The year 1921 when the Babe arrived at the House that Ruth built

Whether it was the year 1921 when the Babe arrived at the House that Ruth built or the year 1940 when “Leo the Lip”Durocher ( a St. Louis Gashouse Gang shortstop). arrived atEbbets Field, saying “Nice guys finish last”

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For our brainy  readers may your ex knothole kid throw into your considered  cyber space orbit, a better hitting and fielding short stop  on the planet…

“Born to be a Yankee”

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“How does it feel after 20 years playing shortstop. To take off the pinstripes for the last time?” 

                                       

“I’ll be honest with you,” said the 40 year old El Capitan ,taking a heroic stance, playing his last game for the Yankees: adream stretching from the age of three, playing for the  pin stripes of Ruth, in the Bronx.…  

”I’ m the luckiest man o n the face of this Earth,” said Lou Gehrig…… Joe DiMaggio and the 54 hitting steak, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris’s 61 homers into the future and  maestrofather figure  Joe Torre’s  5 World Championships since.…..

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The love pouring out from the fans as el Capitan, with hisJeterian swing, hit the game winning run, with man  on second.The Orioles tying the game  with a homer, top of the 9th..

No words could ascribe Frank Capra’s “It’s a wonderful life”. Or“Mister Jeterr, we’ve been waiting or you,” said the High Llama at 125 years old, waiting g for the Captain  to arrive at the Hall of Fame (Shangri-la) in Capra’s ”Lost Horizon”.

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Where could Ted Williams …two wars, have a heroic stance like Jeter’s…Stan  the Man Musial with his harmonica….Willie Mays as the “Say hay kid” with the Giants? Hank Aaron and hisepic record of four baggers.

Jackie Robinson  breaking the color line……Derek Jeter passing Roger Wagner in hits….in  the immortal orbit of Ty Cobb, PeteRose, “Tri” Speaker….

In our lifetime…….the  miracle of the dream fades out at Red Sox’s Boston, the Captain’s moisture over his eyes (“I’ll be honest with you”), tipping his cap to those humans called fanswho love him : not at all ashamed for Leo the Lip’s cynicism  

“Nice guys finish first”.

September 25, 2014 Yankee Stadium, last game in pin stripes forCaptain  and shortstop Derek Jeter ‘s #2

The cream cheese bandit sweating out his cyber space

The cream cheese bandit sweating out his  cyber space sins andno phone ding a ling apps via the Palm Springs tennis tourney, hoping to get a renewal of his youthful aggressions….”if in doubt call it out”   driving his Dune Buggy  thru Rancho Mirage toward  29 Palms and   Joshua Tree Jimmy Cagney’s museumand  Pinto Mountain.

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It seemed as though it was only 24 hours ago in his yesterdays:his kid brother buying ten acres of the Mojave Desert The plumbing  constituted water pipes, electrical lines overhead, andGunga Din dunes  everywhere.

H gave 5 acres in Desert Hot springs to his older brother, the brunt of his bullying: the sadistic aftermath of the Columbia Midshipman’s debacle ,his flunking out “retardation”, his parents, the Name Detective and his “What’s in a name?” mother, used to characterize that period of depression in their first son’s  birthright..he driving his  Dine Buggy thru the dunes, his mind on the Marine Base as  far as his aging eyes could see.

Of course, he wasn’t obsessed with the “Star is born” celeb addiction like his kid bro. He had his own demonic addiction. You weren’t ID’d  the “the cream cheese bandit” for nothing!

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He made a U turn, the Sand Buggy groveling like the big crowds screaming their lungs out as the once hot rod throttles booming, the cars like salmon shooting  the rapids : screaming exhausts, as the drivers hit the throttles, the race car circuit thrilling the  patrons. Identifying vicariously with the sound and fury..

A euphoric gung ho Gunga Din  …. Van Nuys Air National Guard, George AF Base, Norton, March, San Bernardino AFB….. As he remembered the tides he and his kid brother had, sharing space in the Air Force bases outside Dusty Acres ,stashed away in the Mojave. And San Fernando Valley..

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The cream cheese bandit forgot about the mirrors in the Safeway market ceiling, as he put the Philadelphia cream cheese packet,in the pocket of his Arm y Navy foul weather jacket, his kid brother bought for him,  to protect against the City of Angelsdewy nights.

How could he live down his bullying rep.. The fastest 6th grader at Booty Junior High. The leading role of President GeorgeWashington in the Senior play. The first tennis team Capitan  at Tilden  High School….  a half scholarship in the same role at Long Island University L.I.U.’s basketball heaven, coach and athletic director Clair Bee: Picareeli , (“Pic) his loyal alter ego at the DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn sidewalk campus..

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A “Star is b orn”, Janet Gaynor. Fredric March…Charlie Farrell, Jack L. Warner’s contemporary: playing doubles and the acting game, the President of the Palm Springs Racquet club…. to be seen with these  clean cut celebs and tennis immortals.

Not Sampras and Agassi. Nor Steffi Gray. Or controlled power”Pancho” Gonales, “Pancho” Segura, Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder, Ted Olewine…. Upland’s Davenport…Ivan. Lendl,Martina Navratilova from Czechoslovakia, Stefan Edberg from Sweden, Chrissie Evert, McEnroe, his kid bro….Billie JeanKing, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Herby Flam, Gene Garret, , Boris Becker, all following in the dream stuff of Janet Gaynor’sa “Star is born” the   original with Frederic March as her discoverer, actor Norman Maine.                                                                                                                

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Judy Garland’s subsequent words on the planet “ Hello everybody. This his Mrs. Norman Maine”, her alcoholic husband …,James Mason as Norman Maine, his dissipation into“drink”, diving  into the Pacific waves and eternity. 1954.

His wife identifying with Moss Hart’s  “ Hello everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine” a   curtain call, in more ways than one.

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The Cream Cheese Bandit” hardly knew what was playing out as he gazed upon all these stars in their own racquet and racketorbits...

Janet Gaynor arm in arm with her agent hubby. The silvery  hairtall handsome Charlie Farrell and  Racquet Club president,former Mayor of the status oriented community.

Where was Frederic March a 1937 Norman Maine ? Didn’t he once identify with the  binge driven obsession of the  leading man’s  down loaded stupor. 
   

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On his Dune Buggy, driving back into his Mulholland Drivemile high digs, the cream cheese bandit, his foul weather jacketon, with the Philadelphia cream cheese caper in mind, may have finally realized the error of his ways. That moral providence was playing out. But how could he know for sure.

He drove the Dune Buggy into his driveway a mile high above the San Fernando Valley denizens and natives, living out their dreams below.

Not knowing  Aldo Ray, a former North Dakota deputy sheriff was  in the hills, searching for a drive way where he could park his station wagon overnight…. winding down  from his screen test for former Van Nuys Air National Guard Sergeant Jack Nicholson’s  “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest”

September 20, 2014.   The city that never sleeps

From “La cooka ra cha La cooka ra cha ”

From “La cooka ra cha La cooka ra cha ” the 3 leprechauns from“Finian’s Rainbow” made the quantum leap “Over the Rainbow”  “We’re off to see the Wizard “ “Ding done, the Wicked Witch of the West”

Judy Garland’s teeny bopper role as Dorothy, a Kansas farmorphan, searching “Over the Rainbow” for an escape from her  Charlie Grapevine uncle and aunt Surrogate niches..

E.Y. “Yip” Harburg’s magic touch and lyrics, enriching Harold Arlen’s karma (his pianistic ‘Buffalodians’)

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How did this unholy holy trio coalesce their larger than life sizesouls  (Mervyn Leroy  impresario’s role)  “One small step forthe “land of Oz”  A giant leap for the “Wizard of Oz” (Frank  Morgan’s fortune telling crystal ball) was beyond my  ken.. the studio interview 1939.. a 6TH grader, McKinley Elementary, Santa Monica..

A sneak preview in Central California’s San Luis Obispo was fraught with decision making and semantics, Louis B. Mayer, the studio honcho and the director George Cukor, tacking a realistic cue, while the unholy holy trio, into assuming a Mozartapt birthright ..

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“Somewhere over the rainbow, there’s a land way up high. There’s a land that I heard of. Only once in a lullaby.”

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From those Culver City MGM haunts  on West Washington Boulevard to San Luis Obispo, the 1939 five unlike the Liverpool Beatles, corralled their “collective consciousness” to Central  California, for a sneak preview without Hollywood Boulevard klieg lights, scorching the   ceiling of the skies

No red carpet fantasy or shrieks to support their manifesto, theNation in a food stamp Kansas basket depression, the San LuisObispo’s natives living out  “Over the Rainbow“ their eyes and ears  open to “ Jack Haley’s *“Heart”, **Bert Lahr’s “Courage”, and the ***Scarecrow’s quest for a  brain”.. Ray Bolger.

                                                                                                                             

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Dorothy ,the *Tin Man (Jack Haley), the **The Cowardly Lion(Bert Lahr),  the*** Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) hop skip and jumping on the Yellow Brick Road to the land of Oz…. Munchkin Country, the Wicked Witch of the North, her crystal gold slippers, a tornado,  Toto’s barking flight. And  Professor Marvel ..Frank Morgan in another guise, un like the Wicked Witch of the West..

“Somewhere over the Rainbow, there’s a land way up high.There’s a land that I heard of. Only once in a lullaby”

September 12, 2014, The City that never sleeps.

A heavy duty ego trip of Eugene O’Neil’s “

A heavy duty ego trip of Eugene O’Neil’s “A long day’s journey into the night”, a metaphorical  nightmare not to be taken lightly, as cannibalism continues on the other side of theArabian peninsula.                                                                            

Charlie Chaplin’s father in la, (married O’Neil’s daughter Oona )in searching for top billing  got his wish thru Henry Mencken and George Jean Nathan, the Bowery stage giving his plays thevision they deservedly sought.

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On the other hand his son in law,( Oona in her role as wife/daughter), never took his persona seriously so it seems.. the“Tramp” on Hollywood Boulevard ,West of Vine, Friday night bouts at the American Legion ring.

The New York Philharmonic giving Charlie top billing.”Modern Times” .Specifically “the Tramp” for two dates at Lincoln Center.

Is this poetic justice or is it? A divine intervention or what?

How could the son in law get top billing when both relatives were geniuses in and out of disguise. Yet the son in law’spersona  realizes himself as the Tramp. While the father in law   “Long Day’s Journey ” seems dwarfed, doesn’t it?

Henry Mencken and George Jean Nathan gave props to thefather in law’s one act plays when they finally lit up the lights onBroadway.

The” Tramp” had to sweat it out as the son in law’s persona. O’Neil’s daughter bound to raise a family with her second father–husband… aka her father’s son in law. 

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No matter how you swing the” Long Day’s Night” and the”Tramp”, Chaplin’s persona  seems to have the universal touch. Surely not a fictional rags to riches but empathy and sensitivity,interpreting the “Tramp’s” pilgrimage as contrasted with the “Long Day’s” nightmarish bonding of a family’s self destructiveness.

Charlie’s “Tramp” accepts his role in a perilous journey, while his father in law seemingly sets his legacy. A 180 degree taking himself seriously. A dissection of a family living under one roof, with vultures ,drugs, and womanizing voodoo.

Anyone with a light touch, can  see why the New York Philharmonic gave kudos to the son in law’s “Tramp”. Whatever word one uses:  empathy, the light touch, odyssey, pilgrimage, this corner sees Charlie Chaplin ‘s alter ego and persona as a hero. While the father in law’s dissection islike a surgeon  discovering his own Achilles heel.

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When the aficionados gather around the Oracle at Delphi andbeg the question  “The Tramp” or “Long Day’s Night” gets  top billing?    

September 4, 2014. The City that never sleeps.

The encounter between the hospital’s flower girl

The encounter between the hospital’s flower girl, exhorting her flowers and Italian tomatoes at a dollar a box.

“Choose your desire, Major Fenton”, she said, trumping her beat as thou she hadn’t heard that the cardiologists on the fourth floor had induced a coma on 81 year old comedienne Joan Rivers...

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“Quando monyah for the bouquet?  How did you remember myname, Princess? Where did we break the ice?” asked MajorFenton , taking a page from the 81 year old Joan Rivers, herselftaking a breather.. Her life crossing the Fentons in the Jet Bluewaiting room’s flight to the City of Angels.

She was a loner in the middle of the waiting room penthouse:boots above her knees, a furtive look in her eyes, her gearleathered with her lean and hungry stance.

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“Don’t you remember me, sir” asked the flower girl. “MidwoodHigh School library. You were at the computers, assisting MisterKelly  under the big windows.  I was at the desk, checking outbooks.,Before E books before the cyber space scene really took off.”

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“Jim Harrick, the UCLA basketball coach, post the immortal coach Wooden, had been caught in a wishful thinking recruitingat Subways in Westwood,” recalled the flower girl, rememberinghr past High School Internet education ; now grooming as a flower entrepreneur on  the corner, below the Cardiology 4thfloor surgery.

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A viajo to Bel Air’s gated community off of Sunset Boulevard rd and the UCLA campus guest house. A stone’s throw  away.

The comedienne and her late husband business manager staying  off Stone Canyon Road….not the man se of Molly Picon, a comedienne in  her own “Park yer carcus” comedic commentary.

The likes of the sterling screen’s Billie Burke or Zasu Pitts Martha Raye comes to mind as second baanas.  

Being  stand up funny is  the rub. The galaxy torn asunder wherever a human being looks. Humanity in a fierce struggle for its very Soul.

But what could agingMajor Fenton say to the ‘ Hornet’s Nest’Midwood High alumni library aide, now playing out her role asthe hospital corner flower girl in her quest for the dollar bill.. 

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Meanwhile the cardiologists on the fourth floor were into their blood pressure monitors, the nurses monitoring the breathing ofa 81 year old comedienne, fighting the struggle of her performing life.

August 31,2014  The City that never sleeps