PALM SPRINGS PARTY

FABULOUS PARTY.  I was lucky enough to be Cousin Jan’s guest in about 2003 to the 80th birthday party of the Fabulous Ruth.  Performing were Frankie Randall (at the piano) and legendary folk singer from the 60s Trini Lopez (left).  

Fabulous Ruth belted out a rendition of a saucy cabaret number as well at this event in the fabulous Ritz Hotel, Palm Springs.

Frankie sounded much like that other Frankie on this 1966 RCA Victor album and Randall may have been part of the Rat Pack in better days.  Randall headlined an unfortunate low budget movie, Wild on the Beach, with Sherry Jackson and Sonny and Cher.  He also was a DJ on the network radio broadcast Music of Your Life that was heard on KLBB, Twin Cities.  

I had originally heard Randall perform in 1963 at a Sunset Blvd. bar in LA with my roomie John Miller when we lived in Glendale and I was working at NBC News.

Did I say this was “fabulous”?

GLEASON AS RILEY WORTH VIEWING

Although SLP mode, very viewable.

GLEASON.  Before he became Mr. Saturday Night on CBS, Jackie Gleason was very effective in 1949 in the Life of Riley on the Dumont Network.  The “Tonsils” episode where he seeks out a stranger for advice prior to his tonsilectomy is hilarious. 

Gleason underplays in every one of these filmed (not kinescope) episodes, unlike the boisterous personna of his more famous self. (Much of the nation never saw these episoldes because they lacked a Dumont affiliate or more importantly a TV set.)

New York City's WPIX, Channel 11, resurrected THE LIFE OF RILEY series in February 1977 and played it only on weekends during the 11 p.m. to midnight time slot, following Gleason's ever popular THE HONEYMOONERS. It remained on that channel for the next few years before being moved to 5 a.m. and disappearing from TV land once again by 1986.  If you didn’t live in NYC, you missed it.

Buildings I Have Known

RELEVANT BUILDINGS, WEST COAST.  KCET (TV) used to be the Los Angeles PBS station and was housed in the old Monogram Pictures lot and soundstages.  I learned to love Monogram movies: King of the Zombies, The Corpse Vanishes, Charlie Chan, Gale Storm and the East Side Kids.  This site, where Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi worked, was also the Mack Sennett studios in the silent era and now is owned by Scientology.

I learned how to be a news reporter while working in the KXLY Bldg. which was was a dump compared to this structure north of the river.  Working with Bobbi Ulrich, we would cover murder trials, Idaho forest fires and routine stuff for UPI in a cubicle buried in the old KXLY studios near the Realty Bldg.

Hello Frisco, Goodbye.  (lower right corner)  I had arrived in Idaho at the Statesman, 6th and Bannock, across from a park and City Hall, starting as a night copy editor, headline writer and reporter before graduating to local government reporter where I won a national award for environmental reporting.  I was living in a boarding house a short distance away near what now is the hospital.  I still have a couple of friends in Boise.

Carnival of Souls

ZOMBIE CITY

On a trip to Salt Lake City a few years ago, I convinced Mike that we needed to see Saltair, the site of the 1962 cult classic movie, “Carnival of Souls.”  Here I am at the rebuilt palladium and below is the historic building that burned down sometime after the film was released.  

I was pumped up about this destination from an article in Ford Times that I read when I was working at The Statesman in Boise.  The SLC library has a book on Saltair’s history.  Herk Harvey (producer-director) was sufficiently inspired seeing the deserted amusement park that he enterprised a movie based on the total spookiness of the site. I bought the Image DVD in SLC but Criterion may also market a DVD on COS.

ALOHA FROM KAWIKA

I didn’t get it right at the ’91 party in Honolulu so I did a week long refresher in 2017 aboard the Pride of America where I was given a Hawaiian name, Kawika.

The Star Advertiser reports today:  Hawaii recorded its third death from the virus “on Friday as state officials activated up to 250 troops from the Hawaii National Guard to help with airport screenings and other tasks in the battle against the growing pandemic that has topped 300 cases in the islands.”