11/3/22
Newletter147
The Crack of Dawn
In the summer of 1969 my mother, my two sisters and I took a trip to California. We began the trip in L.A. We stayed at the Sportsman Lodge in Sherman Oaks, right near my mother’s best friend from her youth, Shirley. My mother’s name was Shirley. I recall her explaining a few times that Shirley was a very popular name in 1931 when she and her friend were born because of the popularity of Shirley Temple. At some point later I informed my mom that Shirley Temple didn’t start her film career until 1932, and didn’t make her first feature, Stand Up and Cheer, until 1934, so therefore she and her friend were not named after Shirley Temple.
I think we stayed at the Sportsman Lodge for a week. During that week we saw Krakatoa, East of Java (1969), a miserable piece of shit with Maximillian Schell. As all the reviews pointed out, Krakatoa is actually west of Java. We then traveled by Greyhound bus up to San Francisco. On June 22 Judy Garland died, which saddened my whole family since we were all fans and listened to her live at Carnegie Hall album all the time. On July 3, Rolling Stone, Brian Jones, died. My elder sister and I were both fans – she already had a couple of Rolling Stones records – and since he was only 27 years old, we were shocked. On July 20 Apollo 11 landed on the moon. On August 8 the Manson murders occurred. Luckily, I was not in L.A. at the time, and was only ten years old (almost eleven), so I was not a suspect. During Aug. 15-18 my birthday occurred on Aug. 17, and so did the Woodstock Music Festival.
The song I remember most clearly hearing from that summer was Lay Lady Lay by Bob Dylan. And that’s when I became a song-buying monster. I started buying 45rpm records, which were 35-50 cents each. I bought, and still have, Build Me Up Buttercup by the Foundations, Hair by the Cowsills, Too Busy Thinking About My Baby by Marvin Gaye, Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet by Nino Rota, Get Together by The Youngbloods – the lead of The Youngbloods was Jesse Colin Young, and his daughter, Julia, has a pretty big part in my movie, If I Had a Hammer (2001) – Green River by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, In the Year 2525 by Zager & Evans, Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat & Tears, Easy To Be Hard by Three Dog Night, A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash, Time of the Season by The Zombies, These Eyes by The Guess Who, Atlantis by Donovan, Gitarzan by Ray Stevens (who had already had a big hit with the novelty song, Ahab the Arab), and the song that seemed to be played the most was Everybody’s Talkin’ by Harry Nilsson from the movie, Midnight Cowboy.
Well, Everybody’s Talkin’ by Harry Nilsson did not even get nominated for Best Song, even though Midnight Cowboy won Best Picture – to everyone’s great surprise. This was the first R-rated (and ratings had just been instituted) movie to win best Picture. The year before Best Picture was Oliver!, a big, silly musical; this year it was a movie with a gay blow-job scene. I recall watching the Oscars, and as a veteran Oscar-watcher at 11 years old, I knew that Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight would cancel each other out – as always happens with two nominees from the same movie – and that it was John Wayne’s year. When the Duke won I was exceptionally pleased. My elder sister was so angry she screamed.
Accepting his award, John Wayne said, “If I knew that putting a patch on my eye would get me an Oscar, I’d have done it years ago.”
And thus a new day has begun.
Julia played what part?