A young Burt Lancaster on the flying trapez

A young Burt Lancaster on the flying trapeze....the rolls and somersaults...those sweaty hands gripping the ropes.......dancing thru the stratosphere....... the aahs and oohs from the Big Tent afficionados below.....

“Nick gimme your hand,” cried the actor out of Hemingway’s “Killers”, his doomed  persona, awaiting the inevitable Iago revenge, Desdemona’s hanky setting off Othello’s curses.

”Infidelity in perfidious Albion.”

                                                                  

                                                                          I

While waiting out his fate..sitting in the diner, with the company of Ava Gardner....his gun moll identifying with Claire Trevor’s “Key Largo” indisposed in a Newport Beach condo ......the  clock ticking .toward  the Swede’s “retirement” from our earthly coil.......

Nothing as  academic as Brett Favre’s reign after 16 seasons quarter backing with Green Bay and. Vince Lombardi’s legacy, .those consecutive 16 weeks of pounding thru 278 playoff super bowl consecutive games  “the mental tiredness”, 

While the Baltimore shortstop Cal Ripkin, Jr. transcended Lou Gehrig’s consecutive run of 162 games for some fourteen seasons......

.                                                                      ******

Chalking his hands, Nick, Lancaster’s amigo from those South Bronx yesterdays...stoop ball, stick ball, handball, basketball the Golden Gloves, the Jimmy Cagney neighborhood . center identifying with the Big Apple’s larger than life humans, .role models for hero worshiping  kids 

finding themselves.

The saliva spit between their teeth.... that being the tough guy myth of the day. The Basil Rathbone Brian Aherne Alan Young Lew Ayres  Lewis Stone (“Judge Hardy”)..stereotype must be maintained.......”no spitting tolerated.”..on Metro Columbia Paramount RKO Desi- Lu Universal Republic Warner Disney CBS tee vee stages..

Lionel Stander.... the Dead End kids being the exception.....

... .                                                                    ******

Nick hanging precipitously from the Perils of Pauline cliffs....Johnny Weismuller’s Tarzan crossing the Bridge of the River Kwai Thorton Wilder’s   San Luis Rey the poisoned darts and machetes of the ambush....... yellow bellied bullies sneaking up on our boyhood heroes..

                                                                           II

“Burt I’m slipping,” screamed Nick, his chariot of the fires thru the big top‘s skies short circuiting....

“Nick in yer teeth...grab the rope in yer mouth....hold on baby........”

                                                                             ******

“Burt always knew the allegory behind the fantasies...scenarios beleaguering our reality...beyond Murder Inc Al Bummy Davis Meyer Lansky, Bugsy,  “Honest Bill”....

He wouldn’t buy the ordinary, the mediocre, the hack  He made us better.

“Tell us what did Mary Shelly really mean in Frankenstein?

.

                                                                           III

Burt Lancaster would gather around him the neighborhood cronies and hustlers...a foretaste of his own roles....”Rose Tattoo.... the Leopard.......Elmer Gantry........Come back little Sheba....... The flame and the arrow   Gun Fight at Ok Corral......From here to eternity.....Atlantic City The Swimmer Trapeze A Balkan World War 2 scenario about recouping art treasures kiped by the Nazis”. and .a western allegory.

He saw thru the company town.... aeons before Daniel Day-Lewis’s interpretation of Upton  Sinclair’s “There will be blood”

                                                                         *******

To realize his vision, sitting on the stoop, listening to the Caruso records.

“Burt, Burt” cried his mother thru the kitchen window, his father back from his gig in the post office, gurgling down a six pack......

                                                                             IV

“Hold on for dear life, Nickeroo, “screamed the Lancaster, swarming over the Big Top’s aerial histrionics.......those acrobatic skills  he learned traveling up and down the East Coast with his first wife, Ernst....17 bucks a day.....2 shows daily......driving from town to town in their Hubmobile......

“Grab my fingers,”he yelled, the spectators grasping the life and death playing out in their own aspiring cracker jacks of wish fulfilling hopes.....the clowns gorilla Gargantua, the animal trainers, the lions tigers panthers in their cages....

                                                                             *******

Like Siamese twins joined at Adam’s rib...Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis’s Defiant ones” the handcuffed fugitives morphing....... flying across the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Baily big top.....................................................................................................................................................

In a symbiotic embrace, venturing unto the adventurous challenge  of daily “dying”.a mundane bite into our security mask, it falling in the saw dusted  clown menagerie.......

Swinging across the top....from side to side.....down and across....360 degrees dazzling and shimmering to the utter dismay of the Big Apple denizens

Like they were in Ucla’s men’s gym kiping on the rings, the Reggie Miller rosin and chalk on those sweaty palms...kicking out in the air, arms in an iron cross, somersaulting, landing flat on the mat, feet upright-a prelude to the 2008 summer Olympics in China., as thou it was a million  light years ago.

                                                                             V

Long before immortal basketball pontiff John Wooden was welcome by athletic director and basketball coach Wilbur Johns, 1948, to become his heir, stepping into his All American Hall of Fame soulful sneakers..

                                                                *******

Nick, Burt Lancaster’s own alter ego .doing a kip in mid air and a somersault, landing feet squared on the sawdust, Burt Lancaster flying thru the air “kicking ass” on the ground, embracing his kimosabi  as thou he was “Herbert Hoover” in disguise from the South Bronx.......

Indeed.

The Big Apple’s Madison Square Garden , March 8. 2008 reentering March 3, 2009

10/31/2015 The City that neversleeps.

The street cred confession

The street cred confession of a knot hole kid who told all theWorld Series baseball Met fans of his purgatory.

                                                                                   II

That the players, their sixty seven year old manager Terry Collins...their consummate swagger of long hair down to their pitching ace’s shoulders, their bearded chin  chins and their daring dashes around the bases, was  but a “thirty lashes with a wet noodle” to this observer.

Expelled to the Elba of his Coney Island yesterdays, for poisoning the Citi Field air , with his Kansas City Royal laudatory.

Was there a punishment for this heresy? A punishment to fit the crime as the cliché goes, in civilized circles?

                                                                                      III

Added to this sinful confession is the “street cred” of a Bronx born  baseball addict, with his own swagger, the actor Burt Lancaster of the South Bronx.. .

Here then is the story of his dream…… 10/31/15

A baseball player’s dream exudes...

A baseball player’s dream exudes such a transcendence playing out that the loss of the parent who made the dream realistic and possible by encouragement, sacrifice and discipline it takes when that dream maker father dies.

                                                                            II

In this case, the generalization gives rise to Kansas City Royals playing out the starting pitcher’s dream. His teammates learnedof their pitcher’s loss, his father passing away before his son was taking the mound last night.

The 18 dreamers doing battle in wt seemed to be  baseball game one of the World Series..KC versus the New York Mets, the pitcher not knowing his Dad had just died.

                                                                        III

These professional athletes are quality human beings, playing out their heroic dreams, inspired from, the time they identified with their dream makers. The humans who pushed them out the door, inspiring their children to discover themselves and pursuetheir dreams. 

A metamorphosis larger than life: one generation to another….evolving twin souls into their realization.

                                                                         IV

The Angels watching, never despairing, as the son so enriched,the father son bond  playing out, the sixty three old dream maker FATHER  never  forgotten.

The loss of the dream maker, launches the trauma, a dreamer can endure, in the nine inning pursuit of his metamorphosis.

                                                                           V

Kansas City’s Kaufman Stadium was the stage where this paradigm was playing out before the eyes of the forty three thousand fans, exhilarated by the 15 inning victory, witnesses to the dreamer’s loss of his father before the game.. 

The immortal dream never vanquished, trumping up for the Mets and the City that never sleeps….   

October 28, 2015 The City that never sleeps…. 

Although Plato denied the artists their inalienable rights

Although Plato denied the artists their inalienable rights, his claim they corrupted the youth of Athens.. But  here centuries later, the retribution, seems to these eyes, the miraculous playing out the Dodgers of Brooklyn….. the reincarnation of these New York Mets, their roots being Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School of Bensonhurst.

Sandy Koufax, the Wilpon family, Koufax’ssemi pro team ‘the House of David’, their base being the Parade Grounds of Prospect Park.

                                                                             II

In asking for the historic  forgiveness among the readers, may we go back to the bygone yesterdays when Leo Durocher, once of the St. Louis Cardinals Gashouse Gang, was banished for his gambling .

He married Laraine Day …an actress of note, Leo the lip spend his time at the Fria Club of Beverly Hills, playing gin rummy, jostling with the likes of Milton Berle and other celebs.Munching oncracker jackc, mustarding gown hot dogs, rinkingbeer (“only kidding”).

He was the epitome of the fast life in baseball circles, which brings to mind the World Series being in Kansas City,  the Royals the  big time foe, facing these reincarnated Dodgers, the Mets , in the World Series, beginning Tuesday night 11r/27/15 in K.C.

                                                                           III

Therefore in asking for your indulgence, may your scribe go back, and sand bag those yesterdays at Ebbets Field, before Walter O’Malley turned toward Plato …corrupting the denizens of Brooklyn at Ebbets Field, thus moving the team to L.As Chavez Ravine.

These miracle Mets are filling the void..their Skipper…Terry Collins ……Murphy, Harvey, their bullpen…the metamorphosis to these aging eyes transcend Leo, O’Maley, his son Peter , his father in law, the Judge.

                                                                             IV

The soul of the once Brooklyn Dodgers…….in those bygone Plato yesterdays at Ebbets Field are Pete Reiser, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson breaking the color line, Branch Rickey who master minded  breaking the color line from Montreal, the minor league support system, Rickey’s own Gas House Gang with the Cardinals….

Cookie Lavagetto, Dolph Camilli, Vito Tamulis, Eddie Stanky, Billy Herman, Pete Coscart .,Preacher Roe, Rex Barney, Hal Gregg.Johney Podres, Joe Black, Sal Maglie, Billy Cox,. Don Newcombe

                                                                            V

Eddie Basinski, Dixie Walker, Charlie Dressen  ,a coach become manager, treading up and down the chalked third base line, Joe “Dusty” Medwick. Duke Snider….

Hughh Casey in relief, MangER Walter Alston, Tommy LaSorda(L.A. Dodger maaer.. Roy Campanela (“Campy”) Mickey Owen, Howie Schultz, Carl Furillo, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner….Abe Stark’s “clothing” center field advertising…

Hilda and her noise makers , Gladys Gooding singing her high C’s, a foretaste of Joan Sutherland’s cosmic consciousness.

The knot hole kids in the right field bleachers at 55 cent an aficiando. Ralph Branca who threw the home run pitch to the Giants Bobby Thompson in their playoff game, wth Horace Stonehan Giants  before they and Willie Mays, abandoned the Polo Grounds for San Francisco like O’Malley’s Chavez Ravine. ..

Two gun g ho sellouts, would you believe it?   Branca marrying the boss’s daughter.

Don Drysdale, a nd the immortal Sandy Koufax from Lafayette High School , the House of David in the Parade Grounds and whiffing the enemy batters one two three…..

Cut Davis, Freddy Fitzsimmons, Kirlby Higb e,  Whitlow Wyatt, catcher slugger Babe Phelps….. hopefully second guessing Plato’s curse on these Ebbets Field artists, the New York Mets reaffirming those reincarnated yesterdays, beginning Tuesday night against the Kansas City Royals

“GO METS GO.”

 “Long LIVE THE MEts”  

October 26, 215  The City that never sleeps.

The metamorphosis of the killer instinct

The metamorphosis of the killer instinct, seemed to these brain neurons, to be playing out yesterday in the House of Representatives hearing, the Congressmen grilliung acontender for the Presidemncy of the United States of America, day and night,for the Ben  Gazi Libya  Embassy mureder of the Ambassador and his three comrades, the Libya dictator having been overthrown in the Revolution.

                               II

But the scemario clearly showed that Mrs. Clinton was up to her own splendor, taking on the barrage, with her Yale Law School (Dean Lou Pollock, President Kingman Brewwster) with her awesome recollection of that African scene and its tragic consequences in our Embassy.

To sit in that hot seat, with on;ly a drink of water and notes of many pagesas her accomplices, seemed a replay “On the Waterfront” and Marlon Brando’s own metamorphosis “I wuz once a contender”.

                             III

To attack the former Secretary of State’s chacter with such viiolic sarcasm was but a theme, her use of a personal server in her E mails., their killer instinct playing out. Their dismay that the Secretary of State

N her role in Washington, could notassecess the dangers the former Peace Corps volunteer and Ambassador and his four alter egos, were facing from the murderous Libya

n killer instincts playing out..

                           IV

Thus this was our own UCLA Political Science major, playing out on Chaepel Street (Stratford on the

Avon)  in the New Haven scene playing out.

Hilary, her husband, former President bush’s son o “weapos of mass destruction” (in reespopnse to 9/11),

Bush junior debating from his Park Street soap box.

                             V

 The Yale book store, the Drama school,the post office where we locked horns with Yalies Eric Sherman, our own student at Milliiken Junior High, Sherman Oaks, California a year ago.Eric, the son of the warner Brothrs director.

Serendipity playing out, our eyes and ears playing out the coincidences beyond coincidence.

.

VI                  

                         VI

But it was the Yale Law School Thursday night steak dinners, that Jerry Brown, a former Divinity major, present Governor of Californmia for the second time, sat with Lenny, the Vrdugo Hills High School graduate, from Mills college and a former winner o the “64000 quiz show. Leny on graduation become a Professor at Bolt LW School, his rea “Nukes” and a cabinet member of Brown’s cabinet.

Tragically, he later drowned in a swimming pool.

                             VII

But in the meantime, the contender for the role of President of the United States of America, former United States Senator from New York and most recent Secretary of State, was holding her own in the all day and night grilling, the congressmen playing out their own killer instincts.

“Serendipity” playing out, you say.

October 23, 2015 The City that never sleeps.

10/23/2015

Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers

Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers, stealing home plate in a swirl of dust, his eye and hand coordination groomed at UCLA men’s gym, playing ping pong…Stan  Musial of the Cardinals of St. Louis chasing fly balls in right field and batting  over three fifty, playing his harmonica at home later...

                                                                                     II

“Where to tonight at Wrigley Field in Chicago? the New York Met fans and former Ebbets Field  knothole bleacher “rats”, sitting on the edge of their vicarious seats, caught up the “Over the rainbow” syndrome..

Theo Epstein, the Grand Vicar and architect of the Cubbies hundred year incarnation into Wrigley’s gum chewing stadium. 

Where else on the planet’s playgrounds and schoolyards could a dreamer take off from their mother’ s womb into the unknownmetamorphosis and divine intervention.

                                                                                   III

But to follow a “a swirl of dust” and a “harmonica”? into the unknown?

Unbelievable?

“Right? Right! “ 

                                                                                     IV

A chewing gum dynasty into a bat and ball metaphor. Not a “Dr. Jekyll and Mister. Hyde” masked personality.  

Anna Freud’s empathetic approach (Dr. Freud’s daughter, fromher London digs: tormented mothers adrift with their gurglingcrying infants)

                                                                                        V

Is it any indisputable irony of ironies that when these dreamers take the field at Wrigley tonight, their     collective unconscious “Over the rainbow” is watched and overheard by millions and millions of fans.…

”PLAY BALL”

October 20, 2015 The City that never sleeps..

HARVEY IS GO

‘HARVEY IS GO’ “The Mets will live on forever” (former manager Bobby Valentine) the 1961 birthmark metamorphosing, as the 55 cents knot hole kid from Ebbets Field, metamorphosed into a  senior citizen at Queens Citi Field, the Mets ( under pitcher Harvey) taking game 1 of the National League’s playoff series 4 4-2 over The Cubbies of Chicago, making a comeback after some hundred years in contention for a post season berth,rehabilitated under Theo Epstein’s masterminding.(former Red Sox general manager)

                                                                        II

How could this be you ask?  The planet in cyber space disarray,hanging by its revolutions under the sun and Albert Einstein’s time and space mathematical principles...

How could the grandson of the Humphrey Bogart Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Heinreid, Dooly Wilson of Rick’s Bar, thumbing “Play it again Sam”…. 

Julius J. Epstein an his twin brother, Philip, in 7th Heaven, rejoicing at the Pearly Gates, knowing their grandson Theo, wasenergizing the Cubbies, his father, the Chairman of the creative writing program at Boston University, sharing the Epstein DNA for 3 generations….

“ So help me God.”.

                                                                      III

“May they live forever” said Bobby Valentine ….like he was still vocalizing from the Mets dugout , the Lafayette High School front office of  Brooklyn, rejoicing..the Wilpons, former Dodger southpaw immortal, Sandy Koufax, embracing the 40 degree temperature as the they lauded the metamorphosis playing out before their aging eyes.

”As time goes by”, Dooly Wilson at the keyboard, Rick’s Place, “Casablanca”.

October 18, 2015  The City that never sleeps.

This gun for hire’ a larger than life billboard of an actor named Alan Ladd

Coming attraction poster ‘This gun for hire’ a larger than life billboard of an actor named Alan Ladd, co-star a sexy Veronica Lake, her blonde hairdo over her left eye, East 13th Street and Avenue J, the  Midwood theater, 1942, Brooklyn, New York….(balcony)…..Dr. Marvin Kochman’s eye emporium  (“Do you get the drift?”)…(Warner Brothers studio, Avenue M..Butcher market, Steubenville, Ohio..Vilna, Poland ghetto)

                                                                                  II

Thousands and thousands of metamorphoses… growing up as a Cro-Magnon man on the Mojave Desert with the Air Force..Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls  (Texas Oklahoma panhandle) out of an oasis like RNCHO MIRAGE to  533 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs tennis club turf,(CharlieFarrell, “7

th Heaven” (( Janet Gaynor ,tennis club))

president..Ralph Bellamy ) a hardware store owned and operated by the actor and his wife  Sue Carol….

The reluctant hesitant (but not indecisive) gunslinger of “Shane” in counterpoint with Van Heflin Jean Arthur and  son Brandon de Wilde, dashing to their ranch stockade “Shane Shane”, the cameras grinding the fading moment…. Alan Ladd riding into the legendary distant dust..

Jack Palance, the desperado from Stanford University, lying dead on the ranch’s kitchen floor..his one armed pushup on  Ed Sullivan’s tv Sundays, all but forgotten, in the archives.

                                                                                       III

                               

Among the  North Hollywood High School alumni…..Alan Ladd, John Williams, Ron Tuller, (Lana, his wife at Walt Disney) Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor San Francisco Philharmonic, Susan Sontag, Farley Granger,  Russ Tamblyn, Marvin Miller, Teri Garr… 

                                                                                      IV

“This gun for hire” opening up a hamburger “hamlet” on graduation, “Tacos tamales burridos” Burbank Boulevard, Alan Ladd, a swimming champ, soon was doing stints on radio and small roles in the studios until he was cast in “This gun for hire”…. “Metamorphosing into “Shane”.           

A down to earth quiet actor, his daughter Alana gave your author her phone number when we met at a sweet sixteen party in Beverly Hills. Little knowing that we were catapulting back into Avenue J’s hardware stores, her mother and father recreating the scene 3000 miles away…a Danny Kaye borscht belt metaphor in reverse.

                                                                                       V

His store exited the Palm Springs run after 33 years (the ‘33 Plymouth taking us across the Continent to Venice and the roller rink where Charlie Chaplin discovered his persona as “the Tramp”, the derby, mustachio, baggy pants, over sized shoes   cane, the empathy supreme.…

                                                                                          VI

Long live Alan Ladd’s own empathy…..Builders hardware, general hardware, appliances, house wares   gifts, paints, toys, patio supplies,m  sporting goods.

Established 1955-1988, “Shane” into 96 roles from 1933-1966.

May his memorable North Hollywood pathos and humanity endure forever….

Long live “Shane Shane” riding off into the distant dust….

October 12, 2015. Columbus Day. The City that never sleeps…..

Reflections of Abraham Lincoln High School

Reflections of Abraham Lincoln High School, Coney Island,Arthur Miller’s metamorphosis….his “Death of a Salesman”, “A view from the Bridge” ( in London’s West End)  his wedding bond with Marilyn Monroe. 

Screenwriting his wife and Clark Gable near the finale of his silver screen ending, rethinking his Carole Lombard loss and an alliance with the bourgeoisie life style in the San Fernando Valley’s Encino, South of  Ventura Boulevard. .

                                                                              II

As a substitute teacher at Abraham Lincoln High in Coney Island ( on Ocean Parkway) viewing Arthur Miller’s name on the first floor remembrance wall, we could never imagine that his destiny was sealed so early in adolescence.

As a kid, growing up in view of the board walk, Archie Leach on stilts  (Cary Grant) the Steeplechase, Luna Park, the  tunnelof mirrors, the parachute jump, the Trump elevator apartment buildings. 

                                                                            III

“The Misfits” the reality of the over the hill romantic idol  ( “I don’t give a damn, Scarlet (“Gone with the Wind”, Clark Gable to Vivian Leigh)

Archie Leach aka Cary Grant, arriving in Hollywood, anointing the Gable initials, while the actor (“Boom Town” with Spencer Tracy at MGM) was living in North Hollywood, taking acting lessons from his coach, whom he subsequently married. 

                                                                           IV

Who can forget bare chest(ed) Fletcher Christian, giving the crew of (Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh) “MUTINY!””Mutiny on the Bounty”, the aristocratic Franchot Tone  (before his alliance with  Joan Crawford . Her own notoriety with “Mildred Pierce” at Warners in Burbank.…..

“Mommy dearest”, her daughter’s revelations of her life with thePepsi Cola dancing temptress from  Texas, full of spit and vinegar in making a name for herself. .

                                                                             V

But enough of the cinema’s Golden Age, these ambitious actorsout to make a score. 

“I don’t give a damn, Scarlet,” said Rhett Butler ka Clark Gable in “Gone with the Wind”.

Years and years later, post Vietnam, calling Vivian Leigh at New Haven’s Schubert theatre….answering the phone….inebriated or not, her Old Vic accent sounded soberly Scarlet O’Hara’s “Gone with the Wind”.

                                                                            VI

The myth however of the Arthur Miller alliance with Marilyn Monroe, managing the marriage thru the “Misfits”….heryesterdays, during WW2 on the Lockheed night shift as a riveter, married to a rookie policeman.

The photograph at Highland and Sunset photography store.. A screen test for a walk in role with Stanley Kubrick’s Sterling Haydn “The Asphalt Jungle” Louis Calhernn costarring.”(Morris Carnofsky, Larry Parks, his wife, Art S mith, the Public theater’s founder…

Her attempt to break through as an actress versus the starlet image at Daryl Zanuck’s 20th Century, her coach the Russian Maria Ouspenskaya, a Stanislavsky disciple,….the attempt to fulfill herself back in the Big Apple with the likes of the poetsand intellectuals..Arthur Miller….Elia Kazan, the Group theater gang of Harold Clurman, Sylvia Sidney, Brnado’s coach Stella Adler., ( later reprising the 
“Mutiny on the Bounty” role, that Clark Gable identified with,in n the first “Mutiny”.

                                                                                                 VIII

These then were the “tumult” yesterdays of our movie magic and the celebrity craze of the cyber space electronic algorithm connectivity, the landscape of multi sensors, streaming ego trips,what not.

For Marilyn Monroe to become a pawn in those hard print “romance” with “Jolting Joe” DiMaggio before Arthur Miller,was but fossil for the movie magazine readers. Her “Stanislavsky” was unfulfilled in the end..

                                                                                              IX

Like Steve McQueen, the King of Cool said near the end of Bullitt. “It’s all a racket,” paraphrasing his first ever role, a Molly Picon one liner  “Alts iz  farloyrn (“all is lost”)

Rhett Butler “I don’t give a damn, Scarlet”.

(Tomorrow how does one reconcile Alan Ladd’s “This gun for hire” with opening a hardware store in Palm Springs?)

October 7, 2015 The City that never sleeps.