“Wet nurse, bartender, and good humor man,” says it all for the late Marlon Brando and Robert Redford’s leading manmasculinity.
II
Brando off the hilly rolling Pico Boulevard, akin to Santa Monica City College, prior to World War 2, Brando and“Hubsy” into their pre adolescent marbles and tether ball gameson the Avenue to the Pacific Ocean, that Howard HughesDouglas Aircraft and Shirley Temple made famous.
Across the hills, into the San Fernando Valley and Van Nuys High School, stood Bob’s Big Boy on the Boulevard. Here the dream of playing out his gig, morphing as a Picasso on the left bank, nurturing his all American profile on hamburgers and thick malts, the staff catering to the drive in traffic behind Bob’s Big Boy take out, the hot rods screeching a double carburetorecho.
. III
In the meantime Harry Jack Sam and Albert Warner, once of Steubenville, Ohio kosher butcher shop, exploring Mussorqsky’s ‘Night on Bald Mountain’, by grafting from their Brooklyn Avenue M base to Luther Burb ank’s, California.… down the Chemistry and crops, from Walt Disney’s Mickey&Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs,“Stokie’s” Fantasia..
The hiccupping sound, the family not yet into Cyber Spacegrafting, rolled the dice. Al Jolson, a charismatic larger than life minstrel with a soul throbbing Robert Merrill baritone., out of an Eastern Parkway religious center….. opposite 770...the City that never sleeps.
IV
A big time set of tonsils into the sound stage, Jolson had theChemistry “The Jazz Singer” and the Warner’s were off and running to the Market….
Even a penny arcade 125th Street player, becoming a songplugger @$35 a week, aka George Gershwin took notice, he into his own opera genre with “Porgy and Bess” full of compassionfor the Afro American emancipation from slavery.
Subsequently with the likes of Sophie Tucker, N.Y. Post tinsel town columnist turned producer, Sidney Skolsky, Larry Parks,his wife Betty Garret, (Actor’s Lab) created a breakthrough of “Mammy” “Swannee”“Sonny Boy” Jolson.
V
Was this an epoch breaking stereotype of the “Great Caruso”.From novella Roma to the lower East Side of Eldridge Essex Streets.. Here Eddie Cantor and “Jolie” stretched their “blackfaces” into Flo Zigfield’s Broadway, bewitching their soulthrobbing melodies and patter, a vicarious triumphant joy, resounding thru Tin Pan Alley, Paul Whiteman, Irving Berlin, Kate Smith “God bless America”.
VI
Who could put all this wheeling and dealing into a transcending song and dance? The Shuberts?, Black and Erlanger? Jimmy Cagney’s Red Hook vaudeville booker? the Warner Brotherssensed the silent long lines of Steubenville natives, lining up for the silent flicks, made their migration to Brooklyn and Burbank.
“Toot toot Tootsie good bye” the Jazz Singer on his knees, in black face, had arrived, on the East and West Coasts, the immigrant sound bite of a beat , his widow Mrs. NormanKrasna saying “Yes!”
VII
Meanwhile Geronimo in his retirement at the Flagstaff, Arizona train station, hawking his Apache blankets, was into his “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, awaiting the passengers from Santa Fe’s El Capitan, bound for the Terminal Annex’s City of Angels, across from Olvera’s Street marketing of Chicano culture. The guitars and banjos in the background, long before the Beatlesarrived on the scene , and their Liverpool sound, off the MerseyRiver...
Geronimo smoking his peace pipe, outside his tent,contemplated taking his blankets to Albuquerque. Not that he was greedy but changing landscapes for a game changing gamble into New Mexico..
Then again, he was under no stress to place his bets, remembering how gun shows were a formidable bastion in New Mexico. Background checks not mandatory..
Downloading his streaming app from his smart phone, he heard a nasal sounding accent from the City that never sleeps… “Plans are being made to bring George Gershwin’s “American in Paris” to Broadway next season. The Gen Kelly adaptation, co starring Cyd Charise ,Tony Martin’s wife.
The metamorphosis had come complete circle. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, long side into T.S. Eliot’s “Waste land”. The soft tip tap of Ruby Keeler, AJ’s first frau, swirling routine: fromcasting, Dore Schary of “Boy’s Town’s Father Flannigan” anointed for drifts of ticket stubs, Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney into their knitting, finding their true Pinocchio, inNebraska’s “Boys Town.”.
VIII
Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” staying power was heard, as Colonel Buzz Aldrin , the second man on the Moon, washarvesting the space epoch in land locked Virginia, the July 19th1969 Anniversary.
“One small step for man. A giant leap for mankind” NeilArmstrong ,stepping atop a crater, Claude Debussy’s ( Moonlight)” Clair de Lune” playing out in the galaxy..
July 19, 2014. The City that never sleeps.
