“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”, chain smoking lyricist Fran k Loesser, inspired during World War 2., the “Thief of Bagdad” blood curdling man’s inhumanity to man,(Sunni Sunni Kurdish Moslem Arab tribes) in the planet’sMiddle East..
II
Slim” Into his metamorphosis ass Howard Hughes corporation, was carried away, as in his yesterdays at Cloverdale airport, in Santa Monica, a few blocks behind Douglas Aircraft, where the cream cheese bandit, tried to find himself on the riveting line…Marilyn Monroe on the night shift, across the Hollywood Hils,punching her rivets at Lockheed, the instant camera man, plying his wares at the Burbank gate.
III
Slim practicing his take offs and landings, his Houston oil drillopener, pushed aside while he went for it, at Cloverdale. Not to be forgotten, was his purchase of RKO studio from JFK’s father, Joseph Kennedy, the Ambassador to the USSR under FDR, JFK the scribe for “Mission to Moscow”..
Meanwhile “Slim” was posting Dore Schary to be his alter ego at the studio, he mastering his aviation dreams, building prototype aircraft. Until one day in 1946, his fuel tank lost itslargesse, Slim trying to regain control, lost his altitude, crashing into a an M.D’s Beverly Hills home….
IV
In that moment, the amateur golfer play boy and millionaire,knew God was watching over him. Saved by a former Marine, who grabbed him from the cockpit, saving his life. Slim growing a mustache over his scarred lip. To live many more days.
Therefore hence thus, Slim arranged his playboy aviator image accordingly. Offices in Gower Gulch, his message center commandeered by his fiercely devoted dream team. His chieflieutenant until their fallout, was a Bel Air father figure, his son in law.
But “Slim” was not to be denied. His aides shielded him, onthose cross country trips as he testified before a Senate Committee. Buying upscale Las gambling hotels, living in a penthouse, disguising himself when he sort escape from his reclusive life style.
Slim was a long way from those earthy yesterdays at Coverdale landings and take offs , the cream cheese bandit in to his riveting role at Douglas Aircraft on Pico Boulevard, within the airport’s orbit..
V
Little did the cream cheese bandit know that his singular tennisstratagems, would bring him into Slim’s galaxy. In creating aoffshoot of his aviation tenacity, he created the Whittaker Corporation on Wilshire.
A balsa model of his once former head stream image. Here he placed a trusted miniscule of himself: tycoon who had his own tennis court in the Hills.
The cream cheese bandit, still steady s as on automatic, playingout his alias in that Whittaker Slim metamorphosis The rallies would take both men into long down the lined and cross courtdeep rallies, forehands backhands drop shots and lobs as they played out their continuums for games, sets ,dueling above the San Fernando Valley, pllaying out the their inner needs in thoseseething rallies.
Slim aspired to be a golfer but caught up in the throes of the milieu and the constancy in imagery and the movie business, hesought to lose his self in the glitter.
Like HG Wells “The Invisible Man” Or the Charles Ives’s symphony “The unanswered question”, into musical notation,while selling insurance..
“Hell’s Angels” and “The Outlaw” brought him some notoriety,but the price he paid for starring Jean Harlow in “The Angels” brought him emotionally way out. . The caste system almost broke him but he weathered the storm and starred Jane Russellin “the Outlaw”, her sultry image as a cow girl, projectedthroughout the planet’s multiplexes, the publicist using the same tried and true projections he employed on Jean Harlow’s image.
VI
In this midst, the cream cheese bandit continued his own play by play, becoming a teaching pro. Selling tennis racquets,restringing them, a role at a once bankrupt golf and tennis country club, south of Ventura , in Sherman Oaks, off Kester ,not that far from Ventura
Boulevard, where immortal basketball UCLAU coach John Wooden would do his brisk walking..
Boulevard, where immortal basketball UCLAU coach John Wooden would do his brisk walking..
Here he toiled his steadiness and racquet wares, along with his wife, sharing her role as a net teaching coach and playing doubles.
In one of their fated coincidence, the cream cheese bandit, reveling in his role, big time tennis still years ahead of the Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, Steffi Gra moment, he m et hisyearning net competitors.
“Remember me from Scarsborough?” he asked one of Slim’slieutenants.”Our colleges were rivals. We played singles against each other..
.
“No sir. We never met,” said the well groomed tennis garbedgentleman. “Absolutely not.”
VIII
So the cream cheese bandit was rebuffed. He took the rejection into those bullying tactics at Booth Jr. High back in Meyer Lansky’s prohibition Brooklyn, where he ran the fastest 60 yard dash and immersed himself in the role of George Washington in the Jr. High’s senior play.
July 2, 2014 The City that never sleeps
