6/28/22
Newsletter25
The Ass Crack of Dawn
I pulled the shade and was greeted by darkness.
I’ll repeat a couple of gags I like: early in his show, David Letterman had a call-in routine. The question was: The films of Neil Diamond. David dialed the number, and the recorded female voice said, “’The Jazz Singer,’ 1980, ‘The Jazz Singer,’ 1980, ‘The Jazz Singer,’
1980 . . .”
Bill Maher told a gag twenty-one years ago that I personally demonstrated for my own amusement. On Sept. 11, 2001, George W. Bush was sitting in front of an elementary school class who were being read, “The Happy Goat,” or something like that, and a secret service man entered and whispered in his ear, “Our country is under attack.” Bush continued to sit there for seven-and-a-half minutes before he got up and left. The song “Layla” is seven-and-a-half minutes long, which is a long rock song. But Bush just kept sitting there, as Maher said, “All the way through Duane Allman’s noodling and the birds chirping.”
Speaking off “The Jazz Singer,” the original, 1927 version was the first sound feature film. The sound system called Vitagraph, was developed by Warner Brothers, but specifically Sam Warner (real name, Szmuel Wonsal). “The Jazz Singer” premiered on Oct. 6, 1927, to massive success. Sadly, Sam Warner had died the day before.
Nikola Tesla, an honest-to-god genius, began his career working at Thomas Edison’s lab in Paris in 1888. Tesla quit two years later, aggravated with Edison’s whole process. He said, “If Edison had to find a needle in a haystack, he’d inspect every straw of hay to make sure it was not a needle.” Edison developed DC (direct current) and Tesla developed AC (alternating current). Although AC was the system accepted worldwide, almost every appliance has a DC converter on the plug. Therefore, they both won.
The great director Joseph von Sternberg, who discovered Marlene Dietrich, was born Jonas Sternberg to an impoverished Jewish family in Vienna. His family moved to Queens, NY, when he was seven. He began his career in movies in 1911 in the lab, then worked his way up to assistant director. He yelled so much that the crew dubbed him, “Von Sternberg” after the famous, big-mouthed director of the time, Erich von Stroheim (who had added the “von” himself). Von Sternberg liked it and kept it.
The ancient Romans made their water pipes out of lead, which hastened their demise. But had they only made their water pipes out of lead, it might not have been so bad. The Romans liked lead so much that they ground up and used it as a seasoning.
Herbert Hoover, not one of our better presidents, was in charge during the stock market crash of 1929. Sound had just arrived in movies, so Hoover was the first president to appear and be heard in a sound newsreel. When asked what he would do about the stock market crash, Hoover replied, “I don’t know.”
During my first few years in Hollywood, 1976-1980, I became friends with the world-renowned writer, Christopher Isherwood, who was then in his 80s. Me, Chris, his lover, Don Bacardy, and my late friend Rick, all went to quite a few movies together. We would skulk around behind the theater before the movie and smoke a joint. Chris wrote many exceptional books, and a number of unexceptional movies in the late 1930s, including one of Greta Garbo’s last films. Chris told me a story about he, Garbo, and Charlie Chaplin having a picnic at, I think it was Coldwater Canyon. A cop arrived and as he was attempting to kick them out, Chris took him aside and said, “That’s Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin.” The cop said, “Bullshit. Get lost.”
And the dawn has arrived.