'The Last Waltz' and old friends.

A bit over a month or so ago, I discovered that buried deep in the "free movies" section of my cable company's streaming options was one for Turner Classic Movies. I'd often wished they would have one, and suddenly it appeared as though the Cinema Gods had smiled upon the retired movie lover. Titles available at first seemed to be those which had just shown on TCM proper. That has changed a bit, with other titles not on the recent schedules popping in. Most of the titles are only there for 5 or 6 days at a time. As my cable box's digital video recorder is almost always full, I was over joyed to get a second chance to watch titles I had missed, or old friends which I wanted to see again. last night, for instance, I watched a 1942 MGM potboiler about an unfortunate event befalling a gold digging Broadway starlet:

I'll comment on that movie another time, but just as a 'circle of life' kind of thing, I'll note that I used to work in Grand Central Station a long time ago. I will add that it made for a rather interesting almost a double bill, as the late afternoon/early evening had been spent with a friend who came over to see the restored pre-code 'Baby Face', which had been on my DVR for two years waiting for the perfect time to watch it. Notes on that one later, as well.

At any rate, last Saturday night I turned on the video projector, intending to go to the streaming TCM option to see what might be expiring that I'd like to see. I had left the cable box on a Vermont PBS channel; 'The Last Waltz' had just started. My immediate reaction was to email a friend to come over - he had been invited to go to see the live concert but chose not to go. I also figured that it would be constantly interrupted and was being used as pledge bait. That turned out to be correct, but I watched the whole thing (slightly over 3 hours) anyway. It had been a long time since I'd seen it. The concert was the Band's farewell performance, held on Thanksgiving in 1976. Adding to the frustration of the breaks was a pledge promotion for a Blu-ray (only available as part of a set of CDs) which had been restored and approved by the filmmaker (Martin Scorsese), with it's soundtrack remixed by Robbie Robertson (member of The Band who produced the movie) for Dolby 5.1. This was frustrating for a few reasons. 1. I couldn't afford it. 2. I didn't have the room on the DVR to record it. 3. The version they were showing had a standard stereo mix. It was still a delight to see it again. Of course, I looked online to see if this new edition was available. It might be a repackaging of previously available material, or not - information was scarce. Now, I can't go to any website without being confronted with ads for 'The Last Waltz 40th Anniversary' special set.

I've mentioned elsewhere in this blog that in the late 1960's and early 1970's, I used to help run a counter-culture coffee house in Ocean City, NJ, called the Purple Dragon. Ocean City had originally been a Methodist camp meeting. When land was sold, a clause was put in the deeds that should the sale of alcohol ever be legalized on the island, the land would revert to the possession of the Methodist Church. Now, when I say that Ocean City was an island, I do mean that literally, not figuratively. The main bridge was at 9th Street. Across that bridge, on the mainland, was a town called Somers Point. And, on one side of a traffic circle, there was a very large liquor store said to have the highest volume of sales in the entire United States. (Across it's access road was a popular club, 'Your Father's Moustache'.) On the other side of the circle was an even more popular club called Tony Mart's. Just next to it was an old fish market. The Methodist church, which funded the Purple Dragon, got that building and opened another coffeehouse, called The Fish Market. (I think that was supposed to be a display of ecumenical humor.) Now, I spent many an evening at the Fish Market. I only mention this as it is my tenuous connection to Tony Mart's. The Band used to play there under the name of 'Levon and The Hawks', a leftover form the days when they played with Ronnie Hawkins. They were, in fact, playing there when Bob Dylan made them an offer to become his back up band.

Needless to say, I was a fan of both The Band and Mr. Dylan. When Dylan ended a multi-year retirement (after the motorcycle accident), he did so by going on tour backed by The Band. When they played Madison Square Garden as the tour's last stop, I was there - with my friends Richie and Keith. That's the same Richard, by the way, with whom I go on camping and canoe expeditions into wilderness areas of the Adirondacks. (Trips which I credit with maintaining my sanity.) At any rate, I went to see 'The Last Waltz' when it played in the theatres. When another friend, John, bought a building in Brooklyn (in partnership with his brother) to rehab, they threw a party. The idea was that they would have something different going on in each room for guests to enjoy while wandering around. At the time, I was working for a film company which had the rights to 'The Last Waltz', and managed to get my hands on one of the brand new 16mm prints to show in one of the rooms. That's the same John, by the way, who was instrumental in my moving from NYC to Boston, and who took me on my first car culture excursions, as well as my first trips to Vermont. He was also one of the kind folks who helped me move here. I've lost contact with him over the years, much to my regret. So John Chiafalo, if you stumble on this, please get in touch.

Now, I'm not going to go into the whys and wherefores of what is probably the best rock and roll concert film ever made, or some of the problems it had. Or the sadness of the years and realizing that Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Levon Helm are no longer with us. What I will say is that if you've never seen it, you owe it to yourself to do so. Here's the concert's, and the movie's, finale (an encore was used as the film's opening). Joining the Band are Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond (Huh? - don't worry about it), Paul Butterfield, Dr. John, Van Morrison, and Ronnie Hawkins. Oh, yeah, when you start the clip use the full screen option if it's available to you. And, as the filmmaker requests, turn up your volume.

Thanks or Franks?

November the 26th, 1940 was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The war in Europe had intensified with the near destruction bombing of Coventry, England by the Nazis a week before. Here in Brattleboro, folks were getting ready for the holiday - well, the one as celebrated in Vermont, anyway. See, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared Thanksgiving be held a week early on the 3rd Thursday of the month. The idea originated with merchants who were hoping the extra shopping days would be a boon to their businesses at a time when the country was finally emerging from the great depression. Republican Vermont decided that setting the holiday was the state's right, and declared it to be the traditional 4th Thursday of the month. As the kids might have said, it was Thanks, not Frank's.

At the very end of October 1940, a new venue opened in Los Angeles called the Palladium. On opening night, 10,000 people showed up to dance to Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, with vocalists Connie Haines, some new kid named Frank Sinatra, and the Pied Pipers. Dorsey and company were still there on November the 26th when the sustaining remote featured in this week's show was broadcast. (A 'sustaining remote' was unsponsored, and usually late at night. Of course, it didn't hurt that the show was broadcast on NBC whose parent company RCA also owned the record company which released Dorsey's recordings.)

That Tuesday night here in Brattleboro, it snowed (over 6 inches deep) which made it a little difficult for those going over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving dinner. The paper had contained a couple of suggestions for those dealing with the season... as well as ads for holiday shopping.

 

There were quite a few ads for Thanksgiving dinners out. The minimum wage set by President Roosevelt's two year old  Labor law was 30 cents an hour, with the average work week being close to 50 hours - although attempts were being made to restrict work hours to 40 per week at regular pay and an extra four hours at time and a half.



The Latchis was one of three movie theatres in Brattleboro, but that Tuesday it had the best movies in town. Well, the Auditorium did have - for one day only - The Grapes of Wrath on Tuesday. It usually showed westerns and serial chapters on the weekends. The other theatre, the Paramount, usually had the best pictures, but the Latchis had the good ones that week. (Including West Brattleboro, the 1940 census showed the population at almost 11,000. Today it is 12,000.
We're down to one movie house - the Lacthis, whose main auditorium is still intact; three newer, smaller auditoriums have been added in the old ballroom. the old crying room, and one of the attached storefronts.)

The auditorium of the Latchis Hotel and Theatre as it exists today.



 

 

With one of those Philco's you could have easily heard that broadcast with Tommy Dorsey, even though it was broadcast from New York City on WJZ - 770 kilohertz on the AM dial, the NBC Blue network. (NBC had two networks, the Blue and the Red. The government told NBC they could only have one - so the Blue was spun off into its own network - which became ABC.) You too can listen to that Tommy Dorsey broadcast by the way. It's included in this week's radio show. 

 

Until I get a permanent home for my radio shows, these programs are only available for three weeks at a time. More clippings from the local newspaper can be found Monday thru Friday on the show's Facebook page. You can see those posts (click on one of the photos in each post to page through and see everything) even without having a Facebook account by clicking this link: Recycled Radio's Facebook page. I hope anyone kind enough to listen enjoys the show.
                       

Turkey Trottin'

Lots of fresh snow, power back on, warm place to park my hat, parades to watch on the tv, vittels to make for dinner... it's time to, well... you know



Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

The Kids table

When I was young, Thanksgiving dinner was always held at my Grandmother's.

My Grandfather had died two years before I was born. Nana had remarried and moved to the next town down the road when I was three.

Her parents (my great-grandparents) would be there. And her three sons, (and the eldest's wife), my brother and myself. And Nana's second husband's son, wife and at first two, then three kids. Then my youngest uncle would add a wife and a couple of children of his own. It was quite a crowd. All of us kids would have our own table. At first we were put at a card table in a corner of the dinning room, but in following years we were put at the table in the kitchen. It was special, and I dare say that we all felt very grown up to be off on our own. I'll bet our discussions were a lot more fun than at the big folks table. I do remember that once or twice an adult came in to quiet us down.

In those days, it would have been considered horribly rude to have the television on during dinner, or to eat in the living room with it on. There were no big football games to be watched - they hadn't started televising them yet (if they were even held), and no one in my family would have been interested. We did have Thanksgiving football, though. While the morning was given over to watching the Gimbels parade on the tv, early afternoon, for anyone interested (none of us were until our teenage years), was the high school's final football game of the year with our traditional and properly hated main rival.

For the feast itself, we'd not only put the extensions into the dining room table (and lay down the extra table mats), but we'd get out the special china, the special silver service (which came out of a dark wood box luxuriously lined with green felt), the crystal water glasses (we did not have wine, although I do not know if that was common or just my family - there were dark rumors of a relative from the 1800's who had been "lost to drink"... ). We dressed in company best clothes, too, even though we saw each other constantly - it was a nod to the day. My great grandfather always wore his suit.

That was all a long time ago now. These days, I live an 8 hour drive away from the town where I grew up, and all of my direct family members are gone; only an aunt, stepmother, and stepbrother and his family remain. I would love to see them all, but it's too long and expensive a drive (these days I have no car), and it is too expensive to go by train. I get together every year with Laura of the Austanspace blog for dinner - it's our own little tradition in a world where even traditions are now merchandised and made meaningless. But we carry on. We don't dress up, and there is no special china, or freshly polished silverware in a dark brown felt lined box, it's been years since Laura had a dining room (instead, we lounge around her living room - it's the modern version of the kids table). But there is still a feast to celebrate another year of our survival in an increasingly difficult world, memories to share of times and people gone by, lots of gossip, and an unspoken celebration of our family of friends who care about each other. And for that, I am truly thankful. May we all be so blest.

Best Wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Fruitcake Weather

Sometimes in life there are unexpected consequences, or in this particular case, unexpected benefits. I haven't had tv since last February - a little matter of the cable bill. Where I live, there is no tv without cable. And even though there is a wealth of it on the internet and dvd, it somehow isn't the same when one is not partaking of the communion simultaneously with millions of our mass media brothers and sisters. The benefits include missing out on the incessant frenzied hyperbolic chatter when there is nothing new to report on an inane topic of intense focus, as well as missing out on the barrage of post Labor Day vulgar corporate Chri$tma$ hucksterism.


There is far less tension and anxiety in my world as a result. And now that I am retired, I will not have to spend the next 30 some days in a constant state of aural fear as the overproduced humbug of alleged holiday music is blared at one and all to further engender that holiday shopping urge - in a food store. It makes me wonder if we are being prepared for the day when an appropriate gift will be a can of genetically modified vegetables in a sauce of  tasty chemical additives. Oh, wait...

It was all so much simpler when I was young.

Every generation gets to say that, and for just about every generation, there is much truth in the statement. When I was young, it was considered unseemly to use advertising to implant Christmas desires before Thanksgiving. Holiday music was written by people who knew how to write real songs, and performed by people who could actually sing - and wasn't played until about two weeks before The Day. Christmas Holiday cheer was saved until Christmas was nigh. 

Last year, I discovered that most of the old Christmas specials and tv show episodes - the ones that could actually bring a bit of the spirit of joy and sharing into our lives, were either played continually on cable channels, or (for the better shows) available only on pay per view. The programs on pay per view were originally broadcast for free - or the price of watching a commercial. It tells you something about our modern world that the current corporate owners of those programs keep them unavailable until they are paid by each viewer for each viewing over a closed wire system which must also be paid for. 

And, sadly, some of the best programs have gone missing for one reason or another. I still have fond memories of a muppet Christmas special which had only one human character - Santa Claus, as played by Art Carney. I seem to recall it was rather sad, and I've never heard of it again. I thought I was imagining it until Laura over at Austanspace told me she remembered it too. Carney, by the way, was absolutely great as the Santa in the Twilight Zone episode, "Night of the Meek".

But the special I want most to see again was an ABC Stage 67 program, "A Christmas Memory". It was adapted from a Truman Capote short story by Eleanor Perry and Capote, who narrated it. It won Emmys for Geraldine Page and for the script. It also won a Peabody award. There is a multi-part post of it on You Tube, but it is in black and white. There is a good, clear print of it in color, but it is variously reported as missing, destroyed, or tied up in rights. It's complicated.

The story begins on a crisp cold morning in late November as... well, here, let Mr. Capote tell it:

" ...she is sixty-something, We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880's, when she was still a child. She is still a child.... It's always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: "It's fruitcake weather!"

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. The current version of holiday madness is about to begin in earnest. I try to find joy in the sheer vulgarity of it all, the overwhelming garishness of the decorations, the frenzied mobs I try to avoid, the steep prices that will be reduced the day after The Day, but it gets harder every year.

But there is something about Thanksgiving that gets us.  Everyone seems to celebrate it, friends and families draw together, and every year it seems like we have to triumph over ever increasing odds just to do it. But we do it. Even though it is mostly ritual now, often devoid of meaning, we still do it. There is something in us that understands. It is more than just a day of thanks giving. It is the start of a time which exhilarates our imaginations, and fuels the blaze in our hearts. And it always starts the same, on a cold morning in November, when it's fruitcake weather...

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Coffee - check. Nosh - check - cranberry English muffins, 6 pack averaging 50 cents each muffin, cost of butter additional. Muffins, like last year, start out large and full of cranberries but by Thanksgiving are small with one cranberry each - Thomas' should be ashamed of itself. Fond memories of visiting the family at Thanksgiving emerge, if only because my father and stepmother could afford bacon with breakfast. I give Thanks that I once had a job where I made enough to afford bacon and can remember how much I liked it. Naturally, I have my own happy Thanksgiving breakfast, which includes Irish steel cut oatmeal. I still have a can, a couple of years old now. I no longer make it, not because it takes about 45 minutes, but because I like it with maple syrup drizzled over it, and maple syrup has been too expensive for a few years now. Even grade B. The first boil of maple sap produces that clear light brown color. That's for tourists. Real folks know to go for Grade B, it has all the flavor.



I just spent a few minutes sipping coffee and re-reading last year's Thanksgiving posts. I'd forgotten all about having the collection of Victorian Thanksgiving cards. And the memories of the holiday season kickoff. And having a family that actually spoke to each other and spent time together. Even if Aunt Lorraine wanted me to call her "Mommy". What did I care? My own mother had left (or was thrown out) before I was even six months old. Even still, I just couldn't do it. So what if that meant another beating?

And then there was Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother's. My grandfather had died of a massive heart attack two years before I was born. Almost to the day. I suppose that might have had something to do with my father's attitude about me. She had remarried and now lived in the next town down the road. Her second husband had a couple of grandkids, too. There would be a special table just for us kids. The special china and silverware would be brought out, the extra leaf would be put into the dining room table. The extra mat would be put in, the big good tablecloth would be spread over it, and enough food to feed all the starving children in Europe (and then some) would appear. Turkey. Stuffing. Gravy. Cranberry sauce (this was before people served chunky cranberry sauce - it just wasn't available). Mashed potatoes. Peas. Succotash. Candied yams. Green beans. Glasses of water (it was still drinkable then). Glasses of iced tea. Who found the wishbone???

Around that table you'd find my great grand parents Wilbur and Laura, my Grandmother Helen and her second husband Mahlon, her three children - all boys. Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine. Dad. Uncle Harold and his meet the family date who would become Aunt Mary. Mahlon's son Jan and his wife Sue. Around the kid's table my brother Lewis, Jan's kids Ricky and Bonnie and the youngest, still a baby, whose name escapes me at the moment. Sorry kid. My cousins, Uncle Harold's children Patricia and Harold Michael hadn't come along yet. I just tried to type "Uncle Harold's kids" but couldn't. Mary had raised holy hell because I once called them 'kids'. Her children were not goats, thank you. She told my father I sassed her, even though I hadn't. I got beat. Fond memories.

Macy's parade has started. Kickoff has a horrible attempt at a musical number. No one seems to be able to write special material anymore. "Time for celebratin', Santa Claus' is waitin'". (I shudder quite involuntarily.) Chorus kids dressed to look like little nerd boys and girls, as though they were popular and not outcasts. Something which passes for choreography that involves jumping up and down, arms akimbo. The first balloon goes by, but Al Roker is too busy talking to notice. It's low to the ground and it's Sonic the Hedgehog, who or what ever that is. Now we're getting a preview of a new Disney show based on their 20 year old movie "Newsies". Someone should tell the casting director and costume designer that what are supposed to be pre teen newsboys aren't supposed to be ripped with muscles rivaling weightlifter competitions.

Another musical number - the cast of "Sister Act", another show based on a movie. Wait, didn't it used to work the other way around? The woman in the Whoppi Goldberg part dances on in the most robotic performance I've seen since Hal refused to open the pod bay doors.

There's a big balloon they are saying is Mickey. As in Mouse, maybe? Al Roker runs (not something you want to see) to talk to one of the handlers. The cameraman forgets to pan up so we can see the balloon. We do see the bottom of it, all yellow. A color not used for Mickey Mouse.

Now there's a musical number from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". Harry Potter, minus his glasses, seems to be growing into the role since the bit they showed last June on the Tony Awards show. Except he still looks terrified that he's going to forget the next step. It's the "Brotherhood of Man" number. The female solo has so much vibrato I can barely understand a word she sings.

Now it's a musical number from "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", based on another movie. Using songs from the Disco era. They're singing "I will survive" while two of the drag queens show off while dressed as turkeys.

Al Roker (why is this guy popular?) is interviewing two tv show actors who just happen to be sitting together on a nearby bleacher. What are they doing for Thanksgiving? One is going to his wife's family out in Far Rockaway Queens. The other merely smiles and says "Lower East Side for me". After all these years he still isn't allowed to say "My boyfriend's place".

More Al Roker interviews. Two other people I've barely heard of have replaced the two actors on the bench full of people.

Now it's a musical number from Spiderman, Turn Off the Dark. Based on a comic book. And a movie. Wait, isn't the stunt dancer Spiderman supposed to be the same size as the guy who turns into Spidey? The Green Goblin sings, "I'm the new Coney Island and all the rides are free." Now there's eight spidermen, but their synchronized routine isn't. Don't they have a PSM calling this?

Now there's a commerical for an insurance company and it's using the "Everybody knows your name" song from Cheers.

I don't know if I can last long enough to see the parade. At least, I think there's a parade there.

Jeez. Even the Rockettes' visual lines are sloppy. And in closeup they look more like drag queens than the cast of Priscilla. 31 supposed genetic females in New York City. Two are black. One appears Hispanic.

The parade finally starts after an hour of other things. As Matt Lauer says "The first of our marchers arriving on 34th Street...." we see cops on motorcycles. There's a turkey float which stops to let Avril Levine (sp?) sing something that is supposed to be a song. Yah, yah, yah, wish I had you here, here, here, near, near, near.

Wow. There's a band marching/playing so fast they look like they're running bomb squad members. Maybe they have the right idea.

Now there an "Ocean Spray" float (which has nothing to do with their product) with some country singer I've never heard of "makes me want to take the back road, park the truck where it gets hot". Huh? The camera catches a young black woman on the float trying to figure out how to dance to this crap. She tries a chorus girl move from a 1930's movie. It is oddly enderaing.

There's a Sesame Street float with performance of a song so bad everyone on the float is having to jump up and down and clap their hands trying to sell it. There is only one Sesame Street character visible. I suddenly recognize one of the guys trying to pretend to be "up" and "happy", and he looks soooo old. He's also at least 20 years younger than I am. I sink far down into my chair, then shift my position so I can't see any reflective surfaces.

Now there is a float from Hamburger Helper. I'm not making this up.

I think I've had enough. I try to tear myself away, but it's like the proverbial train wreck. Which I think is the next float, right after the rapping AFLAC balloon.

But first, a "balloon-icle" pitcher of koolaid. It looks suspiciously like grape. I reach out my hand to pour some. Seems like a good idea.

 

Happy Thanksgiving Day, folks.

November 24 is the 328th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 394 days remaining until the end of time.