Author Archives: Brick Wahl

I got a $2 parking ticket in Los Angeles

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I got a $2 parking ticket in Los Angeles.

It was in Atwater Village. Nice little neighborhood just across the river from us. I’d gone to a record store there to sell some old jazz LPs. It’s been one of those character building years in a jazz critic’s life, and I’ve built a lot of character this year. Anyway, I put 30 minutes worth of change into the meter. A quarter’s worth of parking. I had two quarters on me but figured why waste the other two bits? Selling the records took longer than I expected because some old couple came in for some inane reason and it took a while for the owner–a sweet, considerate guy–to answer their silly questions before they split. They had lots of questions, all beside the point. 35 minutes passed before the guy could give me $61. I stepped outside to see the parking cop pulling away. So that $63 parking ticket cost me only $2.

I call that a bargain.

Crooning

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Oh wow, I recognized Matt Monro’s voice. Matt Monro. An obscure tune from an obscure movie, too. Southern Star was no Born Free. Sigh….I can recognize so many crooners by voice alone it creeps me out. When I was a kid I hated that crooning shit. That’s what I called it. I loved my dad’s big band music but couldn’t stand the crooners my mom used to swoon to. Album after album of them. Vaughn Monroe and Al Martino and Tony Martin. Frank Fontaine, Vic Damone, and Sergio Franchi. Eddie Fisher, that bum. But I find myself liking Andy Williams and Robert Goulet and not minding Steve Lawrence at all. Steve Lawrence? Yes, Steve Lawrence. Is this what getting old is like? Sleepy becomes a good thing? Oh god. Look at me, one Matt Monro tune and I’m shaking. Another aging rock’n’roll kid terrified that memories of Perry Como will morph into nostalgia.

A very young Matt Monro, no idea who's conducting the orchestra outside the booth. I'm assuming it's a London studio. Copped this from mattmonro.com.

A very young Matt Monro, no idea who that is outside the booth conducting the orchestra. I’m assuming it’s a London studio. Copped this from mattmonro.com.

 

Books

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Somebody mentioned they were watching High Fidelity and I remembered how the vinyl geeks in the flick were forever reorganizing their records by weird categories of the moment. Yeah, so we all did that. Maybe not as geekily as in High Fidelity, and maybe we were never in bands as anti-climactically lame as the one that ended the movie (I fucking hated that band), but we reorganized our record collections. Alas, I’ve gotten rid of most of my record collection to feed my epilepsy medication habit (I probably have 400 LP’s left….) and reorganizing it just doesn’t hang anymore. It’s just sad. I only have four categories left. One is jazz. One is classic jazz. One is pre-Baroque music. And the final one is everything else. You know you don’t have many records left when one of your categories is everything else. And I just sold another batch yesterday. There’s no joy in reorganizing LPs when you barely have any. What normally would last all weekend now takes an hour watching Bob Ross on PBS. Funny little clouds indeed.

So I spent the weekend reorganizing my books. Getting rid of 90% of my jazz library suddenly opened up all this space so I was finally able to get the books out of the closet and shelf them. I did so lovingly. All these wonderful books, mostly hardcover, all non-fiction, any one of which could make me an excruciatingly dull person to sit next to at a cocktail party. Not to mention an annoying know-it-all on Facebook. It was a happy time, sorting and shelving books, Caetano Veloso on the stereo, three cds worth. (I’ve been on a Brazilian kick lately.) Finally, I tucked in the last book in the last spot. I was done. Project complete. I sat at my desk in the office (aka the living room… brickwahl.com maintains a homey work culture) surrounded by hundreds of carefully shelved books. I felt intellectual to the max.

Then as I lay in bed in the dark going off to sleep, the German inside of me began to grumble. Kein Ordnung, sie sagte, so viele Bücher und so ein Durcheinander. And the German was right, it was anarchy. Just a mess. This is what happens when I let the Irish me sort books. I glory in their words, I lay them out in random order, sprinkled like spring blossoms on an Irish hillside. But what I needed was them broken down by subject. So first thing this morning, as the Irish me slept in late, as usual, the German me came into the living room and worked my German engineering magic. Now right next to the desk is my linguistics section, while behind me are the history and science sections. There’s a whole shelf full of brain books. The surviving music books are tucked away where vinyl used to be. Beneath the desk is an enormous stack of to be reads, maybe a hundred of them. Stretched across the desk is a whole column of reference works, making me feel very secure. Next to me is a charming little collection of foreign language dictionaries, because you never know when you might need to say við hliðina á mér er heillandi lítill safn af erlendum tungumálum orðabækur in Icelandic. There’s a pile of coffee table books to my left, another bunch to the right. There’s even a secret stash of Penguin classics for when I want to read Xenophon xenophobically.

And I still have longstanding plans to get more shelves. And more books. Collecting music has lost much of its magic. Too many formats. Too easily accessible. I do it but it’s not as exciting as it used to be. Books, though…probably three quarters of the books in my library are not available digitally. Books are the last bastion of old analog bastards. Books and the boxes full of handwritten scrawl in my closet, daring me to digitize them. And the photographs. Thousands of them, unscanned. I had so much hair then, and looks, and charisma, and modesty. There must be a quarter century of photographs. Pictures of parties and gigs and bands and all these young people raising hell. There are even cat pictures. Good lord that will be a project. I’ll have a throwback Thursday that will last the rest of my life.

“Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn’t so important, I’d show you something. My library. Thousands of books.” Elisha Cook Jr., as an old school lawyer, to Captain Kirk on Star Trek.

Thanksgiving

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So I made dinner yesterday, had the siblings over for eats and laffs, packaged six months worth of leftovers, then cleaned up, scrubbing a zillion dishes and pots and one deep blue turkey pan and have dishwater hands that Madge would not believe, made a big pot of turkey vegetable soup, handwashed some laundry because the part hasn’t come in for the goddam washing machine yet, washed the floor, straightened up the place and then sat in the dark listening to Joe Henderson until I realized it was getting less dark. Nearly twenty four hours of giving thanks (if you include the Joe Henderson). Thank god that we have to be grateful only once a year. And the Macy’s Parade coverage is lame. I hate those fucking pop singers. I liked it better with Milton Berle in a dress.

Milton Berle at the Macy's Parade, 1982.

Milton Berle at the Macy’s Parade, 1982.

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Candles

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There was this drop dead gorgeous paralegal who’d worked in the office. This was years ago. We were on opposite sides of the building. Only ran into her occasionally. She was a knock out, though, her father German, her mother Vietnamese, and the results were striking, the best of both. She was friendly enough but business-like, almost icy, and I never talked to her much. One time, though, we were talking and she was rubbing her fingers over little spots on her arm and neck. Little red spots, lots of them, like tiny little burn marks. She said they stung. I asked if they were insect bites, imagining a cloud of black flies or mosquitoes. She laughed. Said they were burns. Burns? They really are burn marks? Yeah, she grinned, from candle wax. Candle wax? Yeah, she said. Her date last night had dripped hot scented candle wax all over her body. I must have blinked. Blinked again. It was fun, she said. I said I’m sure it was. She smiled. I had no idea what to say next. Then her phone rang. Gotta run, she said. As I walked off a lady a couple desks down asked me what the paralegal had said the marks were. Apparently everyone was wondering, but no one had the nerve to ask. Bites, I said. Black flies. Black flies?  Really? Yeah, I lied, she’d been camping. That’s too bad, the lady said, I could have sworn they were from hot dripping candle wax.  Black fly bites look like candle wax burns, I said. It’s easy to get them confused. I bet, she said, I bet it’s real easy.

Matches

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Apparently they no longer have Musso and Frank matches anymore. We’ve been lighting candles with Musso and Frank matches for thirty years. Now what? Lighters? Are wooden matches too analog? Has digital civilization passed me by entirely? I can feel Hollywood Forever drawing me near, coldly, whispering join us. There’s a spot between the Fairbanks’s and Toto just for you, big guy. Hipsters will park their asses atop your bones all summer long and iPhone through entire movies, puffing matchlessly on electronic cigarettes. Sitting on Brick Wahl, they’ll tweet, I never heard of him either.

We used to have dozens of these, a bowl full. But those were different times. The poets, they studied rules of verse, and the ladies, they went after the drummers.

We used to have dozens of these, a bowl full, but those were different times. The poets, they studied rules of verse, and the ladies, they went after the drummer.

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(Picture from thematchgroup.com. You can find anything on the internet.)

The hippest guy on the Sunset Strip

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So I’m scrolling down Facebook and see the People You May Know section. There are pictures of three gorgeous women. I don’t actually know them, but the thought was nice. Intrigued I press the See All Friend Recommendations button. Up pops the pictures of dozens of pretty ladies. Then some long haired guitar player, then a bunch more beautiful women, a drummer, another long haired guitar player, yet more babes, and a guy who looks just like Slash of Guns and Roses but isn’t. Then a couple more beauties, a smattering of long haired guitar players, and another stretch of babes. And I’m wondering who does Facebook think I am? Yahoo Mail keeps trying to hook me up with lonely women over fifty, and on Facebook I’m the hippest guy on the Sunset Strip.

A jazz Halloween

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Another great Halloween in South Pasadena, hundreds of kids, ran out of candy early. And either I’m getting taller or the trick or treaters are getting shorter. Don’t think under two feet, but close.  Moms are getting slinkier, too, not that I noticed. Boas are still in. I worry about the kids running down the front steps, but it was a stunning mom in six inch heels that nearly toppled over. She caught herself, regained her composure, and it was like nothing ever happened. Slinking and styling on Halloween.

Elliott Caine had picked out some crazy 20th century classical music and New Thangy free jazz vinyl to freak the trick or treaters. It blasts from the living room. Ornette getting weird. Stravinsky way out there. Some of the kids notice. That’s some weird music, Mister. They take their treat and run. Archie Shepp is really getting down now, we’re partying, handing out candy, eating pizza, freaking on some of the crazier costumes–you can always tell when mom or dad is an artist. Their kids look like an installation. Archie is screaming on a big fat tenor, a battery of African drummers generates waves of syncopation, the arrangement lays in horns like Duke Ellington. Swinging, pounding, screaming. Crazy. Trick or Treat. We toss candy in the bags. Thank you! Goblins are very polite these days.

Later, candy gone, we turned out the lights, shut the door and retreated to the inner sanctum. Time to stretch. Fyl flips through a beautiful volume of Herman Leonard, the pictures of long gone jazz players are black & white and ill lit, full of shadows, smoke haunting the frame like ghosts. Miles Davis blowing behind us, cooking, Trane comes in blowing sudden rushes up and down the scale, but Miles owns the session. Elliott stops to listen to a particularly good passage. His fingers work the solo. It’s all about Miles tonight. Fifties Miles, Prestige Miles. No Lee Morgan this year. It’s the Prince of Darkness. Fyl shows us a Herman Leonard photo. Miles with trumpet, glaring. Jazz noir. Day of the Dead. Elliott starts telling us about another old jazz cat who had died, a player, can’t recall the name now, and how his son had just given him the old man’s record collection. Two big boxes full of amazing albums. We’re flipping through them and sampling some on the turntable. All kinds of great 1950’s stuff, a lot of west coast cool, and we’re digging the sounds and the wind is blowing and shivering branches tap the window. Fyl says they’re calling us. Who? The dead. The dead? The dead jazz musicians, she says. All the ones in this book. They want to come in. We laugh when an incredible trombone solo comes out of nowhere. Frank Rosolino, on cue, on Halloween. Properly sensitized, we sit in the dark, listening to the wind and the bones and telling scary Frank Rosolino stories. A jazzman Halloween.

Louis Armstrong and Death itself, "Pennies from Heaven" (1935).

Louis Armstrong and Death itself, “Pennies from Heaven” (1935).

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Encyclopedia Britannica

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Heard an actor–I can’t remember who–confessing in an interview that he was one of those kids who read the Encyclopedia Britannica for kicks. He grew up reading it all the time. He knew all kinds of worthless facts. Obscurities. Science terms and Roman emperors. I laughed and remembered that I too used to read the Encyclopedia Britannica for kicks. I still have the set. It’s shoved in a corner now, by the hat tree, and I’m feeling a little guilty about that. I mean, I grew up with that set. It was my wikipedia. I’d literally surf the set–they called it browsing then–and read whatever hit me as interesting. There were I think 27 volumes, from Aachen to zygote, and I’d sometime close my eyes and pluck one of those volumes out at random, just for fun. Seriously, that was my idea of a good time. My education was probably 99% my own reading, and 1% school. At least what I remember. Otherwise I was bored and not really giving a fuck. Besides, I could fake my way through anything with an essay test. Anything but math. I flunked math. I got a D in pre-algebra summer school. It was a make up class. I’d already gotten an F.

If you’re gonna flunk, I figured, flunk big.

Press thing

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So Channel 36 is showing a gig from the John Anson Ford Theatre here in Hollywood–something called Jail Guitar Doors–and there’s all these bands and they don’t give any of their names. There were two rock bands I liked, then this Jackson Browne kinda deal that was, um, a little rough in the playing and harmony thing, and I’m telling my wife there’s some band here trying to sound like Jackson Browne–she can’t stand Jackson Browne–and suddenly they really did sound like Jackson Browne and no wonder, it was Jackson Browne, the real one, not the wanna be, running on empty, and I guess that was David Lindley. Then it was another act. No idea who. The crowd was up on their feet, following orders, and seeming to dig it. I was kinda uhhh but they jammed some on one tune which was cool. Still no hint who anybody is. They’re mostly young. I also don’t know what Jail Guitar Doors is, aside from a Clash b-side.

It just occurred to me that when I was at the LA Weekly I would have known who all these people were. They’d have this press thing, we’d all go, meet the promoters, a few musicians, be mugged by ill-clad samba dancers (well, that happened once), get a tour of the joint, be fed little finger things and drink lots of wine. One of those events where you’re just some bum on Cahuenga until you pull in and your name is on the list and you’re somebody and hanging with Lee Solters at a tiny table and eating pizza. Lee Solters, baby. One degree from Frank Sinatra. Hollywood. I said I’d tell that story some day and I just did. Ya know, the music press lives for this kinda shit. Free food, wine, samba dancers, people kissing your ass. And I always liked that event, but I had to be so nice back then. Not anymore. The less you get invited, the meaner you can be.

Uh oh, all the musicians are on stage doing a Kiss song. I wanna rock’n’roll all night and party every day. This is where I would have left, pulled out onto Cahuenga and been a bum again.

rear view

Those same samba dancers. Or three of them were, anyway. And maybe mugged is an exaggeration. This is from the Queen Mary, though. I was at this event. The table was right about where the photographer is standing. It was a tough gig. I was with a lady who was wearing about as much as these girls were. Weird things happen to jazz critics.

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