nine o'clock and no foolin'

 

David Cassidy

--------------------------- [excerpt from Last Train to Memphis:  The Rise of Elvis Presley, by Peter Guralnick] ---------------------------

The Presleys were themselves relatively recent arrivals in Memphis in 1950, having picked up stakes in their native Tupelo, Mississippi, in the fall of 1948 when their only child was thirteen years old.

Their adjustment to city life was difficult at first.

Although the husband, Vernon, had worked in a munitions plant in Memphis for much of the war, good steady peacetime work was not easy to come by, and the three of them were crammed into a single room in one boardinghouse or another for the first few months after their arrival.

        Wary, watchful, shy almost to the point of reclusiveness, the boy was obviously frightened by his new surroundings, and on his first day of school at Humes High (1600 students, seventh to twelfth grade) he was back at the rooming house almost before his father had finished dropping him off.

        Vernon found him "so nervous he was bug-eyed.  When I asked what was the matter, he said he didn't know where the office was and classes had started and there were so many kids.  He was afraid they'd laugh at him."

His father, a taciturn, suspicious man, understood.... "I thought about it a minute," said Vernon, "and I knew what he meant.  So I said, 'Son, that's all right for today, but tomorrow you be there, nine o'clock, and no foolin'!"

______________________________

I've heard of "A New York State of Mind" -- I was kind of getting into "An Elvis State of Mind," since there's a movie called "Elvis" (2022) starring Austin Butler, and directed by Baz Luhrmann.

I remembered when a biography of Elvis Presley came out in 1981, written by Albert Goldman -- I looked through it at the library, I think, and I was shocked by how much the author must have hated Elvis Presley, or -- hated the idea of him, or something...  I mean, it was crazy the amount of bad things Goldman was writing (or typing) about Elvis.  I'm no book critic, but I was thinking, "This guy Goldman must be nuts!"

        (Truman Capote:  "That's not writing, that's typing.")

I guess there's Money To Be Made, picking out a celebrity and writing a book about them that says

All Good Things about them

or

All Bad Things about them.

And it might be not only the money from book sales, but maybe some people want to say or write hyperbole about famous people, whether positive or negative, because of the way the famous person makes them feel.  Sort of a psychological reaction....

Like teen girls screaming at rock concerts -- this was a thing, in the '60s.  Keith Richards was asked about this phenomenon, and he answered, "I don't know what that was all about."

My question was always, Why would you pay to attend a concert and then scream so much that you can't hear it?

I was a teen, or pre-teen girl once, and I do recall that some of my contemporaries were really into Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy -- I liked some of the songs by these people, and I enjoyed it when my friend Robin put a 45 on the record player and we all -- four or five of us -- listened to it.

But then after one or two songs, someone would turn off the record player and there would be fervent and emotionally-dedicated conversation about how "cute" the singer was, and what they had read about him in a fan magazine.

        And I had the distinct feeling that there was going to be more conversation about "cute" and less playing of records, when I would have preferred the opposite.

        I would start to get bored, and I remember the idea I had in my mind -- 'Why are we obsessing over these singers as if they're going to be our boyfriends?  You know? - they are not going to date us.  We're in fifth grade, and they are grown-up men.  They live in southern California, and we live in northeastern Ohio.  We probably aren't even going to get to be at a dance where they are....'

It's different ways of relating to the music, or responding to it.  For a lot of girls, the "crushing on" the singer and reading about his life and habits was a big part of appreciating the music.  For me, I wanted to listen some more, turn it up, and dance to it.

A customer review on Amazon, under an Elvis Presley biography says, "Elvis was about music..." and making the point that reading about little small details of a singer or actor's life isn't really as interesting as paying attention to their art.  I would agree with that.

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peace-time

 

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philosophical humor about life

 

Father of the Bride showed up on Amazon Prime, so I watched it immediately before they can take it away.

(It sort of looked to me like it was there on-loan from some other streaming service, and might disappear.)

Before the movie even started, a laugh was provided by the warning in the upper-left corner of the screen:

"alcohol use, smoking, and foul language"

This is the original film, released in 1950, starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor.  Smoking, and cocktails (all in the proper and correct glasses), yes, but "foul language" -- mmmh, No.  Not in 1950, my friend.

(It isn't that people didn't know how to swear back then, they just didn't put it in movies.)

Foul language.  LOL.

Are those Amazon Prime people drunk when they type on those warnings?  (Speakin' of "alcohol use") and are they "smoking?" -- smoking what?!

Then I checked to see how many re-makes of this film there have been.  The main ones:

one in 1991, with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton

and one in 2022, starring Andy Garcia, Gloria Estefan, and Adria Arjona.

So in these more recent versions (which I've not seen), there might have been "foul language."

But to stick that label on the 1950 original is a mistake that someone should have caught.

______________________________________

The 1950 movie was based on a book written by Edward Streeter.

A 1951 sequel titled Father's Little Dividend can be viewed on You Tube.

__________________________________

_________________________________

        An added note on the subject of swearing -- "foul language" -- in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Season 1, Episode 3, there's a storyline where Mary is taking care of a neighbor's child, Bess.

        Bess arrives at Mary's workplace after school.  When Mary's gruff boss Lou Grant notices the little girl he asks skeptically, "Have I got an appointment with you?"

"No."

"Then what're ya doin' there?"

"I'm waiting."

Lou growls, "We're all waiting, kid," and walks away toward the broadcasting studio.

A little later Bess starts writing things down, and she asks Mr. Grant, when he comes back through the office, "What do you do here?"

He answers, "I'm the boss!"

Then he calls for Mary to come into his office.

After she shuts the door behind her, he asks, "Who's the kid?"

"She's the daughter of my downstairs neighbor, and right now she's staying with me and -- uh --"

Mr. Grant:  You may not have noticed, but I never cuss when there are kids in the newsroom.

Mary (with enthusiastic approval) -- Yes I did, I noticed that, and I want you to know that I appreciate your watching your language.

Mr. Grant (sitting back in his chair and adopting a querulous tone) --

I don't like to watch my language.  I don't like having kids in the newsroom.  I mean, I'd like to cuss right now because (pointing toward the door) that kid's out there.  But I can't cuss -- because that kid's out there.

(he stands up)

Do I make myself clear?

Mary:  I -- I think so.  You'd like to cuss.  Is that it?

Mr. Grant (with a big smile, and hands clasped in front of him) --

Ye-ss!  Very much.

Mary:

Oh well, then, uh, I'll get her out of there.

Mr. Grant:

Good!  I feel a cuss coming on!

---------------------------------------------

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is currently on Amazon Prime, too.

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just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you

 

[continued:  David Martindale article on "The Bizarre Deaths Following JFK's Murder"]

        For example, consider what happened to Warren Reynolds.  The day of the assassination, Reynolds was at work in his used car lot in Dallas when someone shot and killed police officer J.D. Tippit.  Reynolds heard the shooting and shortly afterward, saw a man running down the street carrying a a revolver.

        He pursued the assailant for a block until the man fled out of sight.  Within an hour, the Dallas police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald and later charged him with the slayings of both Tippit and Kennedy.  Yet two months passed by before Reynolds was finally questioned by the FBI.  And although he still recalled the incident, he said he was unable to positively identify Oswald as the man he chased in November.

On January 23, 1964, two days after his FBI interview, Reynolds was shot in the temple with a rifle in a basement on his used car lot.  Miraculously, he lived.  Since nothing was taken, police ruled out robbery as a motive.  

Shortly after the shooting, authorities picked up Darrell Wayne Garner, who admitted he was at the scene at the time of the shooting.  He was held on a charge of assault to murder.  

        Yet on February 5, Nancy Jane Mooney, 23, signed an affidavit saying that Garner couldn't have shot Reynolds, since she was in bed with the suspect at the time of the shooting.  On the strength of her alibi and subsequent polygraph test, the charges against Garner were dropped.  

Interestingly enough, Mooney told Detective Ramsey of the Dallas police she had once worked as a stripper for Jack Ruby.

On February 13, 1964, just eight days later, Nancy Jane Mooney was arrested for quarreling with her roommate in a parked car and was taken to the Dallas City Jail at 2:45 A.M.  Within two hours, she was found dead, her toreador pants wrapped around her neck, her body dangling limply off the floor of her cell.

The coroner ruled her death a suicide.  For reasons which remain unclear, the Dallas police never informed either the FBI or the Warren Commission of this bizarre Reynolds-Garner-Mooney chain of events.

Meanwhile, Warren Reynolds, although lucky to be alive, continued to have problems.  Three weeks after he was released from the hospital, someone tried to entice his 10-year-old daughter into a car.  She refused.

On another occasion, someone went to considerable trouble to tamper with the light fixture on Reynolds' front porch.

These events, coupled with his narrow brush with death, had their effect.

When he finally testified before the Warren Commission in July 1964, Reynolds now was prepared to say what he refused to say in January -- namely that it was Lee Harvey Oswald he saw running past his car lot that day.

Unlike Reynolds, Hank Killam was not an eyewitness to the events in Dallas the day of the assassination.  However, his wife Wanda worked in Jack Ruby's club, and Killam had met Ruby on several occasions.  He also worked as a housepainter with a man named Jack Carter.  And in one of those curious coincidences which surround the Kennedy case, Carter lived at the same rooming house as an employee of the Texas School Book Depository -- an employee named Lee Harvey Oswald.

        Following Kennedy's death, Killam became increasingly despondent and downright paranoid.  His wife told federal authorities that Hank feared someone was trying to kill him.  Running for his life, Hank Killam moved to Pensacola, then to Tampa, and finally back to Pensacola, trying to escape what he called "agents and plotters."

Every time he took a job, he was fired after authorities hounded his employers.  By March, he was quoted as saying, "I'm a dead man.  I've run as far as I'm going to run."

At 4 A.M. on March 17, 1964, Hank Killam received a phone call at his mother's home.  When he hung up the phone, he dressed and went outside.  His mother then heard an auto drive off, and she thought it was unusual since her son did not own a car.  

        Thirty minutes later, two downtown street cleaners heard a loud crash and turned to see a  man staggering in front of a broken display window, blood oozing from his neck.

Before the ambulance reached the hospital, Hank Killam bled to death.  Although the coroner ruled that Killam's death was a suicide, his wife was openly skeptical.  

And little wonder.  Few people ever kill themselves jumping through a plate glass window of an empty department store at 4:30 in the morning.  

Besides, there was only one cut on Killam's body:  a three inch deep laceration of the lower left side of his throat.  Hank Killam's jugular vein had been cut.

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more than just a mere coincidence?

 

I found an article on the Internet, titled:

The Bizarre Deaths Following JFK's Murder

by David Martindale

Handwritten in the upper right-hand corner of the first page are the words, "Argosy, March 1977"

The article begins:

[Martindale] -- Rose Cherami was not the kind of woman you'd invite to a state dinner at the White House.  A junkie and a prostitute, she had been arrested at least 28 times on a variety of charges, using as many as 19 different aliases to try to camouflage her identity.  On November 20, 1963 -- two days before John F. Kennedy was assassinated -- Rose Cherami and a companion were driving back from Florida with a shipment of dope that was bound for a Dallas nightclub owner named Jack Ruby.  

Rose Cherami never made it to Dallas.  

Near Eunice, Louisiana, she got into a fight with the driver of the car, and after being beaten severely, she was thrown out of the moving auto onto Highway 190, where she was left for dead.  

Badly bruised but still alive, Rose Cherami was taken to Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson, where besides recovering from her injuries, she also was suffering narcotic withdrawals.  While at the hospital, she told psychiatrist Dr. Victor Weiss, Jr., that President Kennedy was going to be killed during his forthcoming motorcade in Dallas.  

Weiss ignored her remarks.  Heroin addicts say a lot of things when they haven't had a fix.  Only later, after he learned of Kennedy's death, did Weiss recall his conversation with the seemingly clairvoyant junkie.  

        A few days later, Rose Cherami was questioned by the Louisiana State Police.  She said she had been a stripper in Ruby's Carousel Club and was forced to smuggle dope for him or else he'd harm her children.  Asked if Ruby and Oswald knew each other, she said she had seen them together in Ruby's club on several occasions, and that, in fact, they were even "bed partners."  

After she was released, Rose Cherami returned to Texas, only to die mysteriously within two years.  On September 4, 1965, her head and the upper part of her body were lying on Highway 155 near Big Sandy, Texas at 3 A.M. when a car struck her, crushing her skull.  After a brief investigation, the police labeled her death an accident.  

No one knows why Rose Cherami was lying on the road that night.  

Few people would have taken note of her death, except that Rose Cherami is only one of dozens of individuals who have died mysteriously since the assassination of President Kennedy.  Penn Jones, Jr., the feisty former editor of the Midlothian (Texas) Mirror, was the first person to call attention to these strange deaths, and today his list includes well over 50 names.  

And although some of the victims had only a peripheral connection to the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963, others were either important witnesses or people who knew a great deal about Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby.  Most died within a three year period following Kennedy's death.

Yet according to the Warren Report, Lee Harvey Oswald and only Oswald was responsible for the death of President Kennedy.  The Commission emphatically denied there was any evidence of conspiracy.  But even as the Warren Commission was conducting its investigation, the mortality rate of witnesses began to soar, causing even the most sober observer to wonder whether the ensuing bloodshed was more than just a mere coincidence.

-30-

"don't look at me, I'm with That Girl!"

 

Now, I know this is going to sound like a pick-up.

My father always said, if some young man approaches you in New York and says, 'This is gonna sound like a pick-up,' that's what it'll be.  And you did, and it does, so it is.  Bye.

Wait!  You don't really think I'm trying to pick you up, do you?

Well, aren't you?

Yes -- but not the way you mean.

How about the way my father means?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Typical style of dialogue from the 1960s situation-comedy That Girl.  Every week, when the show came on, it didn't start with the intro theme music, it began with the first scene.  The scene would end with someone saying, "that girl" and the camera would zoom in on the face of the main character -- aspiring actress "Ann Marie," portrayed by Marlo Thomas.

For example:

INT.  Police station.  Night.

Now look, I don't know why I'm back here.  Like I told you before, we was only playing for matchsticks.

They don't count as matchsticks when you can cash 'em in for a hundred bucks.

Sergeant, money don't mean nothin' to me.  It was just a friendly neighborhood game.

In a garage?  Why don't you just make a statement, Joey?

I ain't doin' nothin' 'til I talk to my lawyer.

All right.  You can talk to him.  After we finish booking him, Tom.  All right, Yorkie -- who's next?

[A policeman standing by points to the holding cell where Ann Marie is waiting, behind bars.]

Over there, Sergeant.  That girl.

-----------------------------------------------

And then the opening theme music plays.

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everything's coming up roses

 

Suddenly on You Tube, there is That Girl, a hit situation-comedy that ran from 1966 to 1971.

    Some other classic TV shows that appear on You Tube have visual and / or audio glitches.  Or the theme song is cut off, or episodes are missing.  When you run into that you say, Well, I'm grateful I can watch it on here, anyway.  And you adjust your expectations.  "What you see is what you get," as they say.

But this collection of That Girl episodes goes from Season 1, Episode 1 all the way through.  It appears to be every episode.  And the sound and visual are just like you're watching it on TV.

It's from FilmRise and Paul Brownstein Productions.

Thank you, Film Rise and Mr. Brownstein, wherever you are....

What a wonderful show.

They had guest stars sometimes, including Ethel Merman.  And some actors who appeared on the show were the opposite of Ethel Merman, in the sense that instead of being already a big star so it was cool to have her on there, they were not stars yet, and being on the Marlo Thomas sitcom was one of their early acting jobs -- Richard Dreyfuss, McLean Stevenson, Rob Reiner.

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