilyn Monroe, and even I could see where keeping her "happy”, and gladly, would eat up a guy’s wallet), and the other will wilt under the slightest pressure, police pressure. A few slap arounds and he will sing like a bird, the rat. But who had time to check with the Better Business Bureau when you are in the rackets to check the “fence’s” references (and bank book). Needless to say that while the jewel heist is pulled off, although not without complications, deadly complications in the end, the rest of the story is one where everyone in the theater gets the very painful message already telegraphed above.

Director Huston, however, is aiming at more, as he mentions in the introduction to the film, he wants to investigate that thin line between the bad guys and the good guys, and the good guys are not always the cops and respectable folks. Doc, for instance, is cool customer, and although he makes a few serious mistakes of judgment in whom to, and who not, trust he is a likeable crook. Bix, ditto, because he is a stand-up guy, gives one hundred per cent, for what he is paid to do, and does not leave his buddies in the lurch.

There is no real femme fatale here driving the male action forward to their oblivions but there is Doll, and Doll, Doll has got it bad for Bix, ya, real bad, and so the tensions between them help round out this film. Doll though never figured out the ABCs-that hanging around wrong gees, even stand-up gees, was anything but heartbreak hotel. But sometimes that is the way dames are, thankfully.

Note: I have on previous occasions needed to act the scold in regard to certain actions of the characters in crime noir films. Here I have to take Brother Hayden to task for not learning that crime does not pay. Hayden played Johnny in the 1953 crime noir The Killing, also a caper involving big dough, big dough from a racetrack handle and another perfect plan gone awry. The Asphalt Jungle precedes The Killing, so Brother Hayden shouldn’t you have learned by 1953 that these perfect plans, cinematically at least, are bound to go awry. Smarten up.

In Honor Of The Centenary Of Tennesse Williams' Birth-*Playwright’s Corner- "Fugitive Kind"

Friday, October 29, 2010
*Playwright’s Corner- Tennessee Williams’ "Fugitive Kind"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for American playwright Tennessee Williams' early play, Fugitive Kind.

Book Review

Fugitive Kind, Tennessee Williams, New Directions, 2001

“Hey, the message of the social gospel (Marx or Christ, or some such figure) is fine, but I want get mine now not in the great by-and-by.” That message, or my paraphrase of that message, may seem old hat, but in one form or another it has animated the characters that people most of Tennessee Williams’ plays, including this early effort when he was just starting out in the old St. Louis days of the 1930s long before A Streetcar Named Desire insured his literary immortality. Here Williams uses the time-tested devise of the flop house (also used in Maxim Gorky’s Lower Depths, Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, and in other places like in Norman Mailer’s Barbary Shore) that permits him to, with some emotional and psychic economy, look at the human condition without having to stir up too much trouble out in the mean streets of Depression-era America (1930s version, sorry).

Of course when one thinks of flop houses, or rather when I think of flop houses I think of “losers” of one sort or another. The marginal people whose very existence is a monument to the paraphrase above, including one of the key characters here hiding away in that anonymous space, Terry. Outlaws, grifters, drifters, midnight shifters, drunks, homosexuals when that was a closeted thing, leftist political exiles (self-imposed or not), and generally those who must live by their wits as best they can are the stuff of Williams fare. After reading the introduction to this play apparently this gnawing search motivated him from early on in his writing career. And this is great stuff on the theater stage, although out in those means streets such characters are as likely to knock you down for your ready cash as be “colorful”. Marx (and others) called them the lumpen element that parasitically fed off and broke down the solidarity of the working stiffs. The Paris Commune, in its short existence, declared “death to thieves” from much the same motivation. Tennessee Williams says let’s get the stethoscope out and see what makes them tick. And on the stage he is right. Read this one, read (or see) every Williams play you can.

On The Theory Of “The Most Oppressed Are The Most Revolutionary”- A Short Note

Markin comment:

As Bob Mandel pointed out in the article posted today, February 23, 2011, Lessons Of The Anti-War Movement: A Trade-Union Militant Speaks On The New Left, youth vanguardism was rampant in the New Left as the student movement began to swing dramatically leftward. I was fully in tune with that sentiment, at least for a while. What I was not tuned into, and as he also mentioned, was the other strong current coming out of the New Left, especially from those elements reacting to those of us who were starting, gropingly, to reach out to the working class was the notion that the “most oppressed were the most revolutionary.”

And the reason for my skepticism was not some esoteric theory but pure fact. I came from a segment of that milieu as it came to be in post World War II America- the working poor, the chronically unemployed, the unskilled day workers, and those drifters, grifters and midnight sifters, as my school days friend Frankie used to say, who fed off their misery. In short, the lumpen proletariat. These segments need a revolution; desperately need a revolution but their life circumstances almost preclude political action unless some bigger turmoils are occurring in society. A lot of the New Left glorification stemmed, frankly, from ignorance of the ways of life down at the very edges of society. And "Third-World-ist" book romance with Franz Fanon’s Wretched Of The Earth and a movie like Battle Of Algiers. I have written previously on the latter and will do a review in the future on Fanon’s work.

No question down at the edges of society that the substance of Hobbes’ observation of life being “short, nasty and brutish,” holds true, as a matter of pure survival if nothing else. The “war” of all against all takes concrete form there either by fear of the takers, or fear of the consequences of not being a taker. Either way the bonds of social solidarity are indeed very tenuous. I will give a very concrete example from my own life so that we can dispense with any prettification of this theory. I, in my very early teens, hung around with a bunch of guys, guys a few years older, from “the projects” where I lived who were into “jack-rolling.” For those not in the know about this activity it is very simple. Take one dark alley, or other isolated place, stand in the shadows or some other out of the way place with a Billy club–like stick (or other blunt instrument) and wait on some likely (usually an old or otherwise helpless person) and when your “target” comes by either threaten or actually use that club to subdue the victim, taking their money or whatever valuables with you. Nice, right? I was, given my youth, the look-out, or set-up guy. I didn’t do it for long, the lure of the library made more sense at some point. As for those other guys, some went to jail for other more serious offenses, some were killed down in Mexico in a drug deal that went wrong, and at least one died in a police shoot out. Needless to say no Bolsheviks came out of that crew. And this, my friends, from other stories that I have heard later, was not all that different when you changed the faces to black or brown.

*Playwright’s Corner- Tennessee Williams’ "Fugitive Kind"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for American playwright Tennessee Williams' early play, Fugitive Kind.

Book Review

Fugitive Kind, Tennessee Williams, New Directions, 2001

“Hey, the message of the social gospel (Marx or Christ, or some such figure) is fine, but I want get mine now not in the great by-and-by.” That message, or my paraphrase of that message, may seem old hat, but in one form or another it has animated the characters that people most of Tennessee Williams’ plays, including this early effort when he was just starting out in the old St. Louis days of the 1930s long before A Streetcar Named Desire insured his literary immortality. Here Williams uses the time-tested devise of the flop house (also used in Maxim Gorky’s Lower Depths, Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, and in other places like in Norman Mailer’s Barbary Shore) that permits him to, with some emotional and psychic economy, look at the human condition without having to stir up too much trouble out in the mean streets of Depression-era  America (1930s version, sorry).

Of course when one thinks of flop houses, or rather when I think of flop houses I think of “losers” of one sort or another. The marginal people whose very existence is a monument to the paraphrase above, including one of the key characters here hiding away in that anonymous space, Terry. Outlaws, grifters, drifters, midnight shifters, drunks, homosexuals when that was a closeted thing, leftist political exiles (self-imposed or not), and generally those who must live by their wits as best they can are the stuff of Williams fare. After reading the introduction to this play apparently this gnawing search motivated him from early on in his writing career. And this is great stuff on the theater stage, although out in those means streets such characters are as likely to knock you down for your ready cash as be “colorful”. Marx (and others) called them the lumpen element that parasitically fed off and broke down the solidarity of the working stiffs. The Paris Commune, in its short existence, declared “death to thieves” from much the same motivation. Tennessee Williams says let’s get the stethoscope out and see what makes them tick. And on the stage he is right. Read this one, read (or see) every Williams play you can.

Song From Popular American Folklore-The Walkabouts' "Bonnie And Clyde"

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bonnie and Clyde as video accompanying The Walkabout's song on the pair.

Markin comment:

See today's entry on the film Bonnie and Clyde.

From "The Rag Blog" -FILM / Danny Schechter : Stone's 'Wall Street' Sequel Goes Soft

FILM / Danny Schechter : Stone's 'Wall Street' Sequel Goes Soft

Journalist, author, Emmy winning television producer, and independent filmmaker Danny Schechter will be Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio on KOOP 91.7 FM in Austin, Tuesday, September 28, 2-3 p.m. (CST). To stream Rag Radio live, go here. To listen to this show after the broadcast, or to listen to earlier shows on Rag Radio, go here.

'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'
Oliver Stone's sequel misses the mark


By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog / September 27, 2010

Lack of focus on corruption mars Stone's new Wall Street movie. It's heavy on atmosphere, light on anger.
The lead headline in The New York Times is “Extensive Fraud Appears to Mar Afghan Election." The line below is "A Blow to Credibility," as if anyone who follows Afghanistan, a country known for blatant and notorious corruption, would be at all surprised by this latest “blow.” This “blow” followed an earlier “blow” a few weeks back with the disclosure of the crash of the Kabul Bank with $300 billion still unaccounted for.

In America, another fraud: CNN reported the next morning that the pathetic blonde beauty-celebrity Lindsay Lohan put up $300,000 to get out of jail. That’s the kind of story American media considers worthy of constant “Breaking News” attention.

When will we see the headlines like "Extensive Fraud Appears to Mar Economic Recovery" or "Extensive Fraud Led to Financial Collapse"?

I ask this question, sort of knowing the answer, after two recent back-to-back film experiences.

Last Thursday I spoke at a packed screening of my film Plunder: The Crime of our Time that indicts financial crimes and corruption behind the financial crisis. The audience seemed overwhelmingly positive except for one Wall Streeter in the house who insisted that while there may have been “ethical lapses,” no crimes were committed, an expression of a conventional wisdom that most of the media has reinforced without investigating any evidence.

At a reception after the film in Suburban Long Island’s Cinema Arts Center, several people told me that one impact the crisis has had on them is sleeplessness because of anxiety over whether they can pay their bills and avoid joblessness and foreclosure.

Ironically, film director Oliver Stone also had sleep on his mind, as "Money Never Sleeps” is the subtitle of his remake of the movie Wall Street. To my surprise, the theater was not packed for a film distributed ironically by the money of mad mogul Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox company.

After watching the movie, I realized why the right-wing Rupert Murdoch could be comfortable enough releasing the latest from the nominally left-wing Oliver Stone.

The movie built an “explainer” around a love story that in the end was as much about child-parent conflicts and pretentious philosophizing as the background of the collapse of Wall Street -- which is treated, ultimately, from a “we are all to blame” viewpoint. In many ways the movie celebrates the brash culture of greed and excess of our era while we watch Michael Douglas' portrayal of Gordon Gekko, known in earlier times for the slogan “Greed Is Good.”

Now, greed is everywhere, and there ain’t much we can do about it.

Oh Oliver, really.

Personally, I saw many of the stories I reported in my film turn up in his -- with even the same lines -- leading me to unprovable suspicions after having given my film personally to Stone with a request for his help months earlier.

How naive of me. We are in different leagues, clearly, and maybe on different sides.

In an interview on CNN, Stone seemed to argue that free speech is more of an issue than the insolvency of the banks. He became totally obsessed with the rumors that brought down Bear Stearns, an issue I explore in depth. Stone told CNN:

What I found out, what shocked me back in 2009, was that Goldman Sachs and those type of banks were really going long and short at the same time and were actually selling out on their clients. I thought that was shocking information to me, as well as the power of rumor, which, amazing. We show the power of that and how it can destroy a company...

I'm not so sure that's good for the system, although it's more transparent. But it does lead to circles of viciousness and rumor and hype and a stock, as you know, drops. I mean, look at what happened a few months ago, right? The market just crashed. So what's going to happen?

It does scare me, and I think it's the nature of the modern world, I suppose.
The following comment was on the website Ml-implode.com, where the intervew was excerpted:
There you go, "rumor,” mentioned as a causative factor 4 or 5 times; insolvency/leverage? Zero. Those poor, poor Wall Street banks -- they're victims, you know.
The movie dances on all sides of the issues, actually featuring an on camera cameo by Stone, of course and, Grayon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, who I quote in my film and book, The Crime of our Time, because he labeled the crisis “the greatest non-violent crime in history” Stone feigns to that view but ultimately rejects it.

Hedge Fund investor Jim Chanos, who I also quote, and who has called for the prosecution of wrongdoers, was even an advisor. It seems like he was wanted for his insight more on the atmospherics of the scene, not his demand for more perp walks.

Wall Street 2 features a father-son subtext as the young banker played by Shia LaBeouf watches as his mentor -- at a firm made to resemble Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers -- commits suicide after the company is brought down by rumors and dirty tricks. In the end he marries and has a son with Gekko’s daughter who, natch, runs a left wing website.

The kid is named Louie after the banker who died. Undisclosed is that Stone’s dad who worked on Wall Street was also a Lou. Clearly this movie was as much about the personal psychodrama of Stone’s life as many of his earlier films were about the ghosts of Vietnam. His movies about Nixon and W also featured father-son conflicts. The banker who died by jumping into the subway, Frank Langella, recently played Nixon in the movie about David Frost’s interview.

More disturbing was the film’s failure to call for any action. It starts with Gekko getting out of jail and getting back in the industry. So jail, in the end means nothing.

Many Wall Streeters interviewed about the film seemed confused about its message and meandering plot points. Most (including myself) liked the luscious cinematography of New York that even profiled Bernie Madoff’s former office, as well as David Byrne’s great music. Said former banker Nomi Prins who is in Plunder, “ I liked it until halfway through, and then it was a hodge-podge bunch of events.”

The pro-free market Daily Bell wrote:
Always, Oliver Stone seems a propagandist and apologist... One so successful and perspicacious as Oliver Stone must know generally where the truth lies. Would it be any news to him that the United States is over-extended from a monetary and military standpoint? Or that Fed money printing was the proximate cause of the economic crash. It should not be too hard to figure this out. The Internet is full of such analyses.
Critic Roger Ebert liked the film but added, "I wish it had been angrier. I wish it had been outraged. Maybe Stone's instincts are correct, and American audiences aren't ready for that. They haven't had enough of Greed."

Did those “instincts” lead to the pandering, or was it just the logic of the market or Murdoch’s neutering its critical edge with an insistence to “just tell us a story, Oliver, if you want this to be big.”

In my experience, audiences I met were furious about what’s happened to them and the country. Late last week Paul Volker warned that the financial system is still broken. Others fear another crash is only just a matter of time. This reality is not evident on Oliver Stone’s radar screen.

After my screening, a man named Milton told me he is active in the Democratic Party, but that the Dems will not really act against Wall Street. “They don’t have the guts,” he said. Can the same be said about Oliver Stone, who loves the Hugo Chavez’s of the world South Of The Border, but echoes CNBC here at home?

["News Dissector" Danny Schechter is a journalist, author, Emmy award winning television producer, and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs, and speaks about media issues. Schechter directed Plunder: The Crime of Our Time, and a companion book, The Crime of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail. Contact him at dissector@mediachannel.org.]

The Rag Blog

Posted by thorne dreyer at 11:00 AM
Labels: Banking, Corporate Corruption, Danny Schechter, Film, Financial Crisis, Oliver Stone, Rag Bloggers, Wall Street

1 Make/read comments:
Sherman De Brosse said...
This was a good review. The film sort of dragged at the end.

Stone left the clear impression that the financial system will implode again and again. The recent reregulation might cushon the shock somewhat.

I don't see much anger out there directed at Wall Street. It has been effectively redirected toward President Obama and the dreaded liberals.

You have to hand it to the Republicans. They are slick communicators.

They say no more bail-outs while they are getting ready to scrap the recent financial reform bill. That will guarantee that the taxpayer will have to bail out Wall Street again, and again, and again.

There may be a few dim-witted GOP congressmen who do not understand this, but I'll bet most do.

Sep 28, 2010 2:28:00 PM
Post a Comment

*A Tom Waits Encore- "Used Songs, 1973-1980"

Click On To Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Jersey Girl". Wow. Along with Greg Brown's cover of "Vincent White Lightning 52" (about a local motorcycle bandit, his bike and his Red Molly)this song are the leading candidates for the great, modern working poor/ lumpen proletarian love songs. In my own case, it was a near thing that I might have fallen into that life. It certainly had its attractions. Yes, it was near thing, indeed.

CD Review

Tom Waits Used Songs, Tom Waits, Rhino Records,2001

The name Tom Waits is no stranger to this space, particularly as I have recently reviewed many of his CDs. During that time I have reviewed both the early, more jazzy work that reflected his “night club act” approach and his later gravelly, time-worn, time-tested efforts that I always appreciate in any male singer (note, Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Howlin’ Wolf, early Rod Stewart, etc.). Here, as a Waits encore, is something of a “greatest hits” CD from the early days.

There are many classic here. I note “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, “I Never Talk To Strangers” (nice repartee with female companion), the sardonic “Step Right Up” (with possibly every advertising cliché that every existed) and the whimsical, although heartfelt, tribute to those Edward Hopper folk of “Nighthawks At The Diner”, “Eggs And Sausage” (Tom Waits, whimsical?). However, my favorite is the homage to young love (and longings for love) “Jersey Girl”. (“I got not time for the corner boys..., I don’t want no whores from 8th Avenue…” are definitely lines that will get my attention.). Yes, that is the ticket.


Jersey Girl Lyrics

Got no time for the corner boys, down in the street makin all that noise,
Dont want no whores on eighth avenue, cause tonight Im gonna be with you.

Cause tonight Im gonna take that ride, across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival, and Ill take you on all the rides, sing sha la
La la la la sha la la la.

Down the shore everythings alright, you with your baby on a saturday night,
Dont you know that all my dreams come true, when Im walkin down the street
With you, sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.

You know she thrills me with all her charms, when Im wrapped up in my
Babys arms, my little angel gives me everything, I know someday that shell
Wear my ring.

So dont bother me cause I got no time, Im on my way to see that girl of
Mine, nothin else matters in this whole wide world, when youre in love with
A jersey girl, sing sha la la la la la la.

And I call your name, I cant sleep
at night, sha la la la la la

"(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night"

Well you gassed her up
Behind the wheel
With your arm around your sweet one
In your Oldsmobile
Barrelin' down the boulevard
You're looking for the heart of Saturday night

And you got paid on Friday
And your pockets are jinglin'
And you see the lights
You get all tinglin' cause you're cruisin' with a 6
And you're looking for the heart of Saturday night

Then you comb your hair
Shave your face
Tryin' to wipe out ev'ry trace
All the other days
In the week you know that this'll be the Saturday
You're reachin' your peak

Stoppin' on the red
You're goin' on the green
'Cause tonight'll be like nothin'
You've ever seen
And you're barrelin' down the boulevard
Lookin' for the heart of Saturday night

Tell me is the crack of the poolballs, neon buzzin?
Telephone's ringin'; it's your second cousin
Is it the barmaid that's smilin' from the corner of her eye?
Magic of the melancholy tear in your eye.

Makes it kind of quiver down in the core
'Cause you're dreamin' of them Saturdays that came before
And now you're stumblin'
You're stumblin' onto the heart of Saturday night

Well you gassed her up
And you're behind the wheel
With your arm around your sweet one
In your Oldsmobile
Barrellin' down the boulevard,
You're lookin' for the heart of Saturday night

Is the crack of the poolballs, neon buzzin?
Telephone's ringin'; it's your second cousin
And the barmaid is smilin' from the corner of her eye
Magic of the melancholy tear in your eye.

Makes it kind of special down in the core
And you're dreamin' of them Saturdays that came before
It's found you stumblin'
Stumblin' onto the heart of Saturday night
And you're stumblin'
Stumblin onto the heart of Saturday night

*Tom Waits-The Early Jazzy Years

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Tom Traubert's Blues".

CD Reviews

The Early Years, Volume One, Tom Waits,

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

Good picks here are "I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute" and "When You Ain't Got Nobody". This compilation shows more of Tom's lounge act style and is a little more jazzy than some of his later work.

Tom Waits Lyrics

"Tom Waits I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute lyrics"

Well I got here at eight and I'll be here till two
I'll try my best to entertain you and
Please don't mind me if I get a bit crude
I'm your late night evening prostitute
So drink your martinis and stare at the moon
Don't mind me I'll continue to croon
Don't mind me if I get a bit loon
I'm your late night evening prostitute
And dance, have a good time
I'll continue to shine
Yes Dance, have a good time
Don't mind me if I slip upon a rhyme
Well I got here at eight and I'll be here till two
I'll try my best to entertain you and
Please don't mind me if I get a bit crude
I'm your late night evening prostitute
I'm your late night evening prostitute

*Rain Dogs- The Late Work Of Tom Waits

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Rain Dogs"

CD Reviews

Rain Dogs, Tom Waits, Island Records, 1985

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

This one is filled with great work. The evocative “Gun Street Girl”, the dark “Walking Spanish”, “Hang Down Your Head” and the title track “Rain Dogs” lead this parade.

"Gun Street Girl"

Falling James in the Tahoe mud
Stick around to tell us all the tail
He fell in love with a Gun Street Girl and
Now he's danced in the Birmingham jail.

Took a 100 dollars off a slaughterhouse Joe
Brought a bran' new michigan 20 gauge
Got all liquored up on that road house corn,
Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow corvette
Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow corvette.
Brought a second hand Nova from a Cuban Chinese
Dyed his hair in the bathroom of Texaco
With a pawnshop radio, quarter past 4
Well, he left Waukegan at the slammin' of the door
He left Waukegan at the slammin' of the door

Chorus:
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana
Ain't never coming home
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home.
Sitting in a sycamore in St. John's Wood
Soaking' day old bread in kerosene
He was blue as a robin's egg brown as a hog
Stayin' out of circulation till the dogs get tire
Stayin' out of circulation till the dogs get tired
Shadow fixed the toilet with an old trombone
He never got up in the morning on a Saturday
Sittin' by the Erie with a bull whipped dog
Tellin' everyone he saw
They went thatta way

Tellin' everyone he saw
They went thatta way.
Now the rain's like gravel on old tin roof
And the Burlinton Northern's pullin' out of the world
With a head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw.
And a Gun Street Girl was the cause of it all.
Riding in the shadow by the St. Joe Ridge
He heard the click clack tappin' of a blind man's cane
Pullin' into Baker on New Year's Eve
With one eye on the pistol the other on the door,
With one eye on the pistol the other on the door.
Miss Charlotte took her satchel down to King Row
And the smuggled in a bran' new pair of alligator shoes.
With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair, well
They tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire,
They tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire.

Chorus
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana
Ain't never coming home
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home.
Bangin' on a table with an old tin cup
Sing I'll never kiss a Gun Street Girl again,
I'll never kiss a Gun Street Girl again.

Repeat chorus

Walking Spanish Lyrics

He's got himself a homemade special
You know his glass is full of sand
And it feels just like a jaybird the way it fits into his hand
He rolled a blade up in his trick towel
They slap their hands against the wall
You never trip, you never stumble
He's walking Spanish down the hall

Slip him a picture of our Jesus
Or give him a spoon to dig a hole
What all he done ain't no one's business
But he'll need blankets for the cold
They dim the lights over on Broadway
Even the king has bowed his head
And every face looks right up at Mason
Man he's walking Spanish down the hall

Litella's screeching for a blind pig
Punk Sanders carved it out of wood
He never sang when he got hoodwinked
They tried it all but he never would
Tomorrow morning there'll be laundry
But he'll be somewhere else to hear the call
Don't say goodbye, he's just leaving early
He's walking Spanish down the hall

All St. Barthelemew said
Was whispered into the ear of Blind Jack Dawes
All Baker told the machine was that he never broke the law
Go on and tip your hat up to the Pilate
Take off your watch, your rings and all
Even Jesus wanted just a little more time
When he was walking Spanish down the hall

*"Frank's Wild Years"- The Late Work Of Tom Waits

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Frank's Wild Years"

CD Reviews

Frank’s Wild Years, Tom Waits

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.


This one is filled with some very experimental works like “Straight To The Top”and Frank’s Theme” More so than some of his other works this is a concept album, and it works. The high here are the two versions of “Innocent When You Dream”. Know this the song is one of the great modern love songs. Forget Cole Porter, Forget Irving Berlin. Hell, Forget Frank Sinatra. This is what the love story is down at the base of society without the fluff. Kudos, Tom.

Tom Waits » Innocent When You Dream Lyrics

The bats are in the belfry
the dew is on the moor
where are the arms that held me
and pledged her love before
and pledged her love before

Chorus

It's such a sad old feeling
the fields are soft and green
it's memories that I'm stelaing
but you're innocent when you dream
when you dream
you're innocent when you dream

running through the graveyard
we laughed my friends and I
we swore we'd be together
until the day we died
until the day we died

Repeat Chorus

I made a golden promise
that we would never part
I gave my love a locket
and then I broke her heart
and then I broke her heart

Repeat Chorus

*Living On Dreams And Train Smoke-"Mule Variations"- The Late Work Of Tom Waits

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Hold On"

CD Reviews

Mule Variations, Tom Waits, Anti, 1999

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

"Hold On"

They hung a sign up in out town
"if you live it up, you won't
live it down"
So, she left Monte Rio, son
Just like a bullet leaves a gun
With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
She went and took that California trip
Well, the moon was gold, her
Hair like wind
She said don't look back just
Come on Jim

(Chorus)

Oh you got to
Hold on, Hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You gotta hold on
Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
And a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
But you share my bed, you share my name
Well, go ahead and call the cops
You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes there's nothin left to do
Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you got to
Just hold on.

Well, God bless your crooked little heart St. Louis got the best of me
I miss your broken-china voice
How I wish you were still here with me
Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
You burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here, when
You're falling behind in this
Big blue world
Oh you go to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on
Down by the Riverside motel,
It's 10 below and falling
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing, a song called
Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
And just hold on.

Pony

I've seen it all boys
I've been all over
Been everywhere in the
Whole wide world
I rode the high line
With old blind Darby
I danced real slow
With Ida Jane

I was full of wonder
When I left Murfreesboro
Now I am full of hollow
On Maxwell street...
And I hope my Pony
I hope my Pony
I hope my Pony
Knows the way back home

I walked from Natcher
To Hushpukena
I built a fire by the side
Of the road
I worked for nothin in a
Belzoni saw mill. I caught a
Blind out on the B and O
Talullah's friendly Belzoni ain't so
A 44'll get you 99

And I hope my Pony
I hope my Pony
I hope my Pony
Knows the way back home

I run my race with burnt face Jake
Gave him a Manzanita cross
I lived on nothin
But dreams and train smoke
Somehow my watch and chain
Got lost.
I wish I was home in Evelyn's Kitchen
With old Gyp curled around my feet
(Chorus)

*A Tom Waits Anthology

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Waltzing Matilda".

CD Review

Anthology Of Tom Waits, Tom Waits, Electra/Asylum Records, 1985

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

This "greatest hits" compilation is just what it claims to be (circa 1985). If you need a Waits primer (and you should) you need to listen to the classics here. Tops on my list are “Diamonds On My Windshield”, ‘ Tom Traubert’s Blues” and his incredible paen to deperate young love, evocative of the best of Dylan in “Desolation Row” and some of Nelson Algren’s short stories about the love and longing down in the mean streets’, “Jersey Girl”. Wow.

"Tom Traubert's Blues"

Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did, I've got what I paid for now
See you tomorrow, hey Frank, can I borrow a couple of bucks from you
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And I'm tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English, and everything's broken, and my Stacys are soaking wet
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

Now the dogs are barking and the taxi cab's parking
A lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me, you tore my shirt open,
And I'm down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill's I staggered, you'd bury the dagger
In your silhouette window light go
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinamen, and the cold-blooded signs,
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows, go
Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

No, I don't want your sympathy, the fugitives say
That the streets aren't for dreaming now
And manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories,
They want a piece of the action anyhow
Go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

And you can ask any sailor, and the keys from the jailor,
And the old men in wheelchairs know
And Mathilda's the defendant, she killed about a hundred,
And she follows wherever you may go
Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace,
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on an
Old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchmen flame keepers
And goodnight to Mathilda, too

"Diamonds On My Windshield"

Well these diamonds on my windshield
And these tears from heaven
Well I'm pulling into town on the Interstate
I got a steel train in the rain
And the wind bites my cheek through the wing
And it's these late nights and this freeway flying
It always makes me sing

There's a Duster tryin' to change my tune
He's pulling up fast on the right
Rolling restlessly by a twenty-four hour moon

And a Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head
He's wishing he was home in a Wiscosin bed
But there's fifteen feet of snow in the East
Colder then a welldigger's ass
And it's colder than a welldigger's ass

Oceanside it ends the ride with San Clemente coming up
Those Sunday desperadoes slip by and cruise with a dry back
And the orange drive-in the neon billin'
And the theatre's fillin' to the brim
With slave girls and a hot spurn bucket full of sin

Metropolitan area with interchange and connections
Fly-by-nights from Riverside
And out of state plates running a little late

But the sailors jockey for the fast lane
So 101 don't miss it
There's rolling hills and concrete fields
And the broken line's on your mind
The eights go east and the fives go north
And the merging nexus back and forth
You see your sign, cross the line, signalling with a blink

And the radio's gone off the air
Gives you time to think
And you hear the rumble
As you fumble for a cigarette
And blazing through this midnight jungle
Remember someone that you met
And one more block; the engine talks
Whispers 'home at last'
It whispers 'home at last'
Whispers 'home at last'
It whispers 'home at last'
Whispers 'home at last'

And there are diamonds on my windshield
And these tears from heaven
Well I'm pulling into town on the Interstate
I got me a steel train in the rain
And the wind bites my cheek through the wing
Late nights and freeway flying
Always makes me sing
It always makes me sing

(Hey look here Jack, ok)

*"Nighthawks At The Diner"- The Early Work Of Tom Waits

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "You're Innocent When You Dream".

CD Review

"Nighthawks At The Diner”, Tom Waits, Electra/Asylum Records, 1975

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

This CD is another early Waits album with some now classic material . Here there are some monologues interspersed into the material that give it a very West Coast back street night club kind of feel. “Emotional Weather Report”, “Nighthawk Postcards” and the long intricate “Big Joe and Phantom 309” stick out here.

*"Small Change"- The Early Music Of Tom Waits

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Sea Of Love". Wow.

CD Review

Small Change, Tom Waits, Electra/Asylum Records, 1976

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

This CD is another early Waits album with some now classic material . “Tom Traubert’s Blues, the now prophetic post- Hurricane Katrina “I Wish I Was in New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward) and the title track “Small Change” stick out here.

"I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward)"

Well, I wish I was in New Orleans, I can see it in my dreams,
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me

Hoist up a few tall cool ones, play some pool and listen
To that tenor saxophone calling me home
And I can hear the band begin "When the Saints Go Marching In",
And by the whiskers on my chin, New Orleans, I'll be there

I'll drink you under the table, be red-nosed, go for walks,
The old haunts what I wants is red beans and rice
And wear the dress I like so well, and meet me at the old saloon,
Make sure that there's a Dixie moon, New Orleans, I'll be there

And deal the cards roll the dice, if it ain't that old Chuck E. Weiss,
And Claiborne Avenue, me and you Sam Jones and all

And I wish I was in New Orleans, 'cause I can see it in my dreams,
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me
New Orleans, I'll be there

"Tom Traubert's Blues"

Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did, I've got what I paid for now
See you tomorrow, hey Frank, can I borrow a couple of bucks from you
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And I'm tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English, and everything's broken, and my Stacys are soaking wet
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

Now the dogs are barking and the taxi cab's parking
A lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me, you tore my shirt open,
And I'm down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill's I staggered, you'd bury the dagger
In your silhouette window light go
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinamen, and the cold-blooded signs,
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows, go
Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

No, I don't want your sympathy, the fugitives say
That the streets aren't for dreaming now
And manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories,
They want a piece of the action anyhow
Go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

And you can ask any sailor, and the keys from the jailor,
And the old men in wheelchairs know
And Mathilda's the defendant, she killed about a hundred,
And she follows wherever you may go
Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace,
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on an
Old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchmen flame keepers
And goodnight to Mathilda, too