The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Blues Ain’t Nothing But A Good Woman On Your Mind- “The Best Of The Chicago Blues”

A YouTube film clip of Muddy Water's performing his classic Chicago blues tune, Mannish Boy.

[I have decided to cast the rumor mill struggle to the wind after this last blast since I really do want to comment in these introductions about how they came about or what incidents from back in the 1950s and 1960s brought them to mind. If the reader does not know why I am chucking the rumor mill it has to do with my demise as site manager of this site and my subsequent “disappearance” to the West (as Jim Morrison of The Doors said in one of his signature songs The End “the West is the best, get here and we will do the right”) to find work when I was frozen out of the publishing business in the East as the kiss of death “hard to work with.” The rumors flew fast and furious as everything from I was done in by the “victors” in the internal struggle that I lost like we were back Stalin-Trotsky times to my appointment as Utah (now Utah anyway) Senatorial candidate Mitt Romney’s press secretary to my “pimping” some surfer girl waitress out in La Jolla (I did meet a surfer girl waitress, Damask, but I wasn’t pimping her for the real story see the last published part of this series dated March 19, 2018) to living with a drag queen in San Francisco getting sky high on opium. (See that same archive story for the real deal on that.)

So there is no wonder that I have had it with defending myself against the water cooler rumor mill here and in half the publications in the East from people trying to besmirch my reputation and to enhance their own. I knew I was doomed when somebody I think from Women Today stated flat out that my surfer girl defense story was made of whole cloth and that I probably did take advantage of the young woman to make some money so I could get out from under some alimony and college tuition payments (that young women by the way was not some naïve twenty-something although she admittedly look younger than her thirty-something years and is working on her degree in physical therapy). The writer was trying to tar me with the same brush as all the big time celebrity sexual predators who have been hung out to dry in the recent past and maybe rightly so. Reason. I did not let Damask tell her side of the story. Jesus what is this supposed to be a police gazette tabloid complete with lurid fuzzy photographs.

You know Seth Garth a film reviewer here had it right in a recent review of a James Bond 007 film (why this Bond series is being reviewed is beyond me but I will let it pass) where he got embroiled in the middle of a “controversy” about who played the James Bond role cinematically in the long 50^th plus years of the series when he mentioned that the film review profession was dog eat dog. That every reviewer is always angling to move up the food chain by downgrading the opinions of the competition, even though who work for the same outfit.

What you may not know is that at the publication level, among publishers, hard copy or these days on-line, that same fierce dog eat dog ethos applies as well. Except the publishers do a lot of things by indirection, a lot by having their stooge writers take up the cudgels against the opposition and do what they can to diminish whatever is being put out by those publications. This is where I think that attack from Women Today is coming from. See a long time ago Leslie Dumont was a stringer here when she was Josh Breslin’s companion and feeling, maybe rightly frustrated she left for a by-line in Women Today. Recently she was “lured” back to this publication and in time-honored tradition she had been bad-mouthed as now incapable of writing a complete English sentence, stuff like that. Naturally to get at me, a man well known in the industry as a founder of this publication, since I no longer run things they took a run at a simple introduction to defend myself against some pretty loony charges like “pimping” for a surfer girl out West. That gives you an idea of the general climate in the industry these days and why I have thrown in the towel in trying to scotch every half-baked rumor that has come down the pike.             

There are a couple of very nasty rumors I want to mention and be done with this and put me to the rack if you want but let me just finish this series with some serious insights and not blather. While I was explaining my relationship with that surfer girl, with Damask, I mentioned that I actually did need money and so after she and I agreed that she would come East at some point when I was settled I went up to San Francisco to see if I could raise some money from two sources-Miss Judy Garland, a drag queen who I have known since he was Timmy Riley back in the old working class Acre neighborhood in growing up town and who I sent money to for years to keep her nightclub afloat and a gal I know going back to Summer of Love, 1967 days out in San Francisco who subsequently became Madame La Rue running a high end brothel for mostly Asian businessman with a kink for the wild side in Frisco town. I have helped her as well. As I noted in the last posting I got most of the money from Miss Judy but I also got some from the woman known as Madame Le Rue. On the basis of that kindness I was accused of helping her run a whorehouse in any place from Buenos Aires to Hong Kong. Jesus.             

All the previous rumors though went to my reputation, went to my standing in the industry and such but the worse rumor of all since it involves my legal situation is the vile rumor that I was “fronting” or “muling” for some Mexican drug cartel looking to broaden their markets in American and I was to be a prime distributor. Frankly I don’t know what to say about this except I think Jack Callahan hit it right on the head. I might have been a big dope-imbiber back in the day, may have done a little dealing/swapping when I needed dough for something but that is ancient history. But the number one thing that would have prohibited me from even thinking about doing some kind of deal with some nefarious cartel is the fate of my, our old friend from the Acre the Scribe, Peter Paul Markin who for a whole lot of reasons which I will not go into now since others have written about the subject already went off the tracks in the mid-1970s and while trying to get out from under wound up with a couple of slugs to the head in some back alley in Sonora, Mexico and a potter’s field grave there. Allan Jackson]          

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CD Review

The Best Of The Chicago Blues, various artists, Vanguard Records, 1987

Johnny Prescott daydreamed his way through the music that he was listening to just then on the little transistor that Ma Prescott, Martha to adults, had given him for Christmas after he has taken a fit when she quite reasonable suggested that a new set of ties to go with his white long-sleeved shirts might be a better gift, a better Christmas gift and more practical too, for a sixteen year old boy. No, he screamed he wanted a radio, a transistor radio, batteries included, of his own so that he could listen to whatever he liked up in his room, or wherever he was, and didn’t have, understand, didn’t have to listen to some Vaughn Monroe or Harry James 1940s war drum thing on the huge immobile radio downstairs in the Prescott living room. Strictly squaresville, cubed.

But as he listened to this the Shangra-la by The Four Coins that just finished up a few seconds ago and as this Banana Boat song by The Tarriers was starting its dreary trip he was not sure that those ties wouldn’t have been a better deal, and more practical too. Ya, this so-called rock station, WAPX, had sold out to, well, sold out to somebody, because except for late at night, midnight late at night, one could not hear the likes of Jerry Lee, Carl, Little Richard, Fats, and the new, now that Elvis was gone, killer rocker, Chuck Berry who proclaimed loud and clear that Mr. Beethoven had better move alone, and said Mr. Beethoven best tell one and all of his confederates, including Mr. Tchaikovsky that rock ‘n’ roll was the new sheriff in town. As he turned the volume down a little lower (that tells the tale right there, friends) as Rainbow (where the hell do they get these creepy songs from) by Russ Hamilton he was ready to throw in the towel though.

Desperate he fingered the dial looking for some other station when he heard this crazy piano riff starting to breeze through the night air, the heated night air, and all of a sudden Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 blasted the airwaves. But funny it didn’t sound like the whinny Ike’s voice so he listened for a little longer, and as he later found out from the DJ it was actually a James Cotton Blues Band cover. After that performance was finished fish-tailing right after that one was a huge harmonica intro and what could only be mad-hatter Junior Wells doing When My Baby Left Me splashed through. No need to turn the dial further now because what Johnny Prescott had found in the crazy night air, radio beams bouncing every which way, was direct from Chicago, and maybe right off those hard-hearted Maxwell streets was Be-Bop Benny’s Chicago Blues Radio Hour. Be-Bop Benny who started Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino on their careers, or helped.

Now Johnny, like every young high-schooler, every "with it" high schooler in the USA, had heard of this show, because even though everybody was crazy for rock and roll, just now the airwaves sounded like, well, sounded like music your parents would dance to, no, sit to at a dance, some kids still craved high rock. So this show was known mainly through the teenage grapevine but Johnny had never heard it because, no way, no way in hell was his punk little Radio Shack transistor radio with two dinky batteries going to have even strength to pick Be-Bop Benny’s live show out in Chicago. So Johnny, and maybe rightly so, took this turn of events for a sign. And so when he heard that distinctive tinkle of the Otis Spann piano warming up to Spann’s Stomp and up with his Someday added in he was hooked. And you know he started to see what Billie, Billie Bradley from over in Adamsville, meant when at a school dance where he had been performing with his band, Billie and the Jets, he mentioned that if you want to get rock and roll back you had better listen to blues, and if you want to listen to blues, blues that rock then you had very definitely had better get in touch with the Chicago blues as they came north from Mississippi and places like that.

And Johnny thought, Johnny who have never been too much south of Gloversville, or west of Albany, and didn’t know too many people who had, couldn’t understand why that beat, that da,da, da, Chicago beat sounded like something out of the womb in his head. But when he heard Big Walter Horton wailing on that harmonica on Rockin’ My Boogie he knew it had to be in his genes.

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Time Of Frankie’s Carnival Time

By Allan Jackson

[I hope the need to constantly introduce myself and my circumstances are old hat by now that I have been permitted by the man who replaced me in my job on this site Greg Green to finish up this series with my own by-line and do not have to keep repeating that pronouncement. That agreement (negotiated by my old friend Sam Lowell from way back in high school days and those days an occasional writer on this site as well) while restricting what I might have to say about the internal struggle here in 2017 does allow me to comment, to defend myself, against some of the outrageous and frankly loopy rumors that have surfaced around my name after I was “purged.” I will continue to bat does these rumors working around the edges of last year’s internal struggle since in the last posting apparently I did not touch enough on last year’s fight to warrant a big red-pencil by current site manager Greg Green.    

Before I was allowed to have my own by-line in this series I had prevailed upon Jack Callahan, my old friend also from high school days and a big financial backer of this publication, to swat what rumors he could on my behalf. He did a great job but even he did not get all of the facts right in the rumor that I was “pimping” a twenty-something shapely blonde surfer girl out in La Jolla met where she was working as a part-time waitress to make ends meet while she searched for the “perfect wave.” Jack at least got it part right that I wasn’t pimping for her but he seems to have missed a communication from me about her real age, about what she really did beside her hobby of surfing and that no, she was not teaching me to surf. (Me a guy who truly loves the ocean but has been hesitant to swim over my head ever since I was eight years old and almost drowned and would have except the quick reaction of the woman lifeguard who saved my stupid young ass when I drifted too far out on a vagrant log that was carrying me along with the ebbing tides. So no, not at all on that surfing rumor.)

After that fiasco in Utah with those perfidious Mormons, hell, I might as well tar the whole lot with Mitt Romney’s brush when all is said and done, I was a bit desperate, a bit down thinking I would never get another job except maybe as an elderly bag guy at some suburban super-market making small change chat with the blue-haired ladies on Senior discount days so I headed where I, where we, the old high school and 1960s gang that were still around would head, to California. To Carlsbad first when my third wife, Mimi, and I had a condo time share arrangement which I gave up when we were divorced but the memories were too much and I drifted south toward La Jolla another well-known refuge spot for the old gang.

One day I really was famished and I decided to head over to Dave’s Diner where I knew that I would get a good generous portion meal and would not have to wash dishes to pay the freight. One great thing about diners is they universally have counters and swivel seats for single diners which I always appreciated since I would have felt foolish sitting alone at a table or in a booth. I sat down as usual and started looking at the menu as the waitress, yes I know waitperson or wait staff, came by and asked if I wanted coffee. Normally I would just say no and that would be it but that day feeling out of sorts I mentioned that I loved coffee but my system no longer could take it after years of drinking about ten cups a day.      

She, Damask, her name a true California-type name, responded that she couldn’t drink coffee either despite serving all day and that the two of them would put Starbuck’s out of business. Something in the way she said that was appealing, and since the place wasn’t every busy at that hour they chatted in and out of servicing time at her station. The long and short of it was that I just told my story, told it in a funny enough manner that she appreciated what I was talking about. As I paid my bill and was ready to leave I just threw caution to the wind and asked her if she would like to have dinner with me since I was all alone and would appreciate the company. She surprised me when she said yes but also when she suggested that Scudders well-known to me and the old gang as well would be nice. Nice and pricey as well but my credit cards were still in good shape.  

The dinner went great and as we parted she mentioned that she was going surfing in the morning at La Jolla Point and maybe I could join her and she could show me how to surf. Naturally I said yes. That next morning I did some shoreline surfing but I never really got the hang of the thing. That wasn’t important anyway since what was important is that we spent that whole day together and the night too. The delightful night but you knew that already.

What you don’t know because Jack got it wrong somehow was that Damask was not some twenty-something blonde surfer girl bimbo, sorry, of legend that the old gang, including me used to dream about in those 1960s Beach Boy summer nights. She was blonde, California blonde so it is always up in the air about the origins, shapely and thirty-something, late thirty-something although I guess whoever saw her on Facebook though she was younger and I did too. Here is the part that is hard to get around if you are not a serious California denizen. There is a whole sub-culture of people of all ages, male and female now, whose central lifestyle focus revolves around the sun and surf. That was, is, Damask’s situation. Moreover she is not some dimwit but a person who is working on a degree in physical therapy so she can get out of the diner racket knowing that is a dead-end. Strange to people who know me, strange for the high pressure guys and gals who I have known over the years to get down on but there it is.    

The other point that got screwed up in the translation is that whole question of my “pimping” for her to get dough. Outrageous. Damask told me that when she was younger she did some whorehouse hustling but that was done long ago. What people made a deal out of was the fact that all of a sudden I had dough, dough for alimony, for those infinite college tuitions and figured what they wanted to figure. Dirty minds. The way I got the dough and this will scotch another rumor was that before I left California to head East after Damask agreed that she would come out when I got settled I headed to San Francisco looking for dough. Looking for dough from Miss Judy Garland. Not the real Judy Garland who obviously has been dead for ages but a drag queen (that is how she likes to be describes when persforming just Timmy, a gay guy when not-not Jack’s transvestite) by the name of Timmy Riley. Timmy Riley from our old growing up neighborhood who was so much in the closet in the 1960s that he had to head out to San Francisco to be among his/her “people,” among the night life of North Beach. Timmy had a very tough time of it before he opened up the Shipwreck, a venue for drag queens that has become one of the most popular spots in the town for nightlife. Timmy got the money to get the place from me and I had been sending him money for years on the sly not telling the guys what had happened to him and where he was. I went to Frisco to borrow money from Miss Judy Garland to get back on my feet. And got it. So much for living high on opium with a drag queen. Fuck the rumors. Allan Jackson]       

******

An old man walked, walked haltingly down a North Adamsville street, maybe Hancock Street, or maybe a street just off of it, maybe a long street like West Main Street, he has forgotten which exactly in the time between his walking and his telling me his story. A street near the high school anyway, North Adamsville High School, where he had graduated from back in the mist of time, the 1960s mist of time. A time when he was known, far and wide, as the king, the king hell king, if the truth be known, of the schoolboy be-bop night. And headquartered himself, properly headquartered himself as generations of schoolboy king hell kings had done previously, at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor as was his due as the reigning schoolboy king of the night. But that schoolboy corner boy king thing is an old story, an old story strictly for cutting up old torches, according to the old man, Frankie, yes, Francis Xavier Riley, as if back from the dead, and not fit, not fit by a long shot for what he had to tell me about his recent “discovery,” and its meaning.

Apparently as Frankie, let us skip the formalities and just call him Frankie, walked down that nameless, maybe unnamable street he was stricken by sight of a sign on a vagrant telephone pole announcing that Jim Byrd’s Carnival and Traveling Show was coming to town and setting up tent at the Veteran’s Stadium in the first week in June, this past June, for the whole week. And seeing this sign, this vagrant sign on this vagrant telephone pole, set off a stream of memories from when the king hell king of the schoolboy corner boy night was so enthralled with the idea of the “carny” life, of this very Jim Byrd’s Carnival and Traveling Show carnival life, that he had plans, serious plans, to run away, run away with it when it left town.

Under this condition, and of course there was always a condition: if Ma Riley, or Pa Riley if it came to it, although Pa was usually comfortably ensconced in the Dublin Pub over on Sagamore Street and was not a big factor in Frankie’s life when it came time for him to make his mark as king hell king, just bothered him one more time, bothered about what was never specified at least to me. Of course they never did, or Frankie never let on that they did, bother him enough to force the issue, and therefore never forced him on the road. But by then he was into being the corner boy king so that dream must have faded, like a lot of twelve year old dreams.

In any case rather than running away with the carnival Frankie served his high school corner boy term as king hell king, went to college and then to law school, ran a successful mid-sized law practice, raised plenty of kids and political hell and never looked back. And not until he saw that old-time memory sign did he think of regrets for not having done what he said that “he was born for.” And rather than have the reader left with another in the endless line of cautionary tales, or of two roads, one not taken tales, or any of that, Frankie, Frankie in his own words, wants to expand on his carnival vision reincarnation and so we will let him speak :

Who knows when a kid first gets the carnival bug, maybe it was down in cradle times hearing the firecrackers in the heated, muggy Fourth Of July night when in old, old time North Adamsville a group of guys, a group of guys called the “Associates,” mainly Dublin Pub guys, and at one time including my father, Joe Riley, Senior, grabbed some money from around the neighborhood. And from the local merchants like Doc over at Doc’s Drug Store, Mario over at Estrella’s Grocery Store, Mac, owner of the Dublin Pub, and always, always, Tonio, owner of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor. What they did with this money was to hire a small time, usually very small time, carnival outfit, something with a name like Joe’s Carny, or the like, maybe with a merry-go-round, some bumping cars, a whip thing, a few one-trick ponies, and ten or twelve win-a-doll-for-your-lady tents. On the side maybe a few fried dough, pizza, sausage and onions kind of eateries, with cotton candy to top it off. And in a center tent acts, clown acts, trapeze acts with pretty girls dangling every which way, jugglers, and the like. Nothing fancy, no three-ring circus, or monster theme amusement park to flip a kid’s head stuff. Like I say small time, but not small time enough to not enflame the imagination of every kid, mainly every boy kid, but a few girls too if I remember right, with visions of setting up their own show.

Or maybe it was when this very same Jim Byrd, a dark-haired, dark-skinned (no, not black, not in 1950s North Adamsville, christ no, but maybe a gypsy or half-gypsy, if that is possible), a friendly guy, slightly wiry, a slightly side-of-his-mouth-talking guy just like a lawyer, who actually showed me some interesting magic tricks when I informed him, aged eight, that I wanted to go “on the road” with him first brought his show to town. Brought it to Veteran’s Stadium then too. That’s when I knew that that old time Associates thing, that frumpy Fourth of July set-up-in-a-minute-thing-and-then-gone was strictly amateur stuff. See Jim’s Carny had a Ferris wheel, Jim had a Mini-Roller Coaster, and he had about twenty-five or thirty win-a-doll, cigarettes, teddy bears, or candy tents. But also shooting galleries, gypsy fortune-telling ladies with daughters with black hair and laughing eyes selling roses, or the idea of roses. And looking very foxy, the daughters that is, although I did not know what foxy was then. Oh yah, sure Jim had the ubiquitous fried dough, sausage and onion, cardboard pizza stuff too. Come on now this was a carnival, big time carnival, big time to an eight-year old carnival. Of course he had that heartburn food. But what set Jim’s operation off was that central tent. Sure, yawn, he had the clowns, tramp clowns, Clarabelle clowns, what have you, and the jugglers, juggling everything but mainly a lot of whatever it was they were juggling , and even the acrobats, bouncing over each other like rubber balls. The big deal, the eight- year old big deal though, was the animals, the real live tigers and lions that performed in a cage in center stage with some blonde safari-weary tamer doing the most incredible tricks with them. Like, well, like having them jump through hoops, and flipping over each other and the trainer too. Wow.

But now that I think about it seriously the real deal of the carny life was neither the Associates or Jim Byrd’s, although after I tell you about this Jim’s would enter into my plans because that was the carnival, the only carnival I knew, to run away with. See what really got me going was down in Huntsville, a town on the hard ocean about twenty miles from North Adamsville, there was what would now be called nothing but an old-time amusement park, a park like you still might see if you went to Seaside Heights down on the Jersey shore. This park, this Wild Willie’s Amusement Park, was the aces although as you will see not a place to run away to since everything stayed there, summer open or winter closed. I was maybe nine or ten when I first went there but the story really hinges on when I was just turning twelve, you know, just getting ready to make my mark on the world, the world being girls. Yes, that kind of turning twelve.

But nine or twelve this Wild Willie’s put even Jim Byrd’s show to shame. Huge roller-coasters (yes, the plural is right, three altogether), a wild mouse, whips, dips, flips and very other kind of ride, covered and uncovered, maybe fifteen or twenty, all based on the idea of trying to make you scared, and want to go on again, and again to“ conquer” that scared thing. And countless win things (yah, cigarettes, dolls, teddy bears, candy, and so on in case you might have forgotten). I won’t even mention that hazardous to your health but merciful, fried dough, cardboard pizza (in about twenty flavors), sausage and onions, cotton candy and salt water taffy because, frankly I am tired of mentioning it and even a flea circus or a flea market today would feel compelled to offer such treats so I will move on.

What it had that really got me going, at first anyway, was about six pavilions worth of pinball machines, all kinds of pinball machines just like today there are a zillion video games at such places. But what these pinball machines had (beside alluring come-hither and spend some slot machine dough on me pictures of busty young women on the faces of the machines) were guys, over sixteen year old teenage guys, mainly, some older, some a lot older at night, who could play those machines like wizards, racking up free games until the cows came home. I was impressed, impressed to high heaven. And watching them, watching them closely were over sixteen- year old girls, some older, some a lot older at night, who I wondered, wondered at when I was nine but not at twelve, might not be interfering with their pinball magic. Little did I know then that the pinball wizardry was for those sixteen year old, some older, some a lot older, girls.

But see, if you didn’t already know, nine or twelve-year old kids were not allowed to play those machines. You had to be sixteen (although I cadged a few free games left on machines as I got a little older, and I think the statute of limitations has run out on this crime so I can say I was not sixteen years or older). So I gravitated toward the skee ball games located in one of those pinball pavilions, games that anybody six to sixty or more could play. You don’t know skees. Hey where have you been? Skee, come on now. Go over to Seaside Heights on the Jersey shore, or Old Orchard up on the Maine coast and you will have all the skees you want, or need. And if you can’t waggle your way to those hallowed spots then I will give a little run-down. It’s kind of like bowling, candle-pin bowling (small bowling balls for you non-New Englanders) with a small ball and it’s kind of like archery or darts because you have to get the balls, usually ten or twelve to a game, into tilted holes.

The idea is to get as high a score as possible, and in amusement park land after your game is over you get coupons depending on how many points you totaled. And if you get enough points you can win, well, a good luck rabbit’s foot, like I won for Karen stick-girl one time (a stick girl was a girl who didn’t yet have a shape, a womanly shape, and maybe that word still is used, okay), one turning twelve-year old time, who thought I was the king of the night because I gave her one from my “winnings,” and maybe still does. Still does think I am king of the hill. But a guy, an old corner boy guy that I knew back then, a kind of screwy guy who hung onto my tail at Salducci’s like I was King Solomon, a guy named Markin who hung around me from middle school on, already wrote that story once.

Although he got one part wrong, the part about how I didn’t know right from left about girls and gave this Karen stick girl the air when, after showering her with that rabbit’s foot, she wanted me to go with her and sit on the old seawall down at Huntsville Beach and according to Markin I said no-go. I went, believe me I went, and we both practically had lockjaw for two weeks after we got done. But you know how stories get twisted when third parties who were not there, had no hope of being there, and had questionable left from right girl knowledge themselves start their slanderous campaigns on you. Yes, you know that scene, I am sure.

So you see, Karen stick and lockjaw aside, I had some skill at skees, and the way skees and the carny life came together was when, well let me call her Gypsy Love, because like the name of that North Adamsville vagrant telephone pole street where I saw the Byrd’s carnival in town sign that I could not remember the name of I swear I can’t, or won’t remember hers. All I remember is that jet-black long hair, shiny dark-skinned glean (no, no again, she was not black, christ, no way, not in 1950s Wild Willie’s, what are you kidding me?), that thirteen-year old winsome smile, half innocent, half-half I don’t know what, that fast-forming girlish womanly shape and those laughing, Spanish gypsy black eyes that would haunt a man’s sleep, or a boy’s. And that is all I need to remember, and you too if you have any imagination. See Gypsy Love was the daughter of Madame La Rue, the fortune-teller in Jim Byrd’s carnival. I met her in turning twelve time when she tried to sell me a rose, a rose for my girlfriend, my non-existent just then girlfriend. Needless to say I was immediately taken with her and told her that although I had no girlfriend I would buy her a rose.

And that, off and on, over the next year is where we bounced around in our “relationship.” One day I was down at Wild Willie’s and I spotted her and asked her why she wasn’t on the road with Jim Byrd’s show. Apparently Madame LaRue had had a falling out with Jim, quit the traveling show and landed a spot at Wild Willie’s. And naturally Gypsy Love followed mother, selling flowers to the rubes at Wild Willie’s. So naturally, naturally to me, I told Gypsy Love to follow me over to the skees and I would win her a proper prize. And I did, I went crazy that day. A big old lamp for her room. And Gypsy Love asked me, asked me very nicely thank you, if I wanted to go down by the seawall and sit for a while. And let’s get this straight, no third party who wasn’t there, no wannabe there talk, please, I followed her, followed her like a lemming to the sea. We had lockjaw for a month afterward to prove it. And you say, you dare to say I was not born for that life, that carnival life. Ha.

The So-Called Unmasking Of The Sherlock Holmes Legend, Part IX-Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce’s “Dressed To Kill” (1946)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Seth Garth

Sherlock Holmes: Dressed To Kill, starring Basil Rathbone which is the well-known screen name for the actor who played Holmes in this British series, Nigel Bruce who did have his medical license suspended for a time for prescribing too many opium-laced drugs but who was given a suspended sentence and never saw the inside of Dartmoor Prison unlike the congenital thief in this film, 1946   

[I have mentioned more times than I care to remember that not everybody who starts out in the film review, film criticism if you have an academic bent and want to upscale the profession, makes it to the end. The profession eats its own, has more treachery per square inch that the denizens of academy with all their conferences and learned papers and incessant back-biting ever thought off. A professor, let’s say a professor of cinematic studies, would last about two minutes in this dog eat dog business. That is why a lot of them spent their two minutes and then headed fast to the groves of academia.

Like I was telling somebody recently in dealing with a bunch of fellow reviewers who work at this publication it was a lot easier in the old days when the studios would pass out their so-called press releases. You just rewrote from there or if you were drunk and hungover just signed your name on top either way mercifully you did not have to actually watch the stinker. Which many of them, too many to count, were. (My estimate of the ratio is that about one in ten even rates a review and that might be too high of late.)  

All this intro talk to say that something has happened to Bruce Conan, or whatever name he was using in this Sherlock Holmes debunking mania he got himself caught up in. The last review of his I had seen maybe Part Four (I think I saw that his last one was Part VIII Greg Green supplied the Part IX in the title so assume I was correct) he was using the name Danny Moriarty so it could have been any name-except his real one which I will not divulge out of fear for his safety or his wrath if he resurfaces anytime soon.    

When I say the vague “something has happened to Bruce” that is exactly what I mean. He did not show up at the Ed Board meeting last week to turn in and have his latest review worked over. Greg Green asked me to pinch-hit for him. All I know is that Bruce was setting himself a very tall task trying to bump old Sherlock Holmes down a peg or two. How many times have I, you, we uttered “elementary, my dear Watson” to some rattled-brained holy goof who was clueless about everything including which was his or her left hand. Yes, a tough task indeed. I think the job might very well have driven him over the edge, he was certainly kind of paranoid when I would ask him how his crusade was going. Didn’t want to talk about it much and although he said he trusted me what about the “others” they could be working for those “damn Irregulars” (his term). 

Before the reader goes off the deep end along with Bruce in conspiracy theory speculation I very much doubt that the crew known as the Baker Street Irregulars according to him but who I found out after a little investigation is actually called the Sherlock Holmes Preservation Society (SHPS) had anything to do with his disappearance. The SHPS is NOT a group of nefarious criminals, pimps, whores and dope fiends but well-respected Holmes (and Conan Doyle) scholars. They are very perturbed I guess would be the word that Bruce has denigrated Holmes and Watson as bullshit amateur parlor pink private detectives. Incensed that he had “outed” them from their homosexual closets, something that a spokesperson told me the Society was well aware of but was keeping private out of respect for their respective relatives and for the hard fact that it was irrelevant to their adventures in sleuthing. But that spokesperson also assured me that they would take care of Bruce in the public prints not in some dark alley like they were agents of the dastardly Professor Moriarty or like in the old days a group of Stalinist thugs. I believe them because I think now that I am armed with that information poor Bruce got caught up in something that was too big for him, something that drove him over the edge.    

That is where the treachery of the business comes into play. As some readers may know there was a big internal power struggle inside this publication last year which resulted in a dramatic change of site leadership and the addition of a watchdog Editorial Board. The new leadership wanted livelier coverage of, well, of everything from politics, culture to reviews and that after the rather lax atmosphere toward the end of the last regime’s time meant to get a bit more edgy. One form of that edgy feel I am very familiar with and may be the reason that I was assigned this review is a continuing “battle” between two reviewers here over who is more representative of the 007 James Bond cinematic character Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan. Another manifestation is old time reviewer Sam Lowell’s reported change of heart about the virtues of Bette Davis as an actress from Oscar-worthy to nothing but a repetitive same old untamed shrew and hack actress.

I think fellow film reviewer Laura Perkins was on to something when she mentioned in that Bette Davis business that the “boys” were trying to one up each other like in the old neighborhood where some of them grew up (even if not the same neighborhood the same ethos, mostly working class). What I called, not her, please, a “pissing contest.” Bruce a less stable character than the ones that I have mentioned got himself up in lather as well when he decided to pick on poor misbegotten Holmes. That unseen pressure and the yardstick that he used to declare who was a real private detective from the 1930s and 1940s got him in too deep. His standard, a good one but hardly universal, for a private eye were guys like Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe two tough as nails guys who weren’t afraid to throw a punch, take a slug, take a few whiskey shots from the bottom of a hacked up desk drawer and bed an off-hand dangerous femme before hand-delivering the villains personally to the clueless public coppers. Of course the bloodless Holmes and the hapless and laughable Watson pale by comparison but that was hardly after all this time a reason to go on the warpath.          

A few examples should close this introduction out until we find out the fate of insecure and frantic Mr. Conan. He was on fairly safe grounds when he left his “critique” of Sherlock (whom he called Lanny Lamont after a while which I will get to in a minute) when he noted that the guy couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a gun, let the bodies pile up sky high before his vaunted deductive reasoning kicked in and when he let the public coppers grab the bad guys instead of handling the task himself. (Bruce went crazy and maybe rightly so when Holmes let some innocent fourteen year old girl get wasted for no reason except his own sloth.) Where he went off the track was when he started “investigating” Holmes’ background, started looking at records and such which led him into that Baker Street Irregular trap.         

First off was the not really surprising fact that Sherlock Holmes was not his real name, nor was Basil Rathbone a name he used on occasion to keep the bad guys guessing. Bruce claimed to uncover proof that the guy’s real name was Lanny Lamont who was born in the slums of the West End of London of an unwed mother who shunted him off to a charity orphanage. This is where Bruce really started breaking down. The first crack may have been his “discovery” that nobody named Holmes had ever lived on Baker Street in London. That suspicious fact led him astray though. See everybody in London knew that Holmes was an alias but also knew that his real name was Lytton Strachey, a gentleman born and bred. Bruce was so crazed to “get the goods” that he traced the trail the wrong way working on that Rathbone lead. Tough break.        

The worst thing though and here I agree with the Sherlock Holmes Preservation Society’s take on the matter even if as was obvious to even the most naïve Holmes and Watson were more than just roommates, were homosexual lovers, today gay, in a time that was socially and legally dangerous what of it. Pulling this rather cold and unattractive pair out of the closet just because they didn’t take a run as Sam did with Brigid or Phillip with some thumb-sucking Candy and a few other dishes in their professional work. Strangely as well since he admitted openly that if this was the situation today nobody, including him, would think anything of it. Would yawn it off. I know Greg Green and a couple of others were concerned with the allegations and worried about law suits from their respective estates. Worried too about image having taken early stands in favor of gay rights and self-sex marriage. Bruce can sort it out if and when he surfaces. For now here is a straight review of Sherlock Holmes: Dress to Kill without conspiracy theories and Irregular goblins.  

Willie Sutton the legendary bank robbery cowboy angel rides was often quoted as having been asked by the coppers after he was caught why he robbed banks. Easy answer when you think about it-that’s where the money is, or was before all sorts of things made bank robbing kind of old-fashioned in the brave new world of white collar fingerless crime. That same premise at one remove is where this Holmes adventure leads. Why steal bank note plates from the Chancellery of the Exchequer (Treasury in America)-that’s how to make the money. That is the logic behind a congenital thief in Dartmoor prison. (Remember neither Holmes nor Watson spent time there unlike Bruce’s contention that that was where the pair met and became lovers and partners in crime solutions.)  

That thief got them out of the jail via some three music boxes-not a bad decoy but the damn things wound up in an auction and sold to highest bidders. The race then becomes between the clueless Sherlock and the brains of the criminal enterprise that wants those boxes to unlock a secret code necessary to go into the printing business in a very profitable way with very low overhead and that criminal . Of course the idea that the villain, the brains of the operation, is a female would have had   Bruce apoplectic, would have had him beside himself when Sherlock didn’t make play number one for her before he sent her over. Like I said a private detective’s love life, of whatever preference, is not germane to the solution of the crimes. Now this Hilda who ran the operation, played by Patricia Morison really was a 1940s-style femme and Sam and Phillip would have a field day with her but she still had to go down, had to take the big step for her actions, including a fistful of murders along the. Sherlock was able to snag the last music box and keep the Bank of England from going under in a bale of counterfeit pounds. The only knock I have on Sherlock’s efforts is that as Bruce pointed out he lets the bodies pile up before he can figure stuff out. That and why the hell he has a holy goof like Watson dragging him down.          

The Mad Monks Of The Pre-War (World War I If Anybody Is Asking) Of The Germanic Art- Klimt And Schiele At The Boston Museum Of Fine Arts    

Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele’s Twisted Fates in Paint

Cardinal and Nun (Caress), 1912, Egon Schiele.

Kneeling forms against an indeterminate background, two figures interlocked as one… perhaps this painting looks familiar? The work is a tongue-in-cheek play by Egon Schiele and a slightly sacrilegious homage to his master, Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. Rather than love and passion, these religious figures are caught in the act, stiff against religious vow.

The Kiss (Lovers), 1907-1908, Gustav Klimt.

The Mentor and His Star Pupil

With a nearly 30 year age difference, Schiele and Klimt had a mentor-student relationship that lasted throughout their artistic careers. From copycat styling to love triangle rumors, this twisted story is told in their paintings.

In 1907 a then-teenaged Schiele saw Klimt as an idol and sought him out. The two fostered an artistic friendship and elements of Klimt’s avant-garde style can be found in many of Schiele’s early works and drawings, including these:

Left: Portrait of Gerti Schiele. Right: Standing Girl in a Plaid Garment. Both by Egon Schiele, 1909.

The Love Triangle with Wally Neuzil

Klimt’s influence was never far away. He introduced Schiele to many gallerists, fellow artists, and models, including the perhaps infamous Valerie (Wally) Neuzil. Neuzil had previously modeled for Klimt, and is rumored to have been his mistress. In 1911 she moved with Schiele to Krumau in the Czech Republic and thus began a four-year affair with him. In 1916 she returned to her old lover, posing again for Klimt.

The Hermits, Egon Schiele, 1912.

Left: Portrait of Wally, Gustav Klimt, 1916. Right: Woman in black stockings (Valerie Neuzil), Egon Schiele, 1913.

In fact, Schiele slyly alludes to this shared love in his 1912 painting The Hermits. The artist depicts two male figures in a Klimt-esque embrace, who on second take appear to be the mentor (on the left) and student (on the right) themselves. Dressed in all black, these two “hermits” are one mass but two thin white lines in the background connect the couple to a wilting rose, red like the color of Neuzil’s fiery hair.

Muse Shared, Again?

Klimt and Schiele portraits also reveal another shared subject: Viennese society woman Friederike Maria Beer-Monti. She rang Klimt’s doorbell in 1915 and asked if she could pose for his artworks. The process took six months and, in that time, she is rumored to have been one of his many flames. Just one year earlier, she had been the subject of a work by Klimt’s mentee.

Left: Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer-Monti, Egon Schiele, 1914; Right: Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer-Monti, Gustav Klimt, 1916

Both artists were notorious for their affairs with women. Klimt, who never married, is said to have fathered 17 children with his muses. Schiele often found himself in hot water with the authorities for his choice of studio visitors, children and adult, who posed nude.

Breaking Conventions in Art, Too

As personal relationships grew more interconnected so did their artistic styles. The bright colors and elongated bodies in Klimt’s unfinished The Bride and the more jagged lines and gestural coloring in Schiele’s Portrait of Dr. Erwin von Graff would lead their contemporaries to a new – and more personal – way of thinking about color and form in art.

Left: The Bride, Klimt, 1917; Right: Portrait of Dr. Erwin von Graff, Schiele, 1910.

With a relationship based on mutual respect, Klimt and Schiele continued to support and guide each other through the art world. There was an obvious amount of humor between the two; only a prized pupil could have gotten away with such sheer parodies of his mentor.

And, by the way, here’s a more banal portrait of Wally that her artists’ paintings didn’t show:

Schiele and Neuzil in Krumau, Czech Republic, 1913. Image via Leopold Museum.

Gustav Klimt is currently abuzz in the pop culture world. Actress Dame Helen Mirren is starring in The Woman in Gold, a movie about Klimt’s painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geJeX6iIlO0

Learn more about Klimt’s life and career here: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-klimt-gustav.htm

For more on Egon Schiele’s romantic muses: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8507783/A-legend-laid-bare-Egon-Schiele-exhibition.html

Learn more about Schiele’s life and career here: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-schiele-egon.htm

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