2016 Caribbean Cruise and Tampa Bay

 Band Wagon at Ringling Museum, Sarasota

CONFERRING WITH CAYMAN BANKERS

GRAND CAYMAN — Here’s where Mitt banks so it must be good.  But I got splinters from shaking hands with these bankers.  It was 84 and humid when we landed in Georgetown.

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO CARIBBEAN

In Willemstad, Curacao there are about 115 Jewish households.  Mikve Israel-Emmanuel, now a Reconstrucionist congregation, is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Americas.  Another synagogue on this island, Shaarei Tsedek, a modern orthodox congregation, shown here.  www.snoa.com

“SAWDUST IN YOUR VEINS”

SARASOTA, FLA. —Childhood memories were brought back for me at the Ringling Circus Museum which features a billboard from the Cole Bros. Circus which the Zarkin Family attended in Spokane in the 1940s under the big top.

Prominent at the museum is the poster for the Demille epic “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) that glorifies the golden age of circuses, but is a schmaltzy mess with Charlton Heston chewing up the scenery with Betty Hutton.  Jimmy Stewart as a criminal clown saves the life of Heston’s character and no doubt they chatted about far right politics between takes.

WASTING AWAY IN MARGARETAVILLE

KEY WEST — One of our mates from the ship, William, might be here in the Green Parrot Bar, and was a running joke because he never returned to the ship.  The cruises dump about 20,000 gawkers on this tropical island party town which clogs up the historic area.  

ENTERTAINMENT AT SEA

(We rubber necked our way through the galley where they feature a walk in oven which is a great idea.) A highlight was the jazz band concert where  trumpet player Yuri from the Ukraine did a boffo rendition of the cha cha hit “Cherry Pink”.  At another show, former Letterman Mark Preston, did some old hits from the ‘50s, but was beyond his prime.  The Boogey Nights dancers and singers did a great show with just the right pacing, costumes and scenery.

Schooner Bar had the Viking-Seattle game on and we saw the very sad end.  This bar featured an annoying loud trivia game.

BAD BOY WITH BENTLEY GRILL

Alamo surprised us with an upgrade with this new Chrysler 300C which had every gizmo imaginable including a moon roof and leather interior.  We rode in style for a week in Tampa Bay.

Highsmith Portrayed as Angry, Prejudice in Book

READ LAST CHAPTER FIRST

Before you see “Carol” read Marijane Meaker’s memoir “Highsmith” about her two year affair with Patricia Highsmith, author of “The Price of Salt” and “Strangers on a Train.”  Meaker gets it wrong about the movie made from the later title.  Farley Granger played the tennis player, not Robert Walker.  The last chapter sums up the real Highsmith, brandishing a switch blade and spewing anti-Semitic and racists nonsense.  “Highsmith” is an interesting look at the artists’ lives in Greenwich Village in the 1950s.

I read this on a Caribbean cruise Jan. 2016.

SINATRA, LATHAM AND SIMMS AT CEMETARY

 Driving into Desert Memorial Park FM Mod 107.3 was playing Frank’s “Fly Me to The Moon” so we knew this was the right moment to honor him on the 100th year of his birth.

So modest a gravestone for such an important talent, I thought.  “The Best is Yet to Come” implies some notions about the hereafter.

What song would you pick for Frank's grave?  His gravestone is easy to find since it is decorated with flags.  Other celebrities are lost amongst the flat grave markers.

JACK LATHAM, MY FRIEND AT KNBC NEWS

CATHEDRAL CITY — KNBC news anchor Jack Latham is the one good thing I remember from working at KNBC/4 news in LA in 1963-64.  Latham took an interest in me, a flunky editorial assistant.  His career started at KHQ in Spokane and he appeared as a news anchor in the cult classic film “Wild in the Streets.”  He also had an uncredited part in the ‘30s classic movie “Showboat.”  

Three of us searched Desert Memorial Park last Friday for his grave marker. 

GINNY SIMMS, MINNESOTA MOVIE, RECORDING STAR

CATHEDRAL CITY —  Singer Ginny Simms, a Minnesota native, was well known for her movie and radio appearances.  She also owned Breezy Point Resort near Brainerd.  She appeared in the RKO ‘40s musical comedy “You’ll Find Out” with band leader Kay Kaiser with whom she was involved.  

Her grave stone was difficult to find. Loved ones spend thousands for burial here and it’s almost impossible to find the graves. 

DESERT DIARY 2015 DECEMBER

 MODERNISM CAPITAL IN DESERT

I am not wild about museums, but the one in Palm Springs gets kudos

for restoring a bank building into an architecture and design museum

celebrating the mid century.  The nod to the later is the model of the Frank Sinatra house near the museum.

The house was completed in 1950 just before Sinatra’s career collapsed.  The house, designed by a noted architect, features a piano shaped pool.

Riverside's Mission Inn is old California and dark but the city's historic restoration is very spotty with ugly 60s architecture interspersed.  

Altlhough Manheim Steamroller's Christmas music with a rock beat is enjoyable, the hard plastic seats at Fantasy Springs Casino are painfully uncomfortable.

Gas prices fluctuate wildly in the valley and some stations require a credit card PIN or cash.

Rare classic cars at the Westfield Mall included the Willys Aero coupe, AMC Gremliln and Studebaker Avanti.

Tomorrow's opera stars competed Dec. 5 in the Palm Springs Opera audience choice award event Dec. 5.  We rubbed elbows with desert millionaires who listen to G. Keillor on public radio.  I voted for the Russian in the blue dress.

The Town Center Cafe serves great Greek food in Palm Desert where the Goodwill has classic VHS movies including "Wolfman" and "Attack of the Crab Monsters."

We didn't skip aerobics here where Joslyn Senior Center was best.  Indio Senior Center's "Groovin' with Delores" is for fans of Richard Simmons manic work out. 

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

CATHEDRAL CITY — Driving into Desert Memorial Park FM Mod 107.3 was playing Frank’s “Fly Me to The Moon” so we knew this was the right moment to honor him on the 100th year of his birth.

So modest a gravestone for such an important talent, I thought.  “The Best is Yet to Come” implies some notions about the hereafter.

What song would you pick for Frank's grave?  His gravestone is easy to find since it is decorated with flags.  Other celebrities are lost amongst the flat grave markers.

PALM SPRINGS CONFIDENTIAL!

INDIO — At our Indian Palms apartment we were 40 minutes from Palm Springs on the I-10, a miserable freeway with freighters weaving wildly in the breeze.  Atheists get religion on Highway 60 to Riverside, jammed with semis. In Indio we are about 100 miles from the latest mass murder terrorist horror

story. 

Altlhough Manheim Steamroller's Christmas music with a rock beat is enjoyable, the hard plastic seats at Fantasy Springs Casino are painfully uncomfortable.

Gas prices fluctuate wildly in the valley and some stations require a credit card PIN or cash.  Expect to pay at least $3.00/gal.

Marketing Electric Car to California Elites

CALIFORNIA DREAMING WITH ELON MUSK

The infante terrible of electric cars and rocket trips is profiled by Ashlee Vance in “Elon Musk” which is entertaining in parts. The prologue is the best read in the book.  Much of the narrative is bogged down in detail about his marriages and business associates.  (Tom Mueller of St. Maries, Idaho, is one of his rocket scientists.)

Musk is more a marketing genius than a techno whiz kid.  He sexed up the electric car using a Mercedes body with aluminum sheet metal, which is the Tesla that caught the attention of the car magazine editors going 0-60 in less than four seconds.  Thumbing his nose at conventions, he markets the car directly through Tesla stores at $100,000 to elites.  Vance writes that there are plans to introduce a $35,000 vehicle.  His assembly plant is in Fremont, Calif., where Toyota and GM once made Corollas, a nasty rental vehicle.

Musk could be the modern day Howard Hughes (another LA eccentric genius) without RKO Radio Pictures and Jane Russell.  Rather than insane, Musk is “profoundly gifted,” Vance concludes.  But it doesn’t make any difference if you are driving a $100,000 Tesla or a $17,000 Chevy Cruze, you are at a standstill on the Harbor Freeway on the best of days.

Although the electric car is the eco-friendly alternative to the gas engine, more and better mass transit to counter the gridlock is a brighter idea.

Mrs. Cook Was Mom To Boarders at 1007 N. 6th

In the kitchen with Margaret Cook

CLYDE AND THE OTHERS

Content with the communal living I  knew when I was a frat boy, I took a room in 1965 at Mrs. Margaret Cook’s boarding house, a few blocks from the Statesman in Boise.

Mrs. Cook was a reluctant landlady who was forced into it by her humorless farmer son, Clyde, married to the righteous Priscilla, Queen of the Bible.  They were the real American Gothic with their children Nathan, Martha, Nealus and Luther.  Clyde, a former New Mexico extension agent, lured his mother to Idaho to raise his four children while he farmed on the desert near Mountain Home.  

At this point in her life she was ripe for retirement and almost crippled with arthritis.  While he was plowing, mom was running a boarding house so his children could attend Boise High School.  

Martha, a sullen teen, slept  on the first floor with her grandmother and the boys were in the basement with Dan the Man, a Boise State College student, YMCA lifeguard and a fine picture of young manhood.  Dan didn’t fraternize with me, Albert, Duane Mitchell, Terry Newman, Jose or Roy the Boy (flim flam specialist who taught us golf and cheated Mrs. Cook out of rent money.)  Dan kept company with the married woman across the street which caused tongues to wag.

Mrs. Cook referred to the relatives as “Clyde and the others,” but she had an attractive daughter who lived in Dallas who was very professional and urban.  The daughter would visit on holidays.

The house was a smaller replica of the Governor’s Mansion, three stories with transoms above the doors on the four second floor bedrooms.  

On Sunday’s when she didn’t serve meals, four of us would go to the Brass Lamp or the Village Pancake House.  Albert had a friend with stereo equipment and tape recordings of musical shows.  Through him I became familiar with the music from “Oliver!”  

Mrs. Cook was to cooking as the Three Stooges are to plumbing.  Memorable was the time she burned the hell out of the roast beef while she caught a nap.  Sometimes Clyde would bless us with milk from the farm which was noxious so she would dilute it with powdered milk, making it even more unpleasant.  Clyde would share the meat from critters he shot on the farm.

Mrs. Cook was in the Lady’s Circle at the Methodist Church and sometimes the ladies would meet in her living room.  Since I was working nights at The Statesman, I would be home during the days.  I am sure she wished I would disappear on Circle days.  

Priscilla supplied me with literature on Christianity so I could mend my heathen ways.  When the Others visited grace was said before the meal and it was a long painful affair as practiced by Priscilla.

I would sometimes go on errands with Mrs. Cook in her 1950 Chevy coupe with manual transmission.  I enjoyed taking her and a church friend in my car to lunch at McCall, Idaho’s answer to Aspen.

Mrs. Cook would invite us to public events at the high school sponsored by her church, such as a talk by the Jewish advice columnist Ann Landers.

Terry Newman was a smart kid whose parents moved to Colorado and left him in the boarding house so he could finish high school in Boise.  He had a portable record player and introduced me to popular music such as Steppenwolf and Jose Feliciano.  

The boarding house Jose was a Latin lover who kept to himself.  He installed a basement shower in exchange for rent money he owed.  I raised a stink when he didn’t get a city building permit before doing the work.

My social life picked up when Ralph Nichols, a coworker, moved nearby and we would go to Lucky Peak Reservoir.  Bob Gould from Spokane was an attorney for Albertsons and moved to Boise in about 1969.  We went to the Snake River Stampede Rodeo and saw “Bonnie and Clyde” but I was glad to find a better social life in Frostbite Falls.

As a family, we visited Mrs. Cook on a trip to Boise in 1973. Duane visited her in a nursing home in later years.

In 2006, I returned to the house now owned by an unkept woman with two big dogs and a broken screen door.

Robinson Pursues Artists Life

Here's Dwight Robinson with a reproduction of his painting, a wild west scene.  Dwight has a background in the natural sciences and worked for State Agriculture when I was working for Jobs and Training.  We traveled together on a Caribbean cruise, San Diego and New Orleans.  He also enjoys jazz and is expert on natural remedies.  He and his partner John live in Red Wing, MN.

Teen Musical, Tomlin Movie Both Span Generations

EDGY LOOK AT AGING

Lily Tomlin gives us an edgy look at the senior years in the new movie “Grandma,” now playing at the Edina Theater.  As Roger S. explained, the Tomlin character is struggling with end of life anger as she views her 30ish lover who can look forward to an exciting life full of interesting relationships.

As for the Tomlin character, she has hunkered down to a debt free retirement, going to the extreme by destroying her credit cards.  The later action complicates the plot when her teen granddaughter asks her for help in terminating an unwanted pregnancy.  The scenes with the teenager offer an opportunity to bridge the generation gap.

A former husband, played by Sam Elliott, offers another look at aging from the perspective of a proud grandfather but interested in reliving moments of past desire with the Tomlin character.  With so few films employing senior actors, “Grandma” is an opportunity not to be missed.

PINT SIZE ROMEO STEALS SCENES

I could hardly get to sleep last night with adrenaline pumping after Edina High School’s homage to the torchy ‘30s in their performance of “Crazy for You,” a new Gershwin musical.  Teen Jack Fischer, playing the juvenile lead Bobby Child, has all the right moves whether it’s side stepping in tap shoes or just his over the top stage presence.  

Talk about your Glee-full resumes, Fischer is a member of the International Thespian Society and has lettered in theater at EHS.  

The ensemble has memorable numbers, singing and dancing that reminded me ofthe great Busby Berkley movies.  This feast for eyes and ears involves incredible coordination and staging, but it works and is rewarding.

The irony for me was that these kids were chirping to tunes that my Mom and Dad grooved on when they were teens.  Talk about bridging the generation chasms, “Crazy for You” at EHS is a landmark event.

The finale with the lead couple swinging on the moon is very campy 1930s romantic comedy.

Summer Day at Statesman Staff Picnic

IDAHO STATESMAN PICNIC

This was taken by a Statesman photographer, probably the summer of 1968, at a picnic for the Idaho Statesman where I was a reporter/writer from 1965-69.  Location:  Julia Davis of Ann Morrison park. 

RKO's "Brave One" Worth the Long Wait

‘BRAVE ONE’ WAS TRUMBO’S MASTERPIECE

Before I see the biopic on blacklisted screen writer Dalton Trumbo, I had to see the 1956 RKO Cinemascope epic “The Brave One” filmed in Mexico.  Trumbo was awarded an Oscar for his screenplay but couldn’t receive it until the 1970s because his political beliefs conflicted with the reactionaries in Congress.  It was shown on TCM last night.

A heroic bull representing the working class is the hero in this story and the matador represents the oppressive aristocrats, they way I read this yarn.   If ever a movie had to be in Cinemascope it was this one.  Jack Cardiff’s photography is breath taking and Victor Young’s music is memorable.  The Trumbo biopic is coming soon to theaters, but also see “The Brave One.”

Netflix "Master of None" Scores With Senior Comedy

THOUGHTFUL TV SHOW ON SENIORS

Aziz  Ansari takes his girl friend’s grandmother out of the stifling confines of a nursing home to an elegant dinner where they bond.  She tells him about going to a Sinatra concert in her teens and he says his own experience at a Hootie Blowfish concert pales by comparison, but she says “don’t be so sure of that.”

The “Older People” episode of “Master of None” opens with Aziz and his buddy’s grandfather struggling with his VCR and the young men advise him to get a Blu Ray player but he argues against that.

Few programs explore the intergenerational gaps so brilliantly as this. (Netflix streaming)

Halloween Movies, Good, Bad and Ugly

SPOOKY DIFFERENT KIND OF HALLOWEEN  Oct. 31, 2015

This year I actually did get afraid.  The 1942 RKO Radio Picture “The Cat People” that I saw Friday night on TCM with Gary left me with nightmares.  It’s easy to figure out; the swimming pool scene with the woman and water reflecting off the walls was incredibly claustrophobic.  No way would I be in that room, even if a jaguar wasn’t chasing me. It had to be in an RKO sound stage because no one would design that mess in a health club.  Director Jaques Tournier knew how to work lights and shadows for maximum fright.

We also watched a less successful Tournier effort: “Curse of the Demon” wherein the producer inserted a monster right out of a Roger Corman fright fest.  It was dumb.  What was even dumber was the scary guy in “Monster from the Surf” (1965).  

Also, last night I was left with two virgin bags of candy unopened.  Apparently trick and treat is not part of the tradition for kids who live in my building.  The candy will be just as fresh a year from now.  I didn’t even bother to put on my vampire costume as I watched two Karloff classics on TV.  I think I went to a Jaycees party in about 1968 with a date as a bum in Boise but most of my Halloweens aren’t even a foggy memory.  

AMC SOUTHDALE SHOWS 1931 "DRACULA"

“DRACULA” 1931 BEST SEEN ON BIG SCREEN

You miss a lot of the Bela Lugosi Universal classic “Dracula” on TV, including details in the costumes, sets and props.  It becomes abundantly clear that Dwight Frye as Renfield steals every scene he is in.   Seeing it last night at the AMC on the huge screen was a big treat.

Some plot essentials I missed on the TV showing included Lucy becoming a vampire and killing children.  Also the importance of Dr. Seward, who runs the sanitarium where Renfield is housed, is magnified and I will see the play “Dr. Seward’s Dracula” this week at the college across the street.

The VHS tape has the advantage of bridging the boredom gap with the Philip Glass music that fits the film’s mood.  The version shown at the Fathom TCM movie theater event had minimal music.  “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein” have better scripts and are considered “art.”

“Dracula” looks like the stage play that it was originally.

The event included the Spanish language version shown in Latin America and made on the same set as the Lugosi version but with different actors.  The Spanish version provides more background, including Renfield’s admission that he wanted to atone for killing people when he became a vampire, so Van Helsing runs a stake through him.

Frye recreated that character in many other 30s movies and is seen as a gay hair stylist in Grand National’s “Something to Sing About,” an expensive musical with James Cagney that bankrupted the studio.  Frye is over the top in Majestic Studio’s “Vampire Bat” as a demented character with Faye Wray and Melvin Douglas.

Ghost Expert Explains Mysteries of Musical Appliances

SUPERNATURAL EXPLAINED BY EXPERT

BLOOMINGTON — Ghosts and spirits are the domain of Bobby Sullivan who spoke Saturday at the Penn Lake library as part of our Halloween.  I have a stereo that will start playing music unexpectedly and following Sullivan’s reasoning ghosts may inhabit that Curtis radio/phono/CD player.  He showed photos of ghost/spirit activity.  The ghost and zombies have been confused, but now we know better. Ghosts can drain batteries in cell phones and other devices.  Who knew?

MISS ECKHART WITH THIRD GRADERS AT ROOSEVELT

I am far left, second row.  And I have stayed "far left."  Miss Eckhart was one of the best grade school teachers, but left mid-term to marry a former governor.

Zarkin's Promotion Certificate From Spokane Grade School

In appreciation for all Roosevelt Grade School did, we put on a variety show. I played the comb and tissue paper, "Heart of My Heart". Memorable.

Here's where I first saw "March of the Wooden Soldiers" and made a clay recreation of Jesus in the Manger.  Quite interesting for a Jewish boy in a public school.

Third grade teacher Lou Eckhart married a senior former governor and bid farewell in her mink coat.

BELLAGIO COURTYARD OCT. 2015

VEGAS OCT. 2015 AT VDARA HOTEL POOL

WE NEVER LEFT VIETNAM

FOUR CAME HOME

The life experiences of four Minnesota Vietnam veterans were quite different as evidenced by their remarks last night at a forum at the Roseville Library sponsored by the Ramsey County Libraries.  One of the survivors has dealt with chemical dependency and the other three volunteer with a veterans organization hockey program.

The centerpiece to this discussion was the award-winning book “The Things They Carried “ by Tim O’Brien, also of Minnesota.  An actor read passages from the book.  The book may have been too painful for a couple of the participants to read, but no one disagreed with O’Brien’s assessment that the soldiers’ job entailed wondering aimlessly in the jungle and blowing up a few villages and villagers.  

None of the four returned to ‘Nam.

The forum was a prelude to the History Theater’s play based on the book, but I just can’t relive the trauma of the lives of O’Brien, Ted Lavender, Kiowa and Rat Kelly in ‘Nam after reading the book three times.  

Elsewhere, former co-worker Dave Frazier of Boise penned a memoir last year based on his rear echelon Saigon support public information duties with the army entitled “Drafted!: Vietnam at War and at Peace”.  Frazier was compelled to return to Vietnam as a tourist about three times and reconnect with families he knew from the war.  Frazier’s story is quite unrelated to the O’Brien book. (O’Brien pictured.)

TRUE CRIME: WHO KILLED WALTER LIGGETT AND WHY?

It’s been 77 years and we still don’t know answers, but his daughter, Marda Liggett Woodbury,  has compiled the “evidence” in her book “Stopping the Presses: The Murder of Walter Liggett.”

Cut to the chase:  Minneapolis (Murderapolis) was a hot bed of organized crime and corrupt, inept law enforcement in the Depression/Jazz Age.  Liggett, a newspaper editor,  was a crusader against local gangsters at a time when reporters who wrote the “truth” were on the mobsters’ “list.”

Also, Liggett called for the impeachment of Farmer-Labor Gov. Floyd B. Olson who Liggett saw as a betrayer of Farmer-Labor socialist goals.  Liggett suspected ties between the “Olson Gang” and organized crime.  There was no love lost between the governor and the newspaper editor.

Olson died of cancer a short time after Liggett was gunned down in 1938 in the alley behind his home at Lake and Harriet streets, now a trendy business district.  

Liggett’s wife and children witnessed his murder and his wife testified that Minneapolis gangster Kid Cann (Isadore Blumenfield) fired the shots from a moving car that fateful night.  Further confusing the story were accounts that other gangsters resembling Cann could have been the killer.  Minneapolis and Chicago combined had no shortage of gangsters.

The Liggett family lived a tough life during trying times that were made dangerous by Walter’s crusading attempts to destroy the powers behind organized crime and the Farmer-Labor Party.