L.A. Streetcars

Posted on April 8, 2009 by lmharnisch

Pacific Electric Car No. 219, c. 1902.

Main Street & Agricultural Park Railroad Car No. 21 at Agricultural Park in 1896.

Our new favorite thing at the Daily Mirror is the archive of historic transportation photos posted on flickr by the Metro Library and Archive. Streetcar fans (you know who you are) will have a ball digging through nearly 3,000 images that have been posted.

Posted in Transportation | Comments Off

Hillinger Meets Ackerman; Hard Times for the Angels, April 8, 1969

Posted on April 8, 2009 by lmharnisch

"UCLA recently spent $35,000 on a collection of science fiction. The books they purchased wouldn't begin to fill one of my rooms."

Chuck Hillinger visits Forrest Ackerman, who "lives in a 13-room house crawling with the monsters that once roamed the back lots of Hollywood film studios."

"Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury describes the monster mansion as 'one of the most fantastic homes on this planet.'

"The large Spanish-style house on a quiet Los Angeles residential street also contains the most complete science fiction library in existence.

"It is also crammed with movie posters from science fiction and horror films dating back to the 20s with life masks of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre and others."

" 'I suppose some people might think I'm a damn fool,' said Ackerman as he sat in his study thumbing through a recent copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazines."

Thanks to the "new, improved" Typepad, this thumbnail is fuzzy. The actual story is readable.

It's a great day for comics. "Li'l Abner" features "Fearless Fosdick," Al Capp's satire of Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy." I wonder how "Fearless Fosdick" would be received today if it were a new comic.

Some people say Gould hated "Fearless Fosdick," but I don't believe it. Here's a great response in a panel of "Dick Tracy": "When you can't laugh at yourself or name or background, your inferiority complex is the biggest thing you got."

The pressure was on in Anaheim to win now.

The Angels were no longer a hopeful expansion team–that would be their opposition Opening Night in Orange County, the Seattle Pilots. Instead, they were a struggling franchise that had yet to find its fan base. Here's how The Times' Ross Newhan advanced the new season: "Incentive belongs to the California Angels. The word is survival."

Not only had the Angels struggled on the field with 95 losses in 1968, few people were showing up. "Season sales have dipped 1,500 from the 5,500 of last year. Attendance has fallen 300,000 from the first year in Anaheim," Newhan reported. And forget about selling out the opener–only 15,000 people were expected.

A few days later, columnist John Hall put it bluntly: "The honeymoon is not only long over, but it appears the entire marriage between Anaheim and the Angels is on the rocks. Even more distressing than the slim 11,930 crowd for the season opener were the Friday and Saturday night counts of 9,174 and 10,609 for the prime time first weekend against Minnesota, always one of the best road draws in the American League."

Orange County's population growth was still a few seasons away as was any tradition of winning in Anaheim. Both helped cure the Angels' attendance woes.

–Keith Thursby

The pitcher's mound is lowered 5 inches and now looks like a "pancake on a griddle."

Posted in books, Charles Hillinger, Comics, Film, Hollywood | Comments Off

Found on EBay — W.W. Robinson

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

As I have mentioned before, I'm a big fan of W.W. Robinson's books. "Ranchos Become Cities" is a good reference and a copy has been listed on EBay. The Buy It Now price is $50.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Matt Weinstock — April 7, 1959

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

The Skin Swimmer

Bal
Week, the traditional pilgrimage of exuberant youth to Balboa during
Easter vacation, has been watered down, so to speak, the last few
years.

The burghers wearied of high-spirited youth taking over
their town, and the gendarmes were instructed to suppress rigidly even
such minor lawlessness as beer drinking and screaming in the night. As
a result many youngsters now go to Palm Springs or Big Bear.

But
many of them still prefer Balboa, even under scrutiny, and during the
recent relaxing there an L.A. couple weekending in Newport saw a
curious drama near their home. A harbor police boat drew up to a float
near the Balboa ferry landing and flashed the searchlight on a swimmer.

AS HE WAS being
questioned the light kept sweeping about, seeking others. In a moment
grim gendarmes were all over the place, pointing their flashlights on
and under the landings. It was like a chase scene in a movie murder.

Excited, the lady onlooker asked, "Was he wanted for something serious?"

The officer confided, "He was swimming without any trunks."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I thought he was wearing white trunks."

A DOCTOR read
a magazine article about income taxes stating that when a return is
made out in round numbers — no breakdown to dimes, nickels and pennies
— it is scrutinized more carefully than otherwise. Alarmed, for his is
done in that manner, he called his auditor.

"Don't worry," the auditor advised. "The tax people like it that way. They call it a cents-less report."

BRINKMANSHIP

The way we and the Russians act
All that thunder
Makes one wonder
Did we sign a suicide pact?

— G.F.

DID YOU EVER smile at a funeral? A lady I know did. Nice lady, too. Always helping people.

The funeral was for a man who was high in his profession.

Ten years ago this lady arranged to meet him to ask his guidance in a matter she thought important.

He
rudely brushed her off. She learned subsequently he was like that. As
one acquaintance put it, "He wouldn't give you the time of day if he
had three wrist watches."

She never forgot the incident and when
she read of his death recently she went to the funeral. She isn't
vicious but somehow it pleased her that the chapel was empty except for
her.

IF THEY'RE going
to be gypped, most persons prefer to be taken by surprise, not clubbed
over the head, as an audacious fellow tried the other day. After dining
at the Blarney Castle he said he'd left his walled containing his
credit card at his office and asked manager RudyCleye if he could cash
a check. He'd been in before and a blank check was provided. And then,
within hearing of the bartender, he said gaily to his companion, "What
bank should I make this one on?" Very bad form, and he got the bums'
rush to prove it.

A LADY I KNOW
has just acquired her first TV set. She is somewhat stunned by the new
world which has opened before her and is trying to adapt her life to
it. "In a way it's wonderful," she said. "Why during the 'Playhouse 90'
commercials I washed some clothes, shined two pairs of shoes and sewed
on some buttons and snaps — things I've been trying to do for weeks!"

MISCELLANY — Archie Jacobs' definition of a capitalist: A person who can afford to pay 20 cents a pound for watermelon …

Posted in Columnists, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off

Paul Coates — Confidential File, April 7, 1959

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

Confidential File

Ousted Strong Man Peron Quite a Sight

Editor's
Note: This is the second in a series of Paul Coates columns based on
his trip to the Dominican Republic, where he had exclusive interviews
with Cuba's ex-dictator Batista and Argentina's ex-dictator Juan Peron.

CIUDAD TRUJILLO, Dominican Republic, April 7 — The main
tourist attraction in this tropical city at the moment is the strange
sight of an elderly florid-faced man racing his motorcycle up and down
the streets.

He is Juan Peron, until three years ago the most powerful dictator in South America.

Today, he lives in comfortable and not entirely unobtrusive exile, attended by only one servant and a press secretary named Americo Barrios, formerly an Argentine newspaper publisher.

Although
he takes almost no part in the high society life of the city, Peron can
hardly be called a recluse. He spends most of every day riding along
the boulevards on his German-made cycle, with Barrios following at a
respectful distance on a motor scooter.

Occasionally the
63-year-old ex-dictator swerves sharply to the curb, stops and flirts
with the pretty Dominican girls who promenade theAvenide George
Washington for the apparent purposes of being flirted with. Then he
takes off again, and waves obligingly to passing motorists who
recognize him.

There is persistent talk in Latin America today that this former strong man is ready to make a move for return to power
in Argentina. He is alleged to have followers paving the way for him by
systematically sabotaging the democratic government of PresidentFrondizi. And he himself claims that the Peronista Party has 7 million members now.

This should make Peron a logical target for an assassination attempt. If, however, he has any fears along these lines, you would never
know it. He goes out unaccompanied. No bodyguards follow him on his
daily motorcycle jaunts. And he persistently wears a bright red
baseball cap and jacket which make him clearly visible from blocks away.

He lives in a huge villa several miles from Ciudad
Trujillo, but occupies only a small guest house on the property. This
man, whose enemies accuse him of escaping from Argentina with $500
million, leads a comparatively simple existence. When he isn't cycling
around town, he spends his time keeping in shape by fencing (he was
Olympic fencing champion in 1924) or getting out of shape by mixing the
strongest gin and tonic in the entire Caribbean.

"I never drank in my life until I went into exile," he told me. "But now, I am able to relax and do what I want."

"At least," he added, "for a little while."

Man of Destiny, He Thinks

As
we sat on the veranda of the guest house, and talked, it was evident
that Peron is deeply convinced his exile is temporary. He is restless,
and impatient for the day of his return. And, although he insists that
he isn't running the Peronistas from exile, it is obvious that he is
receiving up-to-the-minute intelligence on the activities of his
outlawed political party, and on the general situation in Argentina.

When
I was leaving, Peron handed me a photograph of himself. He scrawled his
name on the photo. "If you had this picture with you in Argentina
today," he told me proudly, "you would receive a mandatory sentence of
six years in prison."

Posted in @news, Columnists, Paul Coates, Politics | 1 Comment

In the Theaters, April 7, 1926

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

Posted in Film, Hollywood | 2 Comments

Second Takes — Billy Wilder

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

Kevin Thomas writes an appreciation of director Mitchell Leisen for a 1977 revival of "Midnight" and "Death Takes a Holiday." The 1941 film "Hold Back the Dawn" reunited Leisen, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder.

The Times' Philip K. Scheuer calls Brackett and Wilder's script for "Hold Back the Dawn" "close to brilliant."

According to a 1942 Times story, Paulette Goddard was originally cast in the role of an Azusa schoolteacher who succumbs to the wiles of a gigolo played by Charles Boyer, then yielded the role to Olivia de Havilland and became Boyer's cynical partner.

"I backed all the way into this business," she said, "and I may have to back some more. But I'm getting there." (According to the story, Goddard had been stonewalled by the studios for several years because she threw a telephone at a Hollywood producer).

Bonus fact: Ketti Frings, who wrote "Memo to a Movie Producer," the original story for "Hold Back the Dawn," was the 1958 Times Woman of the Year for playwriting.

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Second Takes | Comments Off

Dodger Ticket Sales, April 7, 1959

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

Ticket sales for the San Francisco Giants showed the Dodgers weren't the top draw in the Bay Area.

Art Rosenbaum, The Times' correspondent in San Francisco, reported
that Giants fans wanted to see the Milwaukee Braves, St. Louis
Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates more than the Dodgers. The Giants and
Dodgers had been rivals in New York but Rosenbaum said San Francisco
fans believed "the rivalry must be built locally to be firm–such as
the Rams-49ers in football."

So they waited until football season to chant "Beat L.A.?"

–Keith Thursby

Posted in Dodgers, Sports | Comments Off

Robbers Kill LAPD Officer, April 7, 1959

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

Two ex-convicts named Napoleon Banks and Howard Green (misidentified as James Calvin in the story above) got drunk and
decided to hold up a market at 1451 W. Washington Blvd. They parked
their car on a side street with the engine running and armed with an
old .44-caliber revolver, went into the store. They never returned.

About 10:40 p.m., Louis Palos
and Ted Jordan were closing the market for the night and had just
dropped $4,500 in cash and checks into the time-lock safe when Banks
and Green forced their way in and demanded money.

"Both men
were drunk and they were mean," Jordan said. "When I showed them the
sign on the safe explaining that it could only be opened by a time lock
they didn't seem to understand. They made us lie down on the floor,
kicked us, punched us and jabbed us with their guns."

The
robbers searched the men and became furious when all they found was 50
cents in Jordan's pockets, so they began beating the employees, the
Mirror-News said.

Someone passing the store noticed the robbery and called police.

The first officers to arrive were Charles E. Bogardus and Norman A. Comeau.
When the officers broke in, Banks and Green ran for the back door. But
it was bolted tight — they were trapped. They rushed up the stairs to
a loft and hid behind the compresser for the store's cold storage unit.

By this time, plainclothes Officers Charles Calvert and George Pettey arrived. Bogardus
and Calvert headed for the back stairway, despite Jordan's warning:
"There's a loft up there. You'll be sitting ducks if you go up those
stairs!"

Bogardus went first. In the dark at the top of the stairs, Grant grabbed Bogardus' gun and shot him in the head. Bogardus fell down the steps, but as Grant tried to escape Calvert killed him.

Banks shot at the officers, and while Pettey fired back, Comeau crawled out to the patrol car and radioed for an ambulance.

As the gunshots continued, ambulance attendants George Antonelli and Don Gardner crawled through the darkened store, found Bogardus and dragged him away.

Mildred Bogardus was rushed to Central Receiving Hospital, where doctors were struggling to save her husband's life.

"Please darling," she wept softly, "please know that I'm here with you. Oh, please stay with me," the Mirror-News said. Bogardus died a short time later. He was 40.

View Larger Map

In the meantime, more than 35 patrol cars responded to the store, and Banks was shot to death.

During Bogardus'
memorial at Utter-McKinley Mortuary, attendants had to lead his widow
from his flag-draped casket because she kept pleading that they let her
see him again, The Times said. Hundreds of officers attended his
funeral at Inglewood Park Cemetery and he was posthumously awarded the LAPD's Medal of Valor.

"If ever a guy was completely fearless it was Bogie," Officer Comeau
said of his partner. "I suppose we should have called for help before
going in the store and maybe used tear gas. But at a time like that you
just don't wait."

Part of this story makes me uneasy. Based on the names and addresses, Howard Green Grant, 1406 W. 38th
Place, and Napoleon Nathaniel Banks, 1832 E. 103rd St., I wonder if the
robbers were African American. I especially wonder because there's some
question about how Banks was killed after Grant was shot to death.

The Mirror-News says the responding officers included Sgt. Thomas Cornwell and Lloyd F. Tucker. According to the Mirror, Banks stepped out from behind the compresser, fired at Tucker and was killed by Cornwell.

The
Times says: "Officer L.F. Tucker flushed Banks from behind some cans in
the rear of the market. After two warning shots failed to make the
bandit drop his gun, Tucker cut him down with three more shots."

It's
troubling when news accounts differ so much, especially between sister
papers. I wonder what Examiner and the Herald said. And I wonder if
there's anything in the Eagle or the Sentinel. Stay tuned.

Posted in Front Pages, Homicide, LAPD | 1 Comment

Nuestro Pueblo, April 3, 1939

Posted on April 7, 2009 by lmharnisch

View Larger Map

Eighth and Fickett streets via Google maps' street view.

Posted in Architecture, Nuestro Pueblo | Comments Off

Found on EBay — Charlotta A Bass

Posted on April 6, 2009 by lmharnisch

A copy of "Forty Years: Memoirs From the Pages of a Newspaper," by Charlotta A. Bass, has been listed on EBay. This is a self-published autobiography of the woman who headed the California Eagle, a newspaper that served the African American community in Los Angeles. Bidding starts at $199.95. That's pretty steep; I'm thankful I have a photocopy of the manuscript.

Posted in @news, books | Comments Off

Matt Weinstock — April 6, 1959

Posted on April 6, 2009 by lmharnisch

Works of Art

When he finishes his day's work at the easel, Lenard Kester, like many other artists, smears the surplus paint on unworked
canvases. Otherwise, it would harden overnight and be wasted. It is not
only relaxing to make these bold, free brushstrokes after the tension
of serious work, but, as artists know, the undercoat thus created is
easier to work on than raw canvas.

The paint has dried on several dozen such canvases with eerie effects, and Kester's friends keep urging him to exhibit these underpaintings
as abstractions, perhaps under another name in another city, with such
titles as "Soul in Torment," "Fog Over Bayou" Or "Eye of the Hurricane."

Kester adamantly refuses. He has a reason.

TWELVE YEARS AGO, prodded by fun-loving Jim Moran and Ben Hecht, Kester, a representationist in style, perpetrated one such meaningless daub and Georg Antheil,
who died recently, submitted it to an L.A. Art Assn. exhibit. Although
the painting, titled "Three in One," was a complete nothing, it was
accepted, shown, critically pondered and purchased by Mad ManMuntz — before being exposed as a hoax.

As a result, Kester was in the doghouse with serious artists, of which he is one, for a long time.

Incidentally, Kester is reluctantly giving up his beloved studio at 1117 N. Genessee,
formerly County Engine Co. No. 8, where he has worked and lived for
eight years, because of the penetrating mechanical hum from a nearby
manufacturing plant. The noise bores through his moods. He and the
neighbors have complained officially, but nothing can be done.

A HIGH SCHOOL
teacher, trying to introduce a little geography into the consciousness
of her students, pointed out and named several present and former
British and Dutch possessions in the East Indies, then said, "And there
are many, many others."

Afterward, she came upon a boy scrutinizing the map and asked what he was looking for.

"I'm hunting for Many Many Others," he said.

BEGINNING TO PALL, PAL

Give me a journalist,
Genius or hack,
Who'll find a new adjective
For "oil-rich" Iraq.

–RICHARD ARMOUR

A WRITER WITH a
mad, irreverent approach to life went to his doctor recently and
learned he had a white count of 17,500. The doc gave him some pills and
on his next visit his count was down to 15,400.

"If it goes any lower, doc," he said feverishly, "sell!"

ONLY IN HOLLYWOOD —
Well there was this innocent bloke waiting while a lady in a market
parking lot got into her car, adjusted her face, fished for her keys,
got the wrong one, got the right one, inserted it in the ignition slot,
started the car and finally backed out.

As she did, another lady driver darted into the space. The bloke said that wasn't nice. She glared icily at him.

It
happens all the time. What does a bloke do? This one followed her
around the market and when her back was turned slipped small items into
her shopping cart — anchovies, baby food, shoe polish, yeast, patede fois gras, buffalo meat.

The last he saw of her she was virtually apoplectic at the check stand. Made him very happy.

MISCELLANY — Nice line by Tom Ferril
in the Rocky Mountain Herald: "They had that buoyant furtiveness of
old-time bootleggers" … Hal Morris sleepily pressed the push button
of what he thought was shaving cream on his face the other a.m. It was
toothpaste –the containers are similar — and now his whiskers have an
"invisible shield" … Bartender Jose Sanchez thinks he reached bottom
in boring ear-bending. A customer moaned at length at a radio
announcer's lack of enthusiasm in giving the weather reports.

Posted in Columnists, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off

Paul Coates — Peron Hopes for Comeback

Posted on April 6, 2009 by lmharnisch

Paul
Coates today begins a series of columns based on a trip to the
Dominican Republic, where he obtained exclusive interviews with ousted
dictators Juan Peron and Fulgencio Batista.

By Paul Coates, Mirror News Columnist

CIUDAD
TRUJILLO, Dominican Republic, April 6 — The fallen strongman of
Argentina, Juan Peron, expects to be "called" back into power
momentarily.

He made that confident prediction to me today from his comfortable exile in a villa close to this Caribbean city.

"I
will go back only when the people call me," he said. Then he added,
with a grin that was somewhat prematurely triumphant, "It is inevitable
that they will."

Peron stated that millions of his followers –the outlawed Peronistas — are systematically strangling the country's economy so that the present government will fall.

"They've
caused major strikes," he told me. "And the next plan is that people
all through Argentina will refuse to pay their gas, electric and water
bills."

Claims 7 Million Backers

The ex-dictator claims that of the 10 million voters in Argentina, 7 million are members of the Peronista Party and are actively fighting for his return.

The
husky, onetime boxer and Olympic fencing champion, still a dynamic
personality at 63, flatly admits that his followers are deliberately
sabotaging the existing democratic government.

Peronistas,
officially banned as a political organization, want Argentina so hungry
and so helpless that she will again look desperately to Peron as the
one force strong enough to save her.

And the towering, robust
politician who has been labeled the "Hitler of the Western Hemisphere"
by his enemies, is ready to "rescue" Argentina at any time.

The reasons he gave me:

Banks are in a perilous condition. Strikes continually paralyze all industry. There are 200 ships docked at Buenos Aires waiting for idle, pro-Peron union workers to handle cargoes.

In
Argentina today, a family can live only 15 days on the kind of
workingman's wage that would have supported them for a full month in
1955 before his dictatorship crumbled.

Argentine Dollar

He
charges that the cost of meat is 11 times higher than in 1955 and the
Argentine dollar is worth only one-fourth as much. Peron was cheerful
and smiling as he predicted the almost immediate death of democracy in
his country.

"In chaos such as there is there now, anything can happen. But time is on my side. Time will have the last word."

We
talked on the veranda of his tropical villa several miles from the
Dominican Republic's capital city. Peron shares his exile here withAmerico Barrios, an Argentinian publisher who is now his press secretary.

Critical Situation

They
told me I was the first newsman the former dictator had talked with in
recent months. He had been avoiding interviews, he said, because of the
"critical political situation in Argentina."

He also agreed to
grant me an exclusive television interview, the first he has submitted
to since he fled Argentina. It will be shown soon onKTTV.

For
more than three years, Peron has lived unmolested in the Dominican
Republic, a tropical dictatorship which contradictorily offers refuge
to exiles of many, and often opposing, political beliefs.

The latest visitor by necessity is Fulgencio Batista of Cuba. Although he denied that he was running his outlaw party from Ciudad Trujillo, Peron admitted to me that he is kept informed of current developments in plans to revive his dictatorship.

"I keep in touch with my former officials who are in exile all over the world — sometimes by letter, sometimes by telephone.

"These are the men I will bring back. They are what Argentina lacks. And I have them," he said.

The Old Racket

Thousands
of these exiles are ready to return to government jobs if Peron
re-establishes his dictatorship. And millions now dedicated to
sabotaging Argentina's democracy would cooperate fully with him, Peron
predicted.

"I have word that people in Argentina will work eight
hours a day on their jobs and then work an additional two hours for
me," he explained. Then Juan Peron added an ominous promise:

"If I were called back to Argentina tomorrow in six months I could have the country where it was in 1955."

Posted in @news, Columnists, Paul Coates, Politics | 1 Comment

In the Theaters, April 6, 1923

Posted on April 6, 2009 by lmharnisch

Posted in Film, Hollywood | Comments Off

Second Takes — Billy Wilder

Posted on April 6, 2009 by lmharnisch

Nov. 21, 1940: "Arise, My Love." Look! It's Rube Wolf!

"You'll like it, I promise," — Philip K. Scheuer

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Second Takes | Comments Off

Hard Times on Eastwood Set; Los Angeles Radio, April 6, 1969

Posted on April 6, 2009 by lmharnisch

An image that resonates with the famous 1971 ad of Iron Eyes Cody.

It's Easter Sunday in 1969, and The Times features a story about the date of the crucifixion on Page 1. Biologists tally the number of seals who are dead or dying from the Jan. 28 blowout of the Union Oil Co. platform. Four U.S. troops are killed and 13 are wounded as a sustained attack by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces continues in Vietnam. More than 200 enemy fighters have been killed, military officials say.

The Del Mar Hotel, a former landmark, is to be demolished. President Nixon praises a Vietnam veteran for acting against student radicals. Crazy hippies smoke catnip!

Spring Street between 3rd and 7th is in danger of becoming a ghost town as the financial district moves to the area around the library.

Shirley MacLaine discusses the hardships of making "Two Mules for Sister Sara."

"Sara" is sort of the "African Queen" gone west, Clint Eastwood says.

"All I ever learned in high school was how to be elected cheerleader and cheat at algebra."

–Shirley MacLaine.

Johnny Hart was criticized for proselytizing in "B.C." Here's how Stan Lynde did it earlier in "Rick O'Shay."

What kind of radio station is worse–too boring or too loud?
Depending on the decade, that was choice provided to Los Angeles
listeners, according to The Times' radio critic.

Don Page called radio in 1969 Los Angeles "worse than
terrible–you're just dull." His big issue was too many stations with
the same format. "It isn't a question of being good, but a matter of
being so incredibly alike, boring each other [and the audience] with an
indistinguishable ooze," Page wrote. Probably could write the same
thing today.

He attacked the various formats and the competition–talk, rock and
what he called middle-of-the-road music: "You're lazy and you cop out.
You're fickle and gutless. You lack imagination and foresight." Sure
wish he'd just come right out and tell us how he felt.

Ten years earlier, in a column on April 5, 1959, Page had other,
seemingly simpler concerns. "More and more stations are adopting the
blasting jingle, the outer-space newscasts [you know, those blips that
call one's attention to the latest news flash] the way-out announcer
and that agony stuff they call the Top 40," he wrote like a parent
having a bad day: "Turn down that radio!"

I was too young to notice the outer-space newscasts and the volume
increase but I remember well L.A. radio in the late '60s. The first Top
40 station I listened to was KFWB, before its shift to all news. I
heard Wolfman Jack on KDAY, thanks to my older brother who was trying
to enlighten or corrupt me. Stations such as KRLA and the early FM
stations seem so brave and wild now, I wonder how they would do on
today's airwaves (Jim Ladd still provides a glimpse of non-programmed
radio late at night on KLOS).

I'm certainly too old for most radio demographics but I'd listen just for that chance to hear something different.

–Keith Thursby

Posted in @news, Comics, Environment, Film, Front Pages, Hollywood, Politics, Religion, Richard Nixon | 2 Comments

Nuestro Pueblo, April 5, 1939

Posted on April 6, 2009 by lmharnisch

Every week I visit former Times reporter Eric Malnic in the hospital, where he's recovering from cancer surgery. There's a large blowup of an old postcard of the Figueroa Tunnels on the wall across from the elevators, so I always pass it on the way to his room. I thought this would be a nice little get well card for Eric. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Posted in Architecture, art and artists, Freeways, Nuestro Pueblo, Transportation | Comments Off

Found on EBay — Batchelder Fireplace

Posted on April 5, 2009 by lmharnisch

An entire Batchelder fireplace has been listed on EBay. The fireplace is located in Fullerton, Calif. Bidding starts at $20,000.

Posted in Architecture, art and artists, Real Estate | 2 Comments

Baseball Season Opens, April 7, 1985

Posted on April 5, 2009 by lmharnisch

[Note: I didn't really know Art Seidenbaum except to nod when I passed him in the hallway. I wish now that I had gotten acquainted — lrh].

Play the Pastime With Country and Catfish

April 7, 1985

By Art Seidenbaum, Art Seidenbaum is The Times Opinion Editor

Baseball season opens, April 2, 1939

The game of yesterday begins again this week, with the men in funny flannel knickers and billed caps who more often chew than puff.

Baseball is beloved for being childhood, for suggesting open skies and open spaces, for remaining simple while the outside world — even other outside sports — become ever more complicated and predicated on team efforts, systems solutions, electronic relays. The human relays from shortstop to second base to first — the classic double play — are probably the most group-intensive activities of a most singular game.

The modern world depends upon message centers. The baseball catcher relies on one or two fingers stuck out near his groin. Corporate life demands the appearance of constant motion. The baseball outfielder is expected to stand and wait. Basketball and football require actions memorized and mutually executed, not unlike the precision of a corps de ballet. The baseball batter is all by himself; most of his teammates, not so incidentally, are sitting down. Consider the static nature of a game involving 18 players on both sides, as many as 15 of them doing nothing at most given moments.

Baseball season opens, April 5, 1959

The game of yesterday is linear and played within strict limits. Almost all sports have marked fields of play, but baseball has lines within lines. Pitchers must throw within inches of a peculiar pentagon; batters must stand within boxes. The action is serial rather than simultaneous, discrete and not diffuse.

Natural ability is better for batting and pitching than brains or higher education. Listen to the superior players forever speak of "hitting it good." I visited the California Angels' spring training camp at about the turn of the '70s, to write a story on the growing number of college graduates reaching baseball rosters. The upcoming generation of yesterday was supposedly changing. There were six college grads, as I recall, in Palm Springs, out of three dozen athletes. Only one of them survived spring to become memorable, a post-UC Berkeley pitcher named Andy Messersmith who later applied his considerable wit to winning contractual disputes. But even now the new wrinkles of free agency and arbitration are confusions for most competitors whose professionalism is play. And while they have business managers to handle money confusions, their baseball managers are usually most endearing when mangling the language; Sparky Anderson of Detroit probably holds the current records for most grammatical errors in a championship series.

The players come of age at 18 or 19, out of high school. While many do attend college for a time these days, they still improve by experience instead of by degrees. They come from small-town places where the roadhouse is the community center and the road signs have been pinged by hunters on the way home, from places where jets do not land and trains used to run. They acquire nicknames from field and stream, such classic identities as Country and Catfish, Bird and Goose, Daffy, Ducky and Moose. The Los Angeles Dodgers' 1985 roster shows two-thirds of the young men having been born in small cities or little hamlets across the United States and Central America.

The "dean" of the Dodgers, Bill Russell, entering his 16th season in the National League, comes from Pittsburg, Kansas, population 18,770; Russell began playing organized baseball at age 18 with the one-time Ogden A's of the Pioneer League. Outfielder Terry Whitfield hails from Blythe, California, a rest stop of 6,805 residents between here and Phoenix. Young Mike Ramsey comes from Harlem, Georgia, population 1,485; he attended Gulf Coast Community College before converting to a life on the pitcher's mound and then converting again to a place in the outfield. Young power hitter Mike Marshall was born in Libertyville, Illinois, population 16,520, starred at Buffalo Grove High School, grew into a size 14 shoe and began his professional career at 18 for the old Lethbridge Dodgers of the Pioneer League. The Ogden A's are now in Pocatello and the Lethbridge Dodgers have moved to Great Falls but the heritage, like the hometowns, continues semi-rural.

Not one of the 39 players on the Dodgers' roster comes from New York City or Chicago or Philadelphia, although three are from the sprawl of Los Angeles sandlots (Bobby Castillo, Ken Landreaux, Larry White). Baseball players — white, black or Latino — seem to grow among the weeds, the hardy natives from an earlier time, when exercise was for fun or fame, not for health discipline or mating display.

Sure, many of the present players talk the good Nautilus talk of lifting weights, like other well-paid performers. Yet baseball players needn't approach the conditioning of wide receivers or even tennis servers. Look at Fernando Valenzuela for every-four-day proof that a fine screwball is not a function of diet or jogging discipline. Remember Babe Ruth and realize he must have eaten much more than Wheaties.

Drug scandals are a disguise for the innocence of a nice, quiet national pastime. Piles of statistics mask the simplicity of small boys playing catch with a small ball. The game of yesterday persists, scoreless inning after scoreless inning, April after April, because it keeps childhood alive — in mind, if not body.

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In the Theaters, April 5, 1921

Posted on April 5, 2009 by lmharnisch

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Confidential File

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Second Takes — Billy Wilder

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Found on EBay — Charlotta A Bass

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Second Takes — Billy Wilder

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Nuestro Pueblo, April 5, 1939

Found on EBay — Batchelder Fireplace

Baseball Season Opens, April 7, 1985

Play the Pastime With Country and Catfish

In the Theaters, April 5, 1921

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The Skin Swimmer

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Confidential File

Ousted Strong Man Peron Quite a Sight

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Works of Art

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Play the Pastime With Country and Catfish

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