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Friday, September 27, 2013
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***Out In The 1940s Noir Night-
With Blonde Ice In Mind-Take Two
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Les Lewis, who knew her best,
who had been her benighted back door lover, probably summed her up best, summed
up the late Claire Summers, when he said he didn’t really know her at all, that
he had no idea what made her tick, if anything. He added that as time went on
and he got more of a sense of her outrageousness, of her outrageous demands and
her wanting habits he realized that she had no moral compass, no moral core at
all. That was the point where he started using the term Blonde Ice when
speaking of her, although that did not stop him from being entrapped, ensnared,
and enthralled by her. No way, not even when the bodies, male bodies, started
piling up before his eyes. What did he say, oh yah, she went through her men so
fast she didn’t have time to have her initials embroidered on their sets of
towels. Yah, Claire, Blonde Ice, take your pick, had a good run while it
lasted, a damn good run. Maybe, though it’s best to go through the story so you
will know how close, if you were a man, you were to falling in her
clutches.
Claire’s story, the story she
told anyway, to her fellows in the Frisco
Gazette newsroom where she held forth as the society page editor, was that
she was from nowhere USA like a lot of young people who migrated West after the
war, World War Two for those who are asking. She added that she was from
hunger, from the cheap mean streets of that from nowhere that she had come
from. She made it plain, plain as day, to everybody, no, to every guy in the
place, and elsewhere that the from hunger thing was strictly in the past and
that if anybody wanted to keep company with her they had better have dough, big
dough, and connections to the Mayfair swells, or leave her alone. That didn’t
stop anybody, any guy, in the newsroom from copy boy to city editor, or
elsewhere either from taking a run at her, a hard run. See she was blonde,
young, with a good shape, and pleasing, publicly pleasing, like a kitten. A
kitten that would scratch you, scratch your eyes out if it came to that, as
soon as look at you but that came later. Later when she got her wanting habits
into high gear, and when the male population of the West Coast seemed to be
dropping daily.
Here is how Claire operated,
operated up front and in public to give you an idea of what she was capable of
when she had her wanting habits on. Les Lewis who we have already met was the
editorial page writer, you might have seen his by-line if you got the Gazette and as we also know was, well, let’s
call it smitten by her, and she by him in a calculating sort of way. So while
she was waiting for the next best thing they stuck together. Hell he was happy
with that arrangement as long as he could be with her. But she made clear only for that amount of
time. A while later, maybe six, eight, months later this Carl Castle, a
self-made millionaire took a run at her. He didn’t have to run hard, not hard
at all because all she saw was dollar signs. So she dumped Les, forthwith, and
married Carl and his money. But see here is where she, hell, maybe all dames,
went screwy. She wanted to keep Les around as a stand-by, keep him around for
those nights when Carl was away on business, or she just wanted an off-hand romp. Needless to say a guy who was a self-made
millionaire didn’t get that kale by being a stooge, even for a dame. So when Carl caught on to
Claire’s act, caught on during their
honeymoon for chrissakes, he dropped her like a hot potato.
Or rather he would have if he
had had the chance. But Claire, clear-eyed Claire, was not giving up the gravy
train after what she had been through and so she wasted him, wasted him before
he could cut her out. Here is the beauty of it though she set the scene up like
Carl had committed suicide. Nice touch. And that kept the wolves, the legal
wolves, away for a while. And here is a nicer touch she took right up with Les
like nothing had happened. And he was so gone on her that he bought into her
fantasy.
Of course Les for Claire was
just a safe harbor until she could snare something else, and you know she did.
That is how strong her wanting habits were. So the next best that came along
was a high-priced lawyer, Stan Lewin, yes, that Stan Lewin the big corporate
lawyer for Ajax Consolidated up inSan Francisco. The guy who saved them
millions winning that big anti-trust case the government ran against them. So
Les was out the door, or half-way out the door, again. Poor sap, he had it bad,
as bad as man could have it for a woman and still be on two feet. Maybe he was
getting just a little wise, because around that time he started referring to
her as Blonde Ice around the office. Little good it did him once Stan announced
that he and Mrs. Castle were to be wedded.
Those wedding plans though were
Claire’s undoing. Somehow someone had gotten to Stan and put a bug in his ear about
Claire’s virtue and so he called the whole thing off. Mistake, Stan mistake, a
big one. See you couldn’t do something like that to Claire once she had her
plans set, set in stone apparently. And so Stan went underground, six feet
under. And here again is the beauty of
her mind she let Les take the fall for it. Set him up for the big step- off up
in Q. And didn’t bat an eyelash. Evil, sheer evil.
Les, and his fellows, by this
point were no fools and could see a certain pattern to Claire’s behavior, and
so they were ready to move heaven and earth to get Les out from under a murder
rap. However they were saved the effort by a very strange occurrence.
Apparently back in nowhere Claire had been married, a child-bride it seemed, to
some farmer in Utah, or someplace like that. This farmer, Clyde Smythe read
about Carl Castle’s demise and accompanying picture of his widow, his own dear runaway
wife. He headed to Frisco, armed, armed and filled with righteous indignation.
And that righteous indignation put one Blonde Ice on ice. RIP.
Oh yah, it later came out that
Claire had killed a couple of other guys on her way up. One, a guy who had been
pimping her off doing tricks on the cheap streets of Reno and she blasted him
one night when he was wasted from his dope habit that required her out on the
streets. The newsies figured that was when she developed the taste for the
rooty-toot-toot to solve her problems. The other guy was a guy from Vegas who
knew that she had wasted her pimp and was trying to blackmail her. Bad idea,
very bad. So maybe she did have her
comeuppance when Clyde showed up to even things out for mankind before it ran
out of men. But don’t tell Les that, okay. He goes out to Garden Grove Cemetery
every week to visit her grave. Some guys have it bad, real bad, and some dames,
good or evil, make them that way.
***Songs
To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-
Over
the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you
know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince
Brigada, Universal Soldier, and
such entitled Songs To While The Class
Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is
centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the
American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later
musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul
Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-
Blind Lemon Jefferson-Bad Luck Blues
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- Cotton Mill Blues
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs
To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-
Over
the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you
know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince
Brigada, Universal Soldier, and
such entitled Songs To While The Class
Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is
centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the
American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later
musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul
Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- Little Old Sod Shanty
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Big Bill Broonzy-Starvation Blues
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Dave McCarn-Cotton Mill Colic
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Big Joe Williams-Providence Help The Poor People
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Boll Wevill
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- Weave Room Blues
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- Bo Carter-Times Is Tight Like That
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Carolina Tarheels-Farm Girl Blues
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***SongsTo While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- Earl Johnson - Ain't Nobody's Business
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- The Arkansas Sheik
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Out
In The Be-Bop Noir Night -The Red Wind-Take Two
From
The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler
Old sailors, old tars who have
roamed all the seas, seven at last count, who have been in every port, been in
every port gin mill, whorehouse and greasy spoon, claim that the red wind, a
blood red wind coming from the land not that blue pink goodnight ocean sky wind means nothing but trouble, trouble with a big
T. Of course they assume all their troubles are land-bound but that is a
separate question. Their take is this, and maybe they are right, that those red
winds, the winds coming out of some Santa Ana enclave make people jittery, make
them nervous, make them ready to do each and every thing they would not dream
of doing in calmer times. Make Walter Mitty-types feisty ready to give hell and
brimstone class war to their bosses (in their dreams anyway), make docile
children rise up like Cain slayed Abel (and create mother pick-up messes worthy
of such titantic struggles, make sweet mother home-makers reach for some
rolling pin to level a miscreant, fill- in- the- blank. Make a woman practice
with her trigger finger maybe at that same fill-in-the-blank. Just in case.
Yes that ill-wind, that hell wind
seemingly from the bowels of the earth makes the citizenry of the city of
angels, L.A. town, do screwy foul things right up to and including murder if
need be. Philip Marlowe, the tough old gumshoe, the seedy, has-been private
eye, the shamus, found reason to believe those old seadogs were on to something
when the winds, the red winds, no question, blew across his city of angels,
disrupted the old time Los Angeles night, his night, one October week back in 1939,
back before the war made the whole town crazy with or without winds.
Hell, to think of it, who would have
thought that going out for a few cold ones, a few brews, to take the ever
present swirling dust off the night at a newly opened corner bar in the neighborhood,
the old Bunker Hill neighborhood where Marlowe called home would lead to
murder. He had sat on his stool there minding his own business nursing his
second beer when this guy Warden came in, came in looking for a dame. No, not
some bar girl or some street tart but an upscale woman looking like something
out of Vanity Fair and smelling, well, smelling of sandalwood. If anybody was
asking, just a faint whiff of sandalwood behind the ears just like it is
supposed to be applied. He asked the bar- tender and then Marlowe if they had
seen such a twist (his term). They answered no, although Marlowe wished just
then that he had. For his efforts in trying to meet that dame, for coming out
of the red wind night howling outside, old brother Warden was waylaid and shot
point blank by a guy also nursing a few drinks at one of the tables. That scene
made no sense under normal circumstances but in the blood red night something
was breezing ill.
Naturally, after the police, the
cops, in the person of one hard-nosed Homicide Detective Smythe who had no love
for private dicks as he called them, especially Marlowe since the good detective
had gotten his nose bent out of shape in the Gilbert murder case, finished
rumbling him up, practically calling him the perpetrator, or in cahoots with
the hard guy, our boy Marlowe was up for anything that would shed like on what
the hell had happened before his eyes. See, not only did that lamster plug
Warden but he wanted to put two between the eyes of one Philip Marlowe (and the
newly minted bar- owner too) to erase any witnesses to his dastardly deed. Just
for the record that barroom killing was nothing but a settling of old scores by
a guy, Detroit Red, who believed, and believed correctly as it turned out that
Warden had dropped a dime on him back East. A dime which sent him to Sing Sing
for a nickel on an armed robbery rap and is of no further interest to us.
Except this, Marlowe, for
professional pride, and rightly so, took umbrage at that notion that he could
be rubbed out for drinking a friendly beer in his own damn neighborhood. He moreover
was taken with the intriguing idea that some femme, some femme with
that essence of sandalwood surrounding her was out in the red wind night. Maybe
needing help, maybe needing windmill-chasing help, maybe needed some comfort
between the sheets if it came to that. It was that kind of night, and he had
those kinds of feelings. And so our boy traced Warden’s movements back from his
entry into the barroom, back to his car, back to his apartment, and finally
coming up with some clover, back to her.
This is the way it went down. This
Warden was nothing but a grifter, an ex-con with expensive habits, a dope
thing. Inhaling more cocaine than he was selling, always a bad mix. He had
landed in jail on some lightweight drug charge up in Oregon and did some time
with Richard Baxter, yes, the Richard Baxter who controlled the whole political
machine on the sunny slumming angels streets of the town. This Baxter,
obviously did not want that hard fact of hard time known around town, among the
many other little things that he wanted kept secret. Warden’s grift though was
to get to Baxter through his wife Lola, the woman of the sandalwood night. See
Baxter had picked her up on the rebound after her true love bit the dust down
Mexico way flying stuff (guess what
stuff ) in and out.
That pilot love had been working off
and on for Baxter as well until Baxter got wise to his old time flame
relationship with Lola so wonder if you want to about the nature of that plane
crash. No one, no one over the age of seven, would put it past Baxter. Warden,
a resourceful sort in a crude way, stole a certain pearl necklace of Lola’s to
grab some dough. In any case the pay-off to Warden was dough, big dough, for
the pearl necklace that this fly boy had given Lola as sign of undying
devotion. Lola was the woman Warden was looking to meet at the bar before he
died in a hail of bullets.
Lola, still without her necklace
after the aborted meet with Warden, then hired Philip to retrieve the item and
keep the recovery on the hush. Naturally Marlowe’s code of honor required that
he adhere to that bargain, and find the necklace which he did. As well run a
little off-hand romance with the lovely lonely, ethereal Lola. That dream about
downy billows with that fragrance worked itself out nicely once she saw she
could trust Marlowe. Baxter who had his tentacles everywhere in his domain
found out about Lola and the pearls, the potential expose of his jail-bird
time, and her little tryst with Marlowe and was determined to do something
about the matter.
Men like Richard Baxter do not get
where they wind up without walking over a pile of corpses and so he confronted
Lola and Philip in her bedroom one night, gun in hand. Somehow Lola diverted
Baxter’s attention long enough to let Marlowe to take a shot at him, a fatal
shot, taking a couple of slugs herself in the melee. She died in Philip’s arms
clutching that necklace. As for the necklace that old time fly boy love told
Lola it had been worth big dough. Philip found out it was glass, worthless.
Yes, Marlowe mused those navies were right, those dry red winds meant nothing
but trouble, trouble with a big T.
***Songs
To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-The Inkspots' I'll Get By
Over
the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space
of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince
Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could
include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come
down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the
odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain
amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Uncle Dev Macon -Wreck Of The Tennessee Gravey Train
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
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