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"Murder
at the Busted Bird Cafe"
by Claude Hall
Chapter 17
I had trouble reaching Hey You Sawyer on the cellular
phone that Jo's father had loaned me. A mountain was
in the way.
As I came off of Highway 14 onto the San Diego Freeway
and headed downward into the San Fernando Valley, he
finally answered the phone. I suppose that I must
have dialed his number more than a dozen times trying
to reach him.
I told him that they had Jo captive in apartment 16.
"That place we were at earlier."
He told me to stay away. The police would handle it.
"You know me," I said.
"Dammit!" he said.
I reached the apartment long before he got there and
parked in the dark along a side street a couple of
blocks away. A streetlight several yards away fought
the trees and, as they shifted in a slight breeze,
shadows leaped about the car.
All my life I've been afraid of everything--afraid of
the dark, afraid of people larger than me, afraid of
asking for a job, afraid of getting fired. Half of my
childhood was involved in efforts to avoid personal
confrontations, especially with the neighborhood
bully. My parents told me that as a small child I was
also scared of hundred-foot tidal waves. They
couldn't convince me that we lived too far from the
Gulf of Mexico to ever see a tidal wave.
Musashi's book "The Book of Five Rings" doesn't have a
lot of pages. But every page is packed with
thought-provoking concepts. It can be read--and, with
great concentration, realized--at various levels of
perception. While the main emphasis of the book is
combat strategy, the underlying focus is on a
methodology of thinking. Musashi said in the first
chapter, the part about the ground, the Way of the
warrior is "resolute acceptance of death.
In other words, think of yourself as already dead in
situations like this. Therefore, nothing else worse
can happen to you. The teachings of Musashi can not
keep a coward from being a coward. But it can help
him go ahead anyway and do what has to be done. Most
of the time.
The apartment was located on the ground floor of a
building toward the back just off of the mandatory
swimming pool and Jacuzzi. Three palm trees fought
against a bright moon. A gentle breeze carried, from
somewhere, the odor of sausages and onions cooking.
Once I found the apartment, I hesitated for a moment.
This could be the point of suddenly diminishing
returns, to paraphrase something an economics
professor once explained to me. Of course, he wasn't
talking about standing in front of a door with a
loaded Colt .45.
I pumped four shots through the doorway of the
apartment building, all aimed above-head high, then
kicked the door down and ran through the doorway.
The echoes of the bullets faded away as I assumed the
attitude of Happo Biraki, a perfect defensive position
if you're fighting with the broad sword and companion
sword of a samurai. Unfortunately, all I had was a
Colt .45. A Colt .45 would have also been fine in
many situations, regardless of attitude. But not this
one. I probably looked a little bit silly.
Sorrowful stood with a gun pointed at Jo's head.
Musashi hadn't provided suggestions about this
particular situation.
Jo sat in a straight-back kitchen chair, her hands
tied behind her.
"You okay?" I asked.
"How's Chuck?" she asked.
"Your hound's okay. He'll be back biting the
neighbors in no time. What about you?"
"I'm hungry," she said.
"I don't like the way you've been treating her," I
told Sorrowful.
"And I don't like your gun," Sorrowful told me. He no
longer wore a bandage, but there was a dark bruise on
his head. "Worse, it looks familiar."
"These things," I said, holding it palm up. "A dime
a
dozen. Just something I picked up somewhere."
"What did you do with Davidson?"
"He's taking a walk," I said.
"I don't understand how you did it. You should be
dead."
"Seems like I heard that line before," I said. "You
need a new writer. I would like to recommend David
Carren, a great TV writer. He could improve your
dialog immensely. He's also great at writing humor."
"You can place the gun gently on the floor," Sorrowful
said.
"I don't particularly like guns," I said, "but I've
grown fond of this one."
"Place it on the floor anyway," Sorrowful said. He
nodded toward the Colt .45 in his hand. It was still
pointed at Jo's head.
I placed Davidson's gun on the floor.
"I suppose I was getting bored with it after all," I
said.
"Kick it over this way," he said.
"Sure."
I kicked the gun as hard as I could. It flew across
the room, hitting him in the leg. In retaliation, he
took a shot at me. I think he purposely missed. This
could be a false assumption.
But my effort achieved nothing. He quickly pointed
the gun at Jo's head again and smiled.
He had a horrible smile. It was the first time I'd
seen him smile. I don't think I wanted to see it
again. He didn't need David Carren as a writer. He
needed Stephen King.
I remained still. As still as I could because
suddenly my elbow began to itch.
"I need to scratch," I said.
"Scratch and you're dead," Sorrowful said.
"I hope you're not familiar with Ni Ten Ichi Ryu."
"Just guns."
"There was this Samurai warrior named Shinmen Musashi
No Kami Fujiwara No Genshin. Everyone called him
Miyamoto Musashi. The Japanese named a battleship
after him during World War II. He developed Ni Ten
Ichi Ryu."
"Great. Congratulations to him."
"He's dead."
"You kill him?"
"No. He lived to a ripe old age. No one could kill
him. He killed everybody he went up against. He was
good! In fact, he got so good that he wouldn't fight
anyone with a sword anymore. He used a wooden stick."
"A stick against a sword?"
"Right."
"A very foolish man."
"No, that's where you're wrong. Because he'd come up
with this phenomenal way of fighting. Ni Ten Ichi
Ryu."
"Don't try it," Sorrowful said. "I don't have a
sword. I have a gun."
"What's so beautiful about Ni Ten Ichi Ryu is that it
doesn't matter."
"This Colt .45 doesn't matter?"
He laughed. It was even worse than his smile.
Scratch Stephen King. Make it Edgar Allan Poe. Yeah,
I know Poe is dead. It would fit right in with the
laugh that Sorrowful had.
With a flick of his wrist, he pointed the Colt .45 in
my direction and fired again.
Jo screamed.
I felt the bullet go past my head. Which ear, I
couldn't figure out. It happened too fast.
Sorrowful stared at me.
"Funny. The information about you we got off the
computer said you were a coward."
"The computer was right. Absolutely accurate.
Believe me."
"Sure," said Sorrowful. "But I just fired past your
head and you didn't even flinch. Not much."
"That's because I was busy thinking."
"About that Japanese crap? Is that what you used on
Davidson?"
"Not on Davidson. Wasn't necessary. I just needled
him a lot."
There were considerable noises outside the front door
of the apartment. But I was too busy to listen.
"And he's walking back?" asked Sorrowful.
I shook my head.
"Not to Los Angeles. I suggested he try Las Vegas."
"Walking?"
"Yes."
"You may be a coward. I don't know. But that's
crazy. Too far."
"Not if you're scared."
"Scared of you? Hard to believe."
"I put the fear of the devil into him," I said. "Or
maybe it was Musashi. I can't remember."
"Davidson? He's not scared of anything. Or
anybody."
"He was scared of me," I said.
"I don't know what you did to Davidson, but I'm not
scared of you," said Sorrowful. To accent his
statement, he again fired the Colt in my direction.
This time, he didn't bother aiming. The bullet ripped
into the wall near the door a good yard from my head.
Jo didn't scream this time. But she jerked and the
chair moved three or four inches in the direction of
Sorrowful Jones. She now realized that I was
attempting something; she didn't know what. She had
nothing on me. I didn't know what I intended to do
either.
But Sorrowful was growing less and less careful; he no
longer bothered to keep Jo covered. Most of the time,
his Colt was pointed in my general direction. When he
talked, however, the barrel tended to drift to the
side.
I had the feeling he was losing heart with his
situation.
"You know, of course, about the police outside," I
said.
"Gunfire always attracts attention. But I was told to
stay here with the girl. I have no choice."
"You follow orders implicitly?"
"That's what I'm paid to do. Follow orders."
"Tricia give those orders?"
"I'm not paid to answer questions," Sorrowful said.
"The police are going to come crashing through that
doorway any moment now. How about this question: You
want to shoot it out with them?"
Sorrowful didn't have to puzzle long over that
question. Some of the craggy channels eased in his
face.
"No." He put the Colt on safety and handed it to me,
butt first.
"Well, all right!" said Jo.
"Smart move," I told him. I placed the pistol on a
coffee table on top of a copy of the Los Angeles Daily
News and went over to untie Jo. "If I were you, I'd
call the police on the phone over there."
Without a word, he picked up the phone and started to
dial 911.
"Don't bother," said Sawyer. He came through the open
doorway, gun drawn, followed by four uniformed police
officers. They quickly moved to the side. One, upon
seeing Sorrowful Jones was unarmed, quickly fastened
his hands behind his back with handcuffs.
"About time you showed up," I said.
"I was waiting outside," said Sawyer. He put his gun
back in its holster.
"Waiting! Waiting for what?"
"For you to get finished," Sawyer said. "Do all
disc
jockeys talk so much?"
Jo stretched to get the kinks out of her arms.
"I'm still hungry," she said.
"Didn't you feed her?" I asked Sorrowful.
"Pizza," he said. "It's still on the coffee
table."
I shook my head. "Pretty rock'n'roll stars don't eat
sensible things like pizza," I said. "Didn't you know
that? Got to feed them rabbit food."
"Take that one away," Sawyer told one of the uniforms.
"Keep him handy."
"I want my mandatory phone call," Sorrowful Jones
said.
"When they book you," said Sawyer.
"On what charges?"
"Kidnapping, maybe."
"I didn't kidnap her. I rescued her," said Sorrowful
Jones.
"Rescued?"
"He did," said Jo. "Technically. From three
guys,
one with red hair and a weird hairdo. It wasn't
really a heroic rescue or anything like that. I think
it was more like reaching an agreement."
"Take him away anyway," said Sawyer.
"And take me to a restaurant," Jo said.
Sawyer motioned with his head at one of the officers.
The uniform nodded.
"We'll take it from here," the uniform said.
"You've got them well trained," I told Sawyer.
"Or vice versa," said Sawyer. "They know their job
rather well. Anyway, it's all a matter of procedures
and regulations. Two or three people will show up
soon and prowl the apartment for clues, talk to the
manager of the place, neighbors. By sometime
tomorrow, I should know a little more about the three
punks...or, as we say in the criminal justice system,
the alleged kidnappers. Your craggy-faced friend
there will be booked, he will make his customary phone
call and be released by some lawyer who lives mostly
off the Mafia. That's the way it goes, I'm afraid."
"So, Tricia and her goons are Mafia."
"That's what Freddie down at Martoni's says," Sawyer
said.
"You're taking the word of a bartender at a place like
Martoni's? I wouldn't believe one word spoken in
Martoni's even if Jesus Christ walked in and gave a
sermon."
"Freddie's word is about as good as it gets sometimes
in this business, I guess," said Sawyer.
We had to hunt for a restaurant; it was well after
midnight. Meanwhile, Jo called her parents on
Sawyer's cellular phone to let them know she was alive
and free and hungry. Her chattering was excited; to
some extent, it had been a grand adventure in spite of
the thing that had happened to her dog and the killing
of a neighbor woman.
"How's your mother?"
A brief, puzzled expression flashed on her face. She
spoke into the phone for another minute.
"Mother's fine. Father wants to talk to you," Jo said
and handed me the phone before I could say that I
didn't do phone.
"You did well, son," her father said. "Do you know
the name of the person the police arrested?"
I told him that his name was or wasn't Jones and the
other guy probably involved was or wasn't Davidson or
any other name you chose out of the phone book. And
there was also a woman probably not named Tricia
Rizzo.
"Typical," he said. He asked me to stop by the house
with Jo one day soon. I said I would, but right now I
had to feed her because she was starving.
"Typical," he said again and laughed.
Jo took back the phone and told her father she would
be by in a day or two. That was the end of the
conversation, though I had a feeling a lot of things
simply were not being discussed.
Sawyer found a small restaurant called Cabo's on
Sepulveda and the waiter, for a few dollars, was
willing to stay open a little longer and more than
pleased to bring Jo a Caesar's salad and a couple of
sandwiches.
"Milk, too," ordered Jo.
"With salad?"
"Definitely," she said.
"You're definitely not hurt or anything?" I asked her.
"Especially the not anything part," she said.
"These
three guys, the ones with the hair like a rooster
comb, hair dyed a grotesque red, came around a bend,
and grabbed me. When Chuck came to the rescue, one of
the guys shot him. Winona Chadwick, who lives down
the street from me, heard the noise and came running
up the trail and one of the guys shot her. Is
she...?"
"I'm afraid so," said Sawyer.
Jo was pensive. "She was a very nice lady. Chuck
liked her. She brought him fudge for his birthday."
"Someone also raided your house," I told her. "Took
your purse, your personal phone book, I don't know
what else."
"It wasn't the three who kidnapped me," said Jo.
"They dragged me on up the trail to the highway and
slung me into the back of a van. They wouldn't have
had time. They brought me to that apartment and
started asking questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"About my parents. They wanted to know all about my
father, what he was doing, where he lived."
"Did you tell them?"
"Sure," she said. "The Bronx. An apartment on
south
Bronx Parkway. We actually do have an apartment
there."
"Interesting," said Sawyer.
"Remind me, if I ever see Davidson again, to ask him
about your phone book and purse," I said.
"I overheard what you told Sorrowful," said Sawyer.
"Don't you know that sort of thing is against the
law?"
"The major problem I've got with the so-called legal
system," I told him, "is that the criminals usually
have more rights than the victims. What about my
rights?"
"This time, so far as I can tell, you were the
criminal."
"All I did was glue his hands together," I said.
"Glue? For god's sake!"
"Krazy Glue. I didn't have any handcuffs."
"You better hope he really is Mafia. Otherwise, some
judge is probably going to put you away for four or
five hundred years and throw away the key."
"What else did Freddie tell you?" I asked Sawyer.
"He said you weren't the target of any hit man."
"That's good news. If it wasn't the Mafia, who blew
up my pickup?"
"Freddie didn't say."
"You ever thought about asking anyone else?" I asked.
"Eventually. Yes."
"Then who were those guys shooting at in the Busted
Bird Cafe the other night?"
"According to Freddie, it might have been your
girlfriend."
Jo glanced at me. "Anyone I know?" she asked.
"But she wasn't at the Busted Bird," I said.
"She was supposed to be," said Sawyer, "according to
Freddie."
"No way," I said.
"Yes, I was," said Jo.
She said she was supposed to do a walk-on and sing a
duet with Bobby Vee. "He has a song that he wrote
several years ago when he was on United Artist Records
called 'Halfway Down the Road' that I really like.
I'm thinking about putting it on my next album. When
I mentioned this, he invited me to come on stage and
sing it with him. But then Ernie Farrell asked me to
do the benefit at the Century Plaza. For kids with
AIDS."
"Next time you talk with your friend Freddie," I said,
"ask him why Chuck K. Davis would be involved with a
benefit. He wouldn't do a benefit for his own mother,
unless he got paid."
"I already thought about that. Freddie says that your
friend Davis knew something was coming down and wanted
to establish a good alibi."
"Some friend, this Chuck K. Davis," I said.
The food arrived. I'd ordered a ham and cheese and a
diet Pepsi. Both were tasteless for some reason or
other and probably it had more to do with me than
Cabo's or whichever Japanese conglomerate owns Pepsi
these days.
"The one thing Freddie didn't know," said Sawyer, "was
how the killers knew that Jo was supposed to be at the
Busted Bird. And that, of course, also brings up the
question: How did they know she'd be coming up that
trail in Beverly Hills?"
"Chuck K. Davis know you lived in Beverly Hills?" I
asked.
"No. Not even Freddie would have known something like
that. I keep my private life about as private as is
possible in this business."
"Could Tricia have found out something like that?" I
asked Sawyer.
"I don't know. We've got a search warrant and we're
going in on that office off Van Nuys. Maybe we'll
find out something if I can tap into that computer. I
noticed a modem there. Like to know why and a few
whats."
Sawyer let us off at my pickup. Now that she had been
fed, Jo was able to think about other people, places,
and things. Specifically, about her dog. Sawyer made
a phone call and, in spite of the ungodly hour, we
were able to get into the dog hospital. The
veterinarian wasn't there and I don't know if dog
hospitals have nurses, but a guy in a white smock
unlocked the front door and a happy reunion took place
a couple of minutes later.
The dog was really sick, but he was able to raise his
head and lick her face.
He even licked my hand.
"Probably still running a serious fever," I told her.
(To be continued)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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Commentary
by
Claude Hall
September
1, 2003
Commentary
Sept. 1, 2003
Conventions are a major form of public relations as
well as a nice little profit center. I once helped
keynote a national convention of the National
Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas along with
Miles David, president of the Radio Advertising
Bureau, and Vince Wasilewski, president of the NAB. I
felt honored. I don't think any journalist had ever
been in that sort of crowd before, accepted as a peer
I would hope, and probably not since. Before the
session started, Vince mentioned to me that the NAB
convention brought in about $400,000 in profit. I
would suspect that today's NAB convention brings in
several times that.
Black radio personalities and program directors had
formed an association in the 1960s called the National
Association of Radio Announcers to improve Black Radio
and one of their methodologies was an annual
convention. I was there in Atlanta and in Miami. If
they had more than those two, I was probably there,
but those two meetings are the ones that I
specifically recall.
I'd only recently returned from the convention in
Miami and I'm on the phone in my office in New York
City with a record person and we're discussing some of
the strange things that happened, such as record
producer Shelby Singleton, owner of Plantation
Records, being banged around in his suite. This is
all news to me. I couldn't believe we'd attended the
same convention.
"Hey, someone phoned and said they were coming up to
shoot him and he told them they'd better bring a big
bullet. He had some of his friends around for
protection, you know?" The person asked me if I was
wearing a gun down there in Miami. I said no. He
said he'd had his gun with him. By the time I hung up
the phone, I think I was quite nervous. Yeah, the
convention had been strange, but I never realized at
the time that a lot of weird things were going on.
Like a small war.
I suppose they settled for beating up Shelby; I heard
the original plans were to kill record producer Jerry
Wexler of Atlantic Records (Bob Dylan, Aretha
Franklin, etc.) as an example, but that Henry Allen,
an employee of Atlantic Records, whisked him away and
out of state before that could happen. I didn't know
this, of course, until later. It was the widow of the
late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who probably not only
saved my life, perhaps, but probably averted that war
that was ready to erupt. The battleground was the
annual convention of the National Association of Radio
Announcers, by now known, as I recall, as the National
Association of Television and Radio Announcers
(NATRA).
I'd had attended the association's convention a year
or so before in Atlanta. The theme that year was
"Taking Care of Business" and I've often thought about
the real meaning of that phrase; it could have meant
anything. Since I was your basic honky covering a
black radio convention for Billboard and still
relatively new on the job, not too many people would
talk with me. I knew Del Shields, a radio guy, from
New York. He was essentially a nice guy, but Del and
several others were determined at that time to advance
the status of the black radio person in America and it
did need advancing and I was somewhat on their side,
to paraphrase the late Jack G. Thayer, but they really
didn't know this because I was honky and suspect.
That day in Atlanta, I was trying to ask Del some
questions about the convention in order to write my
story and not getting much information. Then a guy
standing near who was older and so black he was almost
purple told Del to "talk to him." That was
Clarence
Avant. At the time he was an executive for MGM
Records in New York City and very bright and very
progressive. After that, I had no problem; I was
accepted. Avant later managed Bill Withers and last I
heard he was president of Motown Records. I have
always held him in great respect although I don't
recall ever meeting him again.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the major
speakers at the Atlanta meeting and I suppose he
realized that he was speaking to virtually the cream
of communicators in regards to reaching Black America
because he gave a very dynamic speech. I know that
history has him as a pacifist and I suppose he was,
but that night I would swear that he gave a Black
Power speech. I took notes. I don't know why,
because I was there to cover radio and I may have
mentioned him in my story for Billboard, but he wasn't
radio. I still have those notes somewhere. But I'll
tell you this: Whatever Dr. King said was absolutely
right on. Black radio personalities in those days
were treated like mud and draped with names like
Butterball and Queen Bee. You get the idea. I don't
think Dr. King knew that, but he knew they had
enormous reach and influence in regards to the people
he wanted to reach; he was trying to reach their
audiences through them.
And Bill Cosby, shortly before his successful
television series, was there in Atlanta and told a
couple of funny stories one evening. I was taking
pictures as well as writing stories. I had this small
35mm Rollei; I carried the camera in one jacket pocket
and a small flash in the other. I would snap on the
flash, shoot a picture, replace them in my pockets and
get back to note-taking in a matter of seconds on a
couple of pages of typewriter paper folded in three
(later, I used a small notebook that I carried also in
my pocket). I had just taken a picture of someone on
the stage and came back to my table and someone was
sitting in my chair. Since I was one of the few
honkies around and that guy was a black guy in a sweat
shirt, I did not say anything about that being my
chair...I waited until he got up and left. As I sat
down, I noticed a cheap ball-point pen on the table.
Joe's Garage or something on it. I saw the guy in the
sweat shirt at another table, so I took the pen over
to him and said, "You left your pen back there."
He
looked at it, said "Thank you," and stuck the pen in
his pocket. I went back to my table and sat down and
the guy next to me said, "Hey, Claude, you see my
pen?" Then someone on stage introduced Bill Cosby and
the guy in the sweat shirt went up on stage and I felt
like crawling under my table.
I enjoyed attending the NARA convention in Atlanta
and, in retrospect, I made a few relationships that
just might have helped me in Miami. I've often
wondered about it. One of these was with a very
capable, very poised woman named Novella Smith who
worked for a Houston television station. She sort of
ran things and was vice president or something of
NATRA. Someone, probably Del Shields, also introduced
me to Ken Knight, maybe the first black disc jockey
and certainly the first to work on a so-called white
station. As I remember (for some reason I forgot to
mention him in my book "This Business of Radio
Programming") he was working as a janitor of a radio
station in the south and the morning man showed up
drunk once again and the manager of the station told
him to sit down at the mike and do the show and he
never used a broom or a mop again. Ken was pretty old
by the time I met him. Everyone around referred to
him as "grandfather." Ken would have been a long
time
before Hunter Hancock, maybe. In my book I mentioned
that the Magnificent Montague and some other black
radio personalities were flown into Chicago for a
meeting...the meeting that led to the founding of
NARA; I guess that would have been prior to the
Atlanta meeting. I don't remember meeting Montague,
however, until I was working out of the Billboard
office in Los Angeles in the 70s.
By the Miami convention, King is dead. So, here I am
in Miami, relaxed, feeling like a participant as much
as a reporter. I asked Novella a couple of times what
I could do to help. Finally, late that afternoon
before the events in the ballroom, she said I could
take the script for the evening's ceremonies over to
Dick Gregory. He was in a hotel over in Miami Beach.
She gave me the script, all on index cards, his hotel
and room number. I went out and took a taxi over to
Miami Beach. When I got to the room, I knocked on the
door and a rather startled Dick Gregory answered. I
told him that Novella Smith had sent me over with the
script for the night's show and he seemed a little
puzzled. But he took the cards, thanked me and closed
the door. So, I went back downstairs and caught a
taxi back to the convention hotel.
By the time I arrived back in the ballroom, the
texture of the convention had changed. I found a seat
at a long table across from a young NBC executive and
I could tell that he was somewhat nervous, although he
was pleasant enough. Suddenly, a guy in a robe with
diagonal stripes went up on stage and took over the
microphone. Where the guys in robes had come from and
whether they had been invited or not, I do not know.
"If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing
to worry about," he said and stepped away from the
mike and left the stage and everything was very, very
quiet in the ballroom and that's when I noticed that I
was probably the only honky in the room! I also
noticed quite a few blacks in robes. A lot of the
robes were the same, but there were others around the
room with different robes. Different Black Power
groups? Me? I've long felt that I could get along
with just about anyone. In Germany just shortly after
the war, I used to hang out in German bars, not the
bars where other GIs congregated. In college, I used
to hangout on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, when it
was one of the most dangerous streets in America,
circa 1955-57. And later I hung out in those low
adobe bars in Juarez where they called me Colorado
Grande and if you didn't get along pretty good in
those places, they would cut your throat and toss the
body out back.
Just then, a woman came out of the audience and went
up on the stage and introduced herself as Coretta King
and asked for calm and pleaded that nothing wrong
would take place.
I continued talking with the NBC executive. He was
black, but I don't think he really wanted to be there
at the moment.
After a while, he left and I left and I don't know if
Dick Gregory performed that evening or not. I didn't
leave because of fear. I left because of boredom.
Nothing seemed to be happening. Nothing at all.
After that convention, a lot of things sort of fell
apart for Black Radio. At this point in my live, I
can not tell you whether I ever went to another NATRA
convention or not. I don't remember it if I did, but
one tends to forget a lot of things over the years.
Henry Allen was later made head of his own label with
Atlantic Records. Del Shields later became a preacher
in New York City. A Philadelphia disc jockey called
Spider was found dead in the parking lot of the radio
station where he worked; a good little kid. Any
strong movement of blacks in radio sort of faded away.
A pity, that. Because of where I was raised, I've
been fairly close to the Mexican culture which has
given so very much to my life and the lives of others.
I love good Mexican music, good Mexican food...in
fact, I love Mexico. I love blues, too. However,
I've never been as close to the Black culture, now
called Afro-American, as I would wish. The American
Indian culture, too. Probably my fault. Yes, I've
come a goodly distance culturally from where I was
born in Brady, Texas. But, no, I didn't go as far
culturally as I probably should have and, indeed, as
far as I wished to go. Without question, it is my
loss.
One thing that I've often wondered about was whether
Novella Smith suspected something was coming down and
gave me those cards to deliver to Dick Gregory just to
keep me from getting hurt that evening. I don't think
Dick Gregory really needed those cards. Nor expected
them.
* * *
Burt Sherwood, bohica1@comcast.net:
"Hi...I think Andy
is right! FYI:
There is no letter 's' in Ruth Meyer's name...it is
Meyer. I am still in touch with her. I was close to
Sid Bernstein during and after my WMCA days...he even
tried to find me work as announcer when my WMCA days
were over. When I began operating radio stations he
always helped me out with getting tickets for audience
prizes, he is a terrific guy! If you have an address
(e-mail or phone #) I would like to find him again.
It was nice to hear about George Wilson; once in a
while I hit the phone and we go over what was. He is
and was incredible! Hope all is well with you and
Barbara."
In reference to Bert's comment above, Andy, my son the
poet who is once again teaching at UNLV this semester,
says "Abby Road" is the LP that has the message
"Paul
is dead" on it. Backwards, of course. The only
way I
know to get in touch with Sid is via Joey Reynolds,
G1boney@aol.com, who will,
I'm sure, pass the note
along. Sid and Les Paul are almost regulars on Joey's
show on WOR Radio.
Jim Long, jim@onemusic.com:
"Thank you for a great
column, Claude...I was in the room when George Wilson
did his 'no shorts' line...fond memories."
I was also in touch with Bruce Miller Earle and Jay
Blackburn during the week. Personal stuff. The first
time I saw these two guys, they drove up from Virginia
somewhere to an NAB convention in Washington and
walked in and set a case of Wild Turkey in the center
of the floor of my suite. I had a very popular suite
that convention.
Ah, conventions! Sometimes they were a lot of fun.
Other times, they were work. Just FYI, it was my son
Andy who suggested that I write about the Miami
convention. I guess I'd told him about it; don't
think I ever wrote about it before, though.
Claude Hall
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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