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"Hurt"
by Claude Hall
Chapter Nine
Somewhere off in the distance, perhaps at an apartment
complex further down the street, I heard a long and
mournful howl. Some dog. No question about that.
But it sounded eerie at this time of the morning right
before dawn.
The night had turned out quite cold down here in the
valley. Not as cold, of course, as up on the
mountains. But the wind tonight was coming down off
the mountains up around the Cedar Breaks and it was
near freezing throughout Las Vegas. It also gets that
way sometimes when a weather front--damp and
chill--comes in from the direction of San Francisco.
The dog howled again and even I felt a cold, nervous
shiver go up my back.
I almost stepped on her as I came from the parking lot
behind the apartments. I caught myself just in time
and actually stumbled, but I didn’t hurt the
white-haired little old lady laying nearly under the
stairs in a nitche where the buildings came together.
She stared up at me in fright and didn’t say anything
for several seconds. When she did manage to talk, her
words were clipped as if she were cutting them off
because of the cold.
“Are you a werewolf? I heard the howl of a werewolf
just a minute ago."
"That was just a dog," I said.
"Sounded like a werewolf."
"I assure you, mam. It was just a lonely dog who was
puzzled because of the cold weather."
She coughed.
"A werewolf would know something like that," she said,
her teeth chattering.
It was the same lady I’d met the other day in the drug
store. The lady who thought I was strange. Her
Albertson's shopping cart was parked at her side. She
was curled up by the wall in a quilt that had seen
better years.
“Where did you get a crazy notion like that?” I asked.
"You've been watching too many Stephen King movies."
“Don’t try to dodge the question, young man! I’m well
aware that werewolves can’t stand to touch silver.
That’s why you left the change in the tray when you
bought a can of Pepsi the other day.”
“Look,” I said, “you can’t sleep out here. Someone
will step on you.”
“Someone just did,” she said.
“I apologize.”
“This is not a bad place. It’s out of the wind. I’ve
seen worse.”
“I have an apartment here,” I said. “That door over
there.”
“I’m doing just fine,” she insisted. She was
shivering. Maybe from fright, maybe from the cold.
“It’s heated,” I said.
“I’m not cold.”
“Best of all, there’s a TV set. You could watch Oprah
Winfrey, the news, movies.”
“A werewolf that watches the Oprah Winfrey show? How
ridiculous.”
“I actually prefer to watch old movies,” I said.
“There’s a very good movie on in about half an hour,
as I recall. ‘Casablanca’ with Humphrey Bogart and
Ingrid Bergman. I usually pop some popcorn and get a
diet Pepsi out of the refrigerator. Sometimes, I’ll
even cook some French fries. You ever watch a good
movie with French fries dipped in hot salsa?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“Of course not,” I said. “I knew that all along.
It’s just that I’m really looking forward to seeing
this movie and, well, some movies are better when
there’s company. You sort of enjoy the movie more.
You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“After the movie, hey, you don’t have to stay. The
sun will be up. It’s going to be a nice day today.
That’s what the weatherman said yesterday on TV.”
I helped her to her feet. She was shivering, okay,
but it wasn’t from fear. At least, I don’t think she
was afraid of me. She also felt cold. It was a
strange feeling.
I opened the apartment with my key and soon had her in
the easy chair covered with a good quilt from the bed.
A few minutes later, I’d heated some water and made
some instant hot chocolate and she was sipping on a
cup and some of the shivering began to go away.
By the time the movie started, I’d made some French
fries and a couple of hamburgers.
She seemed pretty hungry. But so was I. And the
hamburgers had been made with ground chuck and lettuce
and tomatoes with a special relish that I buy all of
the time.
“I hope the relish isn’t too hot for you,” I said.
“It’s just fine,” she said.
“I was hungry. Would you like another hamburger?”
She said no, but didn’t turn down another cup of hot
chocolate.
“I’ve seen this movie several times,” I said. “I
especially like the part when Bogart says ‘Play it
again, Sam’.”
“He never says that.”
“Right,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you were
paying attention.”
“You’re a funny werewolf,” she said.
“You know many werewolves?”
“You’re the first,” she said.
After the movie, she insisted on leaving. I assured
her that she could sleep in the bedroom if she wanted
to and I would make a pallet on the living room floor
and she wouldn’t bother me or anything because I
usually slept pretty soundly and would be leaving
early in the afternoon.
She wouldn’t do that, but said thanks anyway.
I insisted she take a key to the apartment. “I work
nights,” I said. “Come here and spend the night.
Help yourself to the stuff in the icebox. Whatever.
I’ve been saving a video cassette of a movie called
‘Hopscotch’ with Walter Mathau. We can watch it in
the morning when I get home. I think you’ll love the
movie.”
“What a strange werewolf,” she said.
The sun was up pretty good and it had already warmed
up the day a little. She wheeled her shopping cart
down the concrete path between the palms. At the
sidewalk along the street in front of the apartments,
she stopped and waved goodbye at me. By now, she was
wearing a smile and a lot of the jauntiness I’d noted
the other day had returned.
I slept pretty good.
That night, under a full moon, I roamed in the Indian
lands on the rim of the Grand Canyon and then came
down off of a high ridge into the canyon bottom. The
only human being I saw was a strange old Indian with
grey hair sitting before a small campfire down along
the river bottom. I stopped and watched him for
several minutes. At one point, he stared into the
darkness trying to find me, but I was sitting with my
back to a boulder in the deep shadows of the moon and
he could see nothing. Maybe he sensed me, though, for
after a while he took something from a small leather
pouch and tossed a pinch of something into the fire.
Wolfbane.
I howled once just to let him know that he was very
wise. It was only a very low howl and only he heard
it. He nodded in my direction, his head moving up and
down slowly.
And then I was gone into the brush.
The bottom of the canyon is a very pleasant place this
time of year. It had rained earlier, as it sometimes
does down here, and the air was clean and felt good.
I swam for several minutes in a backwater of the river
where it curled in a bend. The water, as you might
have expected, was muddy, but that didn't bother me.
Later, after running until I was dry, I rolled in a
small grassy meadow and that was refreshing.
Long before the moon set, I had gone back up on the
ridge and was sitting on the running board of my
pickup having a Diet Pepsi. The moon sat on the rim
of the western world for a long time, big and full. I
enjoyed the peace and quiet, basking in its golden
glow.
Shortly after the moon suddenly fell off the face of
the earth, I dressed and headed back to town.
It was still a few hours until dawn. Since I wasn't
tired or anything, I drove over to the hospital. In
the back of my mind, I had the idea to tell J.D. about
the men up on the mountain the other night.
I almost didn't see him at first. The employee lounge
was dark. The only light came through the window from
one of the streetlights in the shopping center parking
lot.
He was concerned about something. This was an
assumption, but a strong one. He stood in the corner
of the room's deepest shadows and, unless someone was
paying attention, you probably wouldn't have noticed
him at all. He often stood like that in the shadows.
Very quiet. Almost somber.
"Let me guess: We have a problem."
"Dervish. Nap's gone."
I laughed. So that's what was bothering him. I was
relieved that it wasn't anything important.
"He ran away again?"
"No. Gone, this time. Really gone."
My laughter quickly died.
"But...."
"Sure, you can. Lead. That's what I was trying to
tell him the other night. Gnomes like him, it's lead.
Goes back to the days of the Celts in what is now
called Great Britain. In fact, the Celts chased them
out of the land of Ire entirely. Used lead-tipped
arrows, swords with lead points. The gnomes fled
mostly into Germany and parts of France. Who do you
think really caused World War II?"
"Hitler."
"That piss-assed paperhanger! Oh, sure, he did some
real dirt. One of the world's great villains. But a
lot of those people working for Hitler, the ones who
had his ear, were friends of your former friend Nap.
Troglodytes. Came out of those caves that honeycomb
all of Europe. Maybe Nap was even there himself
nudging Hitler along. Wouldn't surprise me any. He
was not your basic run-of-the-mill artificial creep.
He was the real thing."
We had to get the body, J.D. said, before anyone
spotted it.
"He can't be dead."
"Take my word on it. He's definitely gone."
"Says who?"
"Gertrude called me with the news and, of course,
passed along orders from Braun to get the body out of
there."
"It's probably true, then," I said. "Gertrude would
know."
People had lived in caves since the beginning, said
J.D. Archelogists had found drawings on the walls of
caves that pre-dated everything but the dinosaur. And
there were still people living in caves today. Some
in France. Italy. Greece. Spain. Several
thousand
in the mountains of Mexico up around Creel; people
whizzing past on the train that goes through Mexico's
legendary "copper canyon" never realized the
astronomical proverty just a few miles from the train
track up there around 8,000 feet.
Somewhere along the way, some of the people who had
lived in the caves too long changed genetically. They
became "no longer human," said J.D. And they'd
become
alergic to lead.
"Oh, I'll grant you that a vast number of them almost
look human. They can pass for human as long as they
stay away from a real doctor's examination.
Especially in a city like New York down on 42nd Street
or in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Hell, most
parts of San Francisco, too."
He suddenly stopped talking.
I asked him how you could recognize a gnome. He
refused to tell me. He just stared straight ahead.
We didn't want to attract any more attention than
necessary, so I drove the ambulance more or less
normal. Faster than the law allows, of course, which
is normal for Las Vegas, but not fast enough to force
a cop to pull me over. An ambulance, just the same as
a police car, without lights and siren is nothing more
than any other car.
A long time ago, when Las Vegas was a wet spot in a
dry road, the speed limit was set at 45 miles an hour.
Why not? There were more rattlesnakes on the road
than cars, according to J.D.
These days, traffic was just short of chaos,
especially during rush hour. Instead of reducing the
speed limit, however, they, whoever they were, had
merely raised the auto insurance rates as traffic
accidents--and fatalities--increased.
To walk across the Strip, even when you had the walk
sign, was risky. So, the casinos built overhead
walkways in an effort to keep people alive long enough
to lose all of their money; no sense letting the
undertakers and relatives get it. Some tourists,
however, avoided the walkways and got clobbered.
One of the best "fields of harvest," as J.D. called
them, was Boulder Highway. Pedestrians. Locals
mostly.
The "incident" had happened on Main Street just north
of Bonanza. Down that direction was St. Vincent, a
shelter for the homeless who slept on thin rubber mats
that almost protected them from the floor, whomever
only five inches from whomever else, hiding
temporarily through noisy nights under a thin blanket.
We found Nap's body in an alleyway behind a warehouse.
Only there wasn't much of a body left.
Light fell weakly from a streetlight on a funny pile
of clothes at the end of the alley. I reached over
and found a wrist and tried to find a pulse.
"What makes you suddenly think you're a medic?" asked
J.D.
"Anyone can feel for a pulse."
"Nap probably hasn't had a pulse in something like 600
years."
"I had hopes he was still alive."
"That?" said J.D. He shook his head.
What was left of Nap was sprawled in the rubble from
an overturned trash can. His body was nothing more
than a pulpy mass. So little was left of his face
that I couldn't recognize him.
The Dervish had stoned him. Rocks were scattered
everywhere. When I picked one up, I saw what J.D.
meant. It was covered with a thin wrapping of lead.
I stopped and stared at the darkness around me. Off
to my left was a gap between the buildings and it was
black in there. Somewhere from a distance, I thought
I heard the caw of an old crow but I couldn't be sure
it was actually a crow.
"You scared?'
"Of what?"
"They're out there somewhere," said J.D.
He may have sensed them. I had smelled them a long
time ago. The smell was one of stale dankness and
mildew...just like corn that had rotted from an
unspeakable age in some silo.
"The hell with them," I said.
As I bent to take one of the body's legs, a rock
whizzed past my forehead.
Then, several rocks began to fly. They seemed to come
from every direction. I tried to see who was throwing
them. And then I didn't have time. I was too busy
dodging. I ran behind the ambulance. A rock
richocheted off the wall of the warehouse and hit me
on the shoulder, but it only stung a little.
J.D. was calmly leaning against the side of the
ambulance.
"What took you so long?"
"Stopped for a haircut," I said. I smiled at him.
"Don't show your teeth at me. Go growl at the Dervish
out there."
"Not interested," I said. "I don't particularly
like
rocks. Cowardly way to fight, if you ask me."
He shrugged. "You're the one hiding behind an
ambulance."
"You ran, too."
"I most certainly did not. I merely came over here in
order to get a better view."
A rock hit the top of the ambulance and bounced off
against the wall. After that, there were no more
rocks.
"Why don't you look then?" I asked.
"Not a better view of the Dervish...a better view of
this side of the ambulance," he said.
I leaned against the side of the ambulance. "I would
think you'd be out there flitting around, chasing
Dervish, having some good fun."
"Flitting is not fun. It's hard work. Sweat like
hell."
"Well, don't look at me that way. I'm not moving
until the next full moon. I guarantee you."
"Don't worry. I'll do it."
"Okay. Go."
"Turn around."
"Why?"
"Personal."
I turned around.
"Shy," I said.
"So what," he said. I thought I heard a weak sigh,
but maybe it was just a squeak.
When I turned back, he was gone.
I cautiously poked my head around the rear of the
ambulance. It was too dark. In spite of a
decent-sized moon hanging above a low building and
about to drop, I couldn't see anything out there.
Anyway, a low wall ran along the alley for half a
block. They could have easily hid behind the wall.
Or they could be up on that roof over there.
J.D. wasn't visible either. I thought I might be able
to see him. My eyes are pretty good. Especially in
the dark.
No rocks. I was prepared to dodge back behind the
shelter of the ambulance, but there wasn't any need.
A couple of minutes later, J.D. stepped out of the
ambulance and motioned to me.
"They're gone," he said. "Let's get the body loaded
up before they come back."
"Did you see anything?"
"Nothing. They must have run early. A hit and run
guerilla tactic."
"Cowards," I said.
"No. Smart," said J.D. "That's probably a
good way
to fight someone like you or me and maybe the only way
to fight someone like both you and me."
Nap was very light. Like a small child. I could have
lifted him with one hand, but that didn't seem
appropriate.
We placed him on a stretcher and loaded the stretcher
into the back of the ambulance.
"His breath still stinks," I said.
"Have a little more respect for the dead," J.D. said.
"Death didn't help his breath any," I said.
J.D. closed the doors as I walked around and climbed
under the steering wheel and started the motor.
"Lights?" I asked him as he crawled into the other
seat.
"No. And take it easy going back. Take the long way
around."
"Why?"
"I need to do some thinking and I like to think slow.
So drive slow."
I pulled onto Bonanza and went down to Maryland. Then
I turn left on Fremont, which changes to Boulder
Highway after a few blocks.
"You want a Pepsi?"
"Coffee would be better," he said.
"Where could we get some coffee this time of the
morning?"
"Anywhere. This town never closes. Never sleeps.
The old analogy was that death was like a long sleep.
Not true. It's a longer form of life in many ways and
in many other ways this is a town of the dead. You
just think everyone is alive, but even the visitors
who come here to gamble have a sense of oppression
about them that is the same as death."
"Great place for a hospital like HRT, that's for
sure," I said.
"I wonder. Makes it more difficult sometimes, but
I've got a lot more thinking to do about that aspect."
"Not so difficult, except when you want a cup of
coffee."
"Pull into the parking lot of the old Showboat,
whatever it's called now. I'll run in and do the
honors."
"They have coffee?"
He merely frowned at me for asking something like
that.
"You want anything else?"
"Black," I said.
"Naturally. I meant donuts or something like
that."
"Just black."
"I think I'll get a donut or two," he said. His voice
was very low and very soft.
"Junk food," I said.
"Donuts?"
"Yes. Bad for you."
"That's a laugh!"
"Better avoid that sort of stuff," I said. "Take my
advice."
"What difference would it make?"
"You've got a lot of years ahead of you," I said,
"barring unforeseen circumstances."
"Don't we all?"
I pulled into the parking lot outside of the casino.
J.D. disappeared into a massive display of neon lights
that moved and blinked. It was like he walked into
some kind of storm. He was gone quite a long time and
when he came back he didn't explain why. He handed me
a Styrofoam cup of coffee.
"No donuts?"
"Took your advice," he said. "I'm going on a health
kick."
I flipped the top off of the cup and took a drink of
the coffee. It was pretty good. Not as good as the
coffee back at the hospital, but J.D. probably had
another reason for wanting coffee from the casino and
either he would get around to telling me about it or
he wouldn't. Didn't matter much in the long run.
"How did you get into this business?" I asked, just
trying to make casual conversation while we had
coffee.
"I sent them a resume."
"Seriously."
"I am serious. As serious as I'm going to get. An
employment agency down in Dallas. One of the
employees knew me from the old days. He heard about
the opening here in Las Vegas. Recommended me for the
job. Before that, I freelanced a while around the
Denton, Texas area. There's a girl's school in
Denton."
"I really meant, you know, the business."
"It's a long story."
"You aren't Dracula, are you? I've often wondered."
"Hell, no!"
I sat my coffee cup on the dashboard for a moment.
"Do you often...you know...?"
I flapped my arms like a chicken.
"Of course." He kept his eyes straight ahead. "And
now and then I still take an...excursion, shall we
say. While this job does have have its compensations,
the old urge is always there. But not so much on
clear nights. Dark nights are best, especially when
there's a cloud or two and shadows."
"Shadows? At night?"
"It's amazing how much light you get from the stars
and maybe even a rim of a moon. I spend half my time
hunting for some place dark."
"I like nights with a big moon."
"Naturally. You would." He was silent for a
moment.
Then continued talking even though his mind seemed a
million miles away: "The biggest problem I have is
that an apartment isn't a cave. See this bruise on my
head. Ran into a floor lamp in the dark."
"Don't you have that radar stuff?"
"Sure, dummy. But who's got time to turn? If you
dodge the lamp, you cram into the TV or something.
Many nights, I long for an old cave. Any old cave."
"Must be a cave around here somewhere."
"Gypsum Cave on the other side of Sunrise Mountain.
But it's a touch on the small side. And too many
people dropping by. There's a small cave in the Red
Rock Canyon area and another down toward Laughlin that
you won't find on any map. One of my great dreams,
though, is to spend a night in the Carlsbad Caverns
before I wrack it up."
"You? Wrack it up? Not much chance now that you've
given up donuts."
He snarled. I had expected a laugh this time.
"I never wanted much out of life," I said quickly
because I didn't like the perculiar tone of his snarl.
"I just wanted to be left alone."
"And no one would let you?"
"Never."
"Was this before? Or after?"
"After, of course. Before? Well, that was different.
Anyway, I was too young to remember a whole lot."
"They hunt you?"
"A few times," I said. "Once with dogs.
"With dogs? That's really funny." He still didn't
laugh.
"I really hated that," I said. "I've tried to
forget
about that sort of thing. It wasn't much fun."
"Don't blame you," said J.D.
During the whole conversation, he seemed to be half
lost in thought.
"What were you?" I asked. "Some fancy big
shot?"
"No. Nothing like that."
"I've always thought of you, J.D., as having a lot of
the count about you."
"Count? No. Livery. Horses."
"But you're afraid of horses."
"Huge, vicious monsters. Anyone in their right mind
would be afraid of them."
I had to laugh. Horses certainly did not fit with his
image.
"Horses," I said. "How dull. How
unromantic."
"Stunk, too."
"You been around long?"
"A very long time. You don't really want to know
exactly how long. Anyway, I couldn't tell you. Not
exactly. One forgets a lot in order to keep from
going crazy or something similar."
"Berserk," I said.
"I don't go berserk," J.D. said.
"I do," I said.
"Well, don't do it now."
"Okay. Moon's already set anyway. There are actually
three days when the moon is right. The middle day is
always the best. That was tonight. I don't know
whether I'm even going out tomorrow night or not.
I'll probably come to work instead."
"You killed those dogs, didn't you?"
"I didn't want to," I told him.
"Best to get that sort of crap out of your system.
You carry it around, it'll eat you up. We are who we
are."
"I was hoping to forget it," I said.
He shook his head at me. "Not much chance of that,"
he said.
"I honestly like dogs."
"You would."
I decided to tell him. He was much older. Maybe he
knew what he was talking about.
"The hounds gave the most horrible sound I ever heard
as they raced through the trees. The moon flashed
through in stripes. I can remember everything just as
if it were happening right now. I ran up a thin
stream, hoping to shake them off. But I guess they
could hear me if they couldn't smell me. And they
kept coming. And I kept running. I saw a cave up in
the rocks and knew it was deep and I could fight them
off there, but I also knew that their owners would be
not too far behind and it would be a trap from which I
couldn't escape. So, I ran on.
"They caught up with me. I didn't know dogs could run
that fast. But a couple of them were greyhounds. You
know?"
J.D. nodded his head as if he knew all about
greyhounds.
"I had to turn and fight. One of them, I flung into
some rocks by a cliff. The other, I threw at a giant
mastiff, bowling them both over. When I grabbed the
neck fur of the mastiff and broke his neck, it took
the heart out of the rest of the pack and they ran for
it and I took off running the other direction. I
slowed down to a trot after a while, but I think I ran
clear into the next county before I began to feel
safe."
He didn't say anything. I don't even know if he was
listening to all that. It was maybe a minute before
he talked and it was about something else.
However, he was right: I felt a lot better because I'd
told him all about that night.
"You ever heard of this dervish stuff before?" J.D.
asked softly.
"No."
"Funny," said J.D.
"A gang of some kind?" I suggested.
"I doubt that. Look." He reached down and took out
an arrow from beneath his seat. "I found this out
there behind the wall."
He handed the arrow to me. I examined it closely.
And with a sudden chill.
"Wood," I said.
"A gang wouldn't know something like that," J.D. said.
"Wood. You can buy arrows made of fiber glass these
days."
"Wood, too."
"Right. Wood, too. But wood is not all that common
anymore for arrows."
He flung the arrow out of the window with a savage
thrust.
"I thought that wood nonsense was just an old wives'
tale."
"No," said J.D. "It's true enough. The old
wives'
tale is true, too. Goes back to some count who killed
his enemies by impaling them on huge stakes standing
in a garden alongside the castle. Vlad, the "impaler"
Tepes. Europe somewhere. I heard Transylvania. But
I'm alergic to wood. You can't believe the agonizing
pain from even just a splinter in a finger."
"Nap, lead. You, wood."
"That's about the size of it. And you, I've heard
silver mentioned from time to time over the years."
"I don't believe that stuff about silver."
"You're young, that's why. Yet, I've seen you leave
change laying around even though there's absolutely no
silver in a penny and probably very little these days
in even a dime."
I finished my coffee.
I told him then about last night on the mountain.
"Interesting," he said.
"That's all? Just interesting?"
"You want to hear something else interesting?"
"I guess so," I told him though I wasn't really sure.
"Someone is killing vampyres."
"Interesting," I said. I simply couldn't think of
anything else to say for a while. We sat there, both
of us silent. Finally, I asked: "How do you know?"
"I've been making some phone calls now and then. Make
one just a few minutes ago in the casino. That guy in
Dallas who steered me onto this job? Gone. Six weeks
ago, he was tracked down to an old house on the
outskirts of town. Someone drove a stake through his
heart."
"And now, Nap. And the incident on the mountain
earlier tonight. No, I guess it was last night."
I told him about following the Ford Bronco and
shooting at it.
"I wish you'd talked to me first."
"What would you have done?" I asked.
"Nothing. And that's exactly what I would have told
you to do."
"I was trying to frighten him off."
"A guy like that? You don't frighten men off who
drive Ford Broncos. You only make him mad. Now he
will be tracking you. You won't see him, more than
likely, but he'll be out there and he'll be hunting
you."
"I can do some hunting, too," I said.
J.D. just shook his head sadly.
"First chance you get, wipe the rifles clean of your
fingerprints and dump them."
"Okay," I said. Then I asked him something that was
bothering me: "Are you going to pull out of Las Vegas
because of this?"
"Where would I go?" he asked.
I just nodded.
"I guess it's time for us to get back to the hospital
and deliver Nap," I said.
"Nap's no longer in back," said J.D.
"What!"
"Gnomes don't hang around long after it's all over,"
he said. "A couple of hours or so. Then it's just a
pile of dust. It'll be that way with me, too."
"God!"
"God has nothing to do with it," J.D. said.
(to be continued)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
|
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
December 15, 2003
New York City
1964-71
A journey by Claude Hall
Part Six
I recall a hole in the wall on a street near the
Billboard office. I think it was called the
Peppermint Lounge. Overnight, it was a "famous"
nightspot with a doorman you had to tip $20 in hope he
might let you in. Then, just as quickly, it was a
hole in the wall again and the twist had danced its
way to something else. Fad songs came and went. Some
songs were never fads, they were unpredictable
mysteries. "Hanky Panky?" "Wooly
Bully?" "Along
Comes Mary?" Music was sometimes unpredictable even
when you had a group of people who ate, breathed,
slept music. People who thought we were experts
because that was our business. Unpredicatable?
Sometimes? Hell, most of the time! I thought
"Gloria" by the Shadows of Knight not much of a
record, but Paul Ackerman, the music editor of
Billboard, liked it and thought it would be a hit
because it mentioned the name of a girl. Paul's
"formula" worked; it actually became a big hit. Paul
and I and Mike Gross, talent editor, and three or four
others were the weekly music panel that reviewed
singles for the magazine. The editorial staff
reviewed all albums. Don Ovens, chart editor,
screened the 45s; we voted on what was left one day a
week. "Ballad of the Green Beret" was another
big hit
on which I think I voiced a no vote. But one day I
missed the session and discovered that the panel had
voted down "My Sweet Lord." I convinced
Don Ovens he
had to make the record a pick hit because it was
already being played on WABC, etc. And, of course, it
was a hit and in my opinion had nothing to do with
"He's So Fine" by the Chiffons even though a lawsuit
said otherwise. Vic Alpin, a Nashville songwriter and
fishing buddy of Hank Williams, once told me and Paul
Ackerman that there were only seven songs...everybody
just rewrote these. Music could be divided into
records you thought might be a hit and records you
liked and you hoped would become a hit. The policy at
Billboard was to ignore all else.
I remember catching Jose Cuba at a small club near the
race track north of Manhattan (Cuba should have had a
million-seller with "Bang, Bang," but was robbed
and
the program director of WIXY--I think that was the
station--in Cleveland fired because the general
manager thought he'd been paid to play the
record...the program director never talked to me
again...his name was something Shepard, I
think...pity). I interviewed so very, very many,
including the grandfather of Jimmy Rabbitt--Leon
Payne--and also Cindy Walker by phone. I was at the
Newport Folk Music Festival when Arlo Guthrie became a
star, suddenly, with "Alice's Restaurant,"
moving from
the grass in the field and a few listeners to the
stage for the big finale before everyone. He asked me
backstage if I thought he had a chance and I told him
he could start counting his money. I was there, too,
when Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Band performed and
I had to help push off his old bus afterwards. I
don't know if Bill Monroe was rich or not, but he
certainly wasn't as rich as he should have been.
Music came first in his life. One night, he played a
gig in a rathole in Greenwich Villege (we sat on
benches) and he asked people to bring their tape
recorders and record the event. He was literally
giving his music away to people that loved it.
Norman Petty? Well, this was somewhere about 40 years
ago. Hard to remember precisely when it's that far
gone. The story that I wrote after the interview was
printed in Billboard, but it's just one of the many,
many stories that will disappear since Billboard had
no morgue except the braincells of the staff. He had
a trio called, I think, the Norman Petty Trio that
played hotels. Like many acts, they had a record they
would sell to the audience. With the Blackwood Bros.
(yes, I once interviewed James) it was albums from
their bus at gospel meets, with acts such as Brian
Hyland and Bobby Vee, it's now CDs. With Petty, of
course, it was the old shellac discs and one evening
after their performance a guy walked up and asked to
buy seven copies of a song called "Blue Velvet"
because he owned seven radio stations. Hit record!
Petty built the studio in Belen, NM, from the money.
Most of you know the rest of the story, as they say.
Buddy Holly, Richie Valens. Bobby Vee recorded there,
too, because he tells a cute story on stage about no
drums and so they used a cardboard box on one record.
But there were many other hits out of the Belen music
factory. Pity that Jimmy Coleman from Carlsbad, NM,
(J. Paul Emerson) is dead; he would know them all and
I think played drums on a couple. Some of you that
read Commentary knew Jimmy maybe even better than I
did because I lost touch with a lot of people when I
became a college professor. I wonder if he got to see
his son before he died; his wife had taken the boy and
fled. She phoned once to let Jimmy talk to the boy.
That was his only contact so far as I know.
My favorite music place in those New York City days?
Without question, the Cafe au Go Go in Greenwich
Village. Al Grossman sent one of his flunkies over
one night to tell me I couldn't shoot a picture of him
(I wasn't, I was just shooting a picture of the
audience). Then, of course, I had to shoot a picture
of Grossman; but I never used it for anything. Who
gave a damned what he wanted or even who he was? But
backstage was a magical place at the Cafe au Go Go and
you could tell when something was "happening"
because
a great many of the people back there would rush out
front to catch it. I saw the Paupers wipe out the
Jefferson Airplane there one night, but MGM Records
could never get the Paupers recorded right and the
group never happened. Again, a pity. And I was at
the Cafe au Go Go when the Cream did their first show
stateside and when Al Kooper came in with Blood, Sweat
and Tears as a blues group and later as a rock group
with David Clayton Thomas. Fred Neil. The early
Richie Havens. I heard Woody Allen one night, but
that may have been at the Bitter End down the street.
Barbara and at least two of my sons love Woody Allen.
Especially love his movies. But this is something
that I don't understand. The only positive thing I
can say about Woody Allen is that he likes basketball.
Regardless, the Cafe au Go Go was the place in New
York City where music was a happening thing in the
60s.
Town Hall, which held about 1,200 people maybe and was
located off Times Square, was another good music
place. Ian and Sylvia, the Weavers, Gordon Lightfoot,
Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Mike Bloomfield on
guitar. I heard Segovia here, too, but this was
before I joined Billboard...my first New York City
venture. I remember a review of Odetta at Town Hall
and her manager or her publicity agent complained as
if Billboard wasn't supposed to criticize an act.
Live shows, we wrote the review as we felt it.
Generally. Because I don't recall ever panning Tony
Bennett and, of course, there was always something
about an act you could pan if you wanted to. Once I
caught Marty Robbins (I love his music) at an
auditorium (one of those early experiments with
country music in the city back before country music
really was acceptable in the Big Apple) over in
Brooklyn and he got into a heckling bout with someone
in the audience that sort of spoiled the show.
Records, we reviewed from a commercial basis, i.e.,
whether it would sell or not. Because while I liked
some of the records of people like Mick Jagger and
that ilk, I always thought many of them should have
taken voice lessons. Personality lessons, too.
Although I'm not sure that voice lessons would have
helped. The acts were often outlandish, it's just
that the music was as a rule good! On the other hand,
I felt "called" upon to review an album by an
old
black couple, the Consolers, positively although I
realized it probably wouldn't sell a lot; there was a
song on the album called "Around God's Throne"
that I
thought then and now was a masterpiece. Some months
later, a man from the gospel record label brought them
to meet me and I was able to tell the couple in person
how great I thought they were. That whole thing was
probably God's gift to me.
I also reviewed Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida"
with lavish praise and was told by many that it would
never be played on radio because it was too long, thus
it would never be a hit. It was a big hit, of course,
and sort of the frontrunner into a wave of records
that were longer than 1.5 minutes. Do any of you
remember when Paul Drew about the time he was
programming CKLW in Detroit was trying to force record
labels to produce songs that were only 1.5 minutes?
Yes, I know "El Paso" by Marty Robbins preceeded
"In-a-Gadda-da-Vida," but that was a very unique
situation and became a hit to a great extent because
disc jockeys needed to go to the bathroom
occasionally.
Mickey Addy. What a colorful character! He'd worked
for Dot Records as a promotion man until they sort of
forced him to retire. That's when Billboard hired him
in sales, although I'm not sure he sold much of
anything. But he was worth his chubby weight in
goodwill and promotion. We took him to Nashville once
to the country music convention and he dressed up as a
"count" with monocle and all and a outlandish costume
and pretended to be from Europe. Made all of the
newspapers even though everyone knew he was an out and
out fraud. He told me once that he was writing a book
about the industry, dictating it. But I later ran
into Tommy Noonan, a former Billboard sales director
who became director of promotion at Columbia Records
and then Motown before going back to Billboard, and
Tommy told me that he'd gone into Addy's apartment
after his death and he found nothing like tapes.
Pity. History gone down the drain. Because Addy knew
them all. He often referred to Frank Sinatra as "that
pipsqueak."
Sid Bernstein was the first to produce a concert by
the Beatles in the United States at Carnegie Hall. He
later brought them back to Shea Stadium. Barbara and
I attended the Shea event. Never heard a word because
of all of the little screaming girls. I guess I
interviewed Sid a few times for Billboard. He was a
nice guy and still is, according to what Joey Reynolds
tells me. It seems that Sid and Les Paul often guest
on Joey's overnight show on WOR in New York City.
I once set in on a recording session of the Cream.
Felix Pappalardi, the producer, was then laying down a
track with Eric Clapton. I remember Clapton sitting
on a high bar stool and Pappalardi kneeling at his
feet while they tried to achieve a particular riff.
The first Cream album was cut in England. Felix
produced the other three in New York City. I consider
all three masterpieces. Felix went on to form and
play in Mountain.
Wes Farrell died March 5, 1996, at age 56 of cancer in
Coconut Grove, FL. Obit in Los Angeles Times
mentioned that he was a songwriter and record producer
and had produced the records of the Partridge Family
music. He was on top of the world in the music
business until he dumped his wife and married Tina
Sinatra. When they broke up, Frank Sinatra evidently
passed the word not to do anything with Farrell and
that was literally the end of his career. I
interviewed him a few times, both in New York and
later in Los Angeles. Supposedly, Farrell wrote the
song "Come a Little Bit Closer."
Bill Gavin and his wife Janet put out a mimeographed,
(later offset) newsletter about records. He'd started
the newsletter while (or shortly thereafter) doing
consulting on music for "The Lucky Strike Hit
Parade"
radio show. Though Bill Gavin stuck mostly to
records, I always considered him my major competition.
I never competed against him. In fact, I liked him
personally and always praised him because he deserved
praise. In my opinion, Gavin was one of the major
forces in radio for many, many years.
Gavin held a conference in 1967 at the Riviera Hotel
and Casino in Las Vegas. I learned years later that
George Burns actually planned and organized the
conference. But everyone was going and Lee Zhito,
then just editor-in-chief of Billboard, wanted me to
go to see if we could do something similar. Earlier,
he or Hal Cook at Billboard had tried to get the
National Association of Broadcasters to do a
conference. But the NAB didn't want to get involved
with programming in those days. Especially after the
so-called "Babes, Booze, and Bribes" headlines
that
erupted out of a Miami convention done by Todd Storz
and Bill Stewart earlier. I wasn't well known in
those days. I don't remember associating with any
radio person at the meeting, but I do recall
interviewing Tom Donahue, a disc jockey. He was huge.
He sat on one side of the table in the coffeeshop;
three of us sat on the other side. Who was with me, I
don't recall. One of them may have been Lee Zhito.
Gavin was not only a nice guy, but had a phenomenal
reputation with radio people for being honest in not
only reviewing records, but his makeshift chart.
David Moorhead or I invited him and his wife Janet to
a second convention at the Century Plaza in Los
Angeles and during the awards ceremonies we all gave
them a standing ovation wtih more than 800 in
attendance.
I always got along with Bill Gavin well. After Janet
died, he married someone else, but not long after that
sold his "tipsheet" to someone and it became a
fairly
nice-looking magazine called Gavin for several years.
I think David Sholin worked there for a while. Gavin
didn't live to see the changes in the magazine
My wife Barbara said that the only bad thing Bill
Gavin ever did in his life was waiting to take his
second wife on a cruise when it should have been
Janet.
Harvey Glascock. General manager of WNEW-AM, New
York, where years before Bernice Judas created the
all-music radio format. Great at promotion. I
remember quite well a picture of Harvey sitting on a
bench between two of the football players of the New
York Giants. I was in his office once when John
Kluge, head of Metromedia, came to the door and shot
the bull for a few minutes. Harvey was one of the
people who contributed to my radio learning phase.
Damned nice guy. When he left Metromedia, he bought a
radio station in Stuart, FL, and everyone said that
was because there was a golf course nearby and he
counted his audience not in people, but in golfers.
Milt Rich was a public relations man in New York that
handled, among others, some people at CBS and this
included, I think, Arthur Godfrey and Bob Keene,
otherwise known as Captain Kangaroo. He asked me if I
wanted to sit in on the Arthur Godfrey radio show, and
I did. Joe Williams was the house vocalist at the
time. I got to talk with Godfrey. He was one of the
greatest "sellers" alive. On radio, he
could sell
anything and the tale about him turning Toni into a
big-selling product is legendary. This was in the
declining years of radio programs, per se; I'm
grateful that I was able to do this before it was all
over. Both David Moorhead and Bill Randle knew
Godfrey personally and used to tell great stories
about his exploits. As for Milt Rich, I really liked
this guy; he could make you think it was your idea to
do something on one of his clients; a nice guy, a very
excellent promotion person. Not for records, for
people.
Mike Gross knew more about Broadway than anyone I
knew. Once, he was asked to be a "doctor"
on the play
"Superman" and turned it down because he didn't think
he could help. I don't know if he could have been a
good playwright. But he was a damned good trade
journalist for show business. He joined Billboard
shortly before I got there after working years for
Variety and there's a story about him writing a review
once and never leaving the bar at Carnegie Hall. At
the Grammy Awards ceremonies, we would divide the
writing work. For fun, we'd pick out the very last
possible choice for a winner and laugh when that
person sometimes won which wasn't often. Mike came
down with hepetitus; Barbara and I visited him in the
hospital. During his illness, I also covered talent
for him. A few months after I moved to the West
Coast, Mike stepped out of a window at Billboard and
they found his body on the roof six floors below.
I've often thought that if I'd been there, given him
someone to talk to, he might have lived a few years
longer. A very nice guy who never learned to drive a
car because he didn't need to; he was a city boy.
Ron Jacobs is something else. I'll figure out
precisely what one of these days. The first
International Radio Programming Forum was held in New
York City at the New Yorker Hotel. Bill Drake, then
just getting famous as a programming consultant, was
supposed to appear along with Art Linkletter, who'd
recently lost his daughter to drugs; George Martin of
Beatles fame, and another person (Gordon McLendon?) on
a keynote panel. Drake called and said he couldn't
leave his post, which was, of course, his house in Los
Angeles, because of the Robert Kennedy assassination.
Instead, he was sending Ron Jacobs, the program
director of KHJ, Los Angeles. Drake assured me that
Jacobs would do well. I doubted it, but I was in for
a huge surprise. Jacobs showed up before the panel in
a suit. Looked sharp. He asked me about the audience
and how long I wanted him to talk; I described who I
thought would be there, mostly program directors, and
off the top of my head said he should talk 21 minutes.
I don't know why I said 21 minutes; maybe it was an
attempt at humor. Regardless, he went to his room and
came back in a Nehru suit, popular at the time for a
year or so, and medallion around his neck. He spoke
exactly 21 minutes...and without a watch! He never
said an and nor an uh. Phenomenal! I became right
then a big Ron Jacobs fan. And I still am. He's a
goddamned genius! Later, when he and Drake became
slightly enemies, I interviewed both off and on a few
times for publication in Billboard and later the book
"This Business of Radio Programming." Drake is
bright, but Jacobs is the brighter of the two, in my
opinion. After his enormous success with KHJ in Los
Angeles, Jacobs programmed an album rock station, KGB,
in San Diego, the direct opposite format of KHJ. And
he was again a success. Then he returned home to
Hawaii where he is undoubtedly the greatest guru on
radio and on the St. Louis Rams...he never came back
mainland much. If Clear Channel had hired Ron Jacobs,
whodaguy@lava.net, instead of Randy whatisname,
American radio would still be something worth
listening to.
At one time, Murray the K Kaufman was one of the
leading radio personalities in America. He also
produced live rock music shows at the Fox Theater in
Brooklyn. I heard from one artist who performed at
one of these shows about a tough approaching him
afterwards and telling him that Mr. K hadn't done as
well financially as expected and the artists were all
giving some money back. This particular artist handed
the guy $20 and ran. When I first got to know
Kaufman, he was sort of persona non grata in New York
City. Then he landed a job with several other disc
jockies–Bill "Rosco" Mercer, Scott Muni, etc.,
on
WOR-FM. Because of union problems, they didn't go on
the air right away and the station actually went to an
automated rock music format without personalities.
And did fairly well. When Murray finally got on the
air, he hired a young black guy named Bobby Calendar
to review his records. Bobby picked "Requiem
for the
Masses" on the flipside of the Association hit,
"Cherish." Once Murray got feedback, he began
playing
more message songs and, anyway, the Beatles were by
now heading this musical direction. His show started
selling FM transistor radios. First thing you know,
he was a big success. But then programming consultant
Bill Drake got hold of the station and switched it, in
spite of promises to me that he wouldn't do so, to an
oldies format and fired all of the radio personalities
with the except of a couple, including Bill "Rosko"
Mercer. Bill eventually resigned on the air, but I
think that by this time he had a job on WNEW-FM. And
by this time he'd backed off r&b and was playing the
same kind of music as Murray, along with reading
poetry on the air now and then. George Duncan, who
later became a good friend, eventually took WNEW-FM to
what was then called an underground music format. I
came up with the term progressive rock, since it made
a little more sense for Madison Avenue. But I could
never get Duncan to hire Murray the K. I later put
two or three hours on tape with Murray when he and his
wife Jackie, who acted on the TV soap "General
Hospital," moved to Los Angeles. But he never had
much of a career after WOR-FM. As for Mercer, he
became extremely famous as the evening personality on
WNEW-FM and for a while made an enormous amount of
money doing voiceovers for Madison Avenue. After a
few years in France doing much of nothing, he returned
to Manhattan, but could never recapture his former
glory.
Bill Littleford was chief operating officer of
Billboard Publications Inc. during my years with the
magazine. Actually, the publication firm was owned by
the family that extended back more than 70 years,
including Roger Littleford. It had been started to
cover the outdoor advertising industry, but became for
many years a carney publication and to this day you
can find tombstones in America with nothing more than
something such as "Snakeman, Box 778,
Billboard." In
those days, Billboard was literally home to the carney
crowd and Bill Sachs, production manager at the
Cincinnati office for Billboard, had been magic editor
way back when. Bill Littleford pressured his brother
Roger out of the magazine against his will and took
command and later sold the entire company to Gerry
Hobbs and one of his friends (First National backed
the buyout). Now, I understand, the company is owned
by the Germans. Bill was a nice guy to me for a
while. At, I'm sure, Hal Cook's recommendation, they
loaned me the down payment for a house in Hartsdale
($7,500) and then gave me a raise so that I could pay
the interest-free loan back without any hassle.
However, when I protested a few years later about Lee
Zhito shortchanging me on a bonus, he send my note
back with a message written on it that read: "Don't
make trouble or we won't help you down the road."
Thus, he let Zhito cheat me out of slightly more than
$4,000.
Gordon McLendon is now, of course, in the Broadcasting
Hall of Fame of the National Association of
Broadcasters. But for many years he and Todd Storz
were considered persona non grata because they
developed the Top 40 radio format and, in fact, the
NAB didn't even know how to spell the name McLendon
properly. Somewhere in some cardboard box is a letter
from Gordon wherein he was thinking about contacting
his lawyer in Washington to sue the NAB just so they'd
know how to spell his name. I didn't know Gordon
personally, but I interviewed him once at his FM
station in Dallas and we later exchanged a couple of
letters (I have one in which he said he was donating
an island to Australia). His son Bart McLendon, who
inherited the wealth of his father and of the Noe
family via his mother out of Louisiana, picked me up
at the airport, as I recall, and drove me back to the
airport later. I still have the cassette with the
interview somewhere. Todd Storz launched the new
radio format at KOWH in Omaha. Bill Stewart, who
worked for Storz, later worked for McLendon and thus
part of the reason, I suppose, the McLendon stations
went to a Top 40 format after the networks sued to
stop Gordon McLendon from his recreated broadcasts of
baseball games under the name of the Old Scotsman.
His broadcasts were even more popular with listeners
than the real thing after the networks decided to
compete. The story of this can be found in "North
Towards Home" by Willie Morris, a teasipper who once
edited the Daily Texan at The University of Texas. In
any case, KLIF in Dallas became a legendary radio
station with a Top 40 format. Radio should have put
up a monument at the old KOWH site, but I guess it
never will...not in my lifetime anyway. Maybe Bruce
Miller Earle will venture by the place one day and put
up a sign.
One of the biggest mistakes I ever made as a radio
journalist was in not interviewing Ruth Meyer, program
director of WMCA, a Top 40 radio station in New York
City. She'd worked for Todd Storz at one point. She
was probably a good program director, but R. Peter
Strauss owned the station and he was more interested
in his political aspirations than achieving anything
with the radio station. This is the station that
pioneered two-way talk. Regardless, WMCA's Good Guys
era of Top 40 had just about run its course. Once
WABC, the major competition, dumped the Don McNeil
show in the morning, that radio station was able to
finally call itself a Top 40 radio station and Rick
Sklar, then programming WABC, put on the pressure; he
cut the playlist to something like 12 records and some
oldies (he always denied this, but I've been in the
radio station studio and saw the actual carts from
which the music was played), he increased promotions.
Word got out that Ruth Meyer, program director of
WMCA, was about to be dumped. I liked her. Thought
she'd done a good job. But R. Peter Strauss, the
owner of WMCA, was already looking for her
replacement. So I called up L. David Moorhead, then
program director at WOKY in Milwaukee and told him
that I thought she ought to know about the situation,
but I didn't know how to tell a woman she was going to
get fired. Moorhead said he would let her know. An
hour or less later, I got a phone call from somebody
out in the mid-west, I don't remember who, and all he
said was that Ruth had called him to call me and say
thanks.
Lord, but those were good years for an old boy from
Texas!
OTHER MATTERS
On Friday, March 5, 2004, there will be a reunion
luncheon of the Columbia/Epic Records Alumni
Association (more than 400 members) at the Sportsman's
Lodge in Studio City, i.e., over in the valley in Los
Angeles. $40. I just noted this information in a
newsletter sent to me by Tommy Noonan who worked at
Billboard just about the time I joined, but soon moved
on to become head of promotion at Columbia Records in
New York. It's a phenomenal newsletter...a whole
bunch of pages and a gob of information by, of, and
about the music industry and the people. News mixed
with nostalgia. Membership is not limited to just CBS
people (they've let in Paul Drew). Annual fee is low.
$30. Contact Tommy at tenoonan8@aolcom.
Dick Carr, DCarrCNY@aol.com,
former VP/Gm of WIP/WMMR, Philadelphia, WNEW-FM, New York
and VP/Programming for ABC Radio Networks and Mutual, will
host a four-hour Christmas special called "Mistletoe,
Memories and Music" on WOR-Talk Radio 710 in New York
this Christmas Day. He will also host a two-hour New
Year's Specialcalled "The Big Bands Ballads &
Blues
New Years Eve Fantasy Concert Tour" on WOR. More
than fifty other stations coast to coast will carry
the programs. Carr hosts a weekly network radio show
called "Big Bands Ballads & Blues" every
week heard on
the full station lineup. Carr lives in Manlius, NY
and is Vice President & General Manager of Park
Outdoor Advertising.
Years and years ago, Marty Grove was head of public
relations for WMCA in New York City. Did a darn good
job, too. Marty Grove, HInflight@aol.com:
"I'm not
sure how it got to me, but I recently received your
email re: Musashi, which led me to your
website...which I greatly enjoyed reading (especially
the recollections about New York radio in the '70s). I
thought I'd email you to say hello and provide a quick
update. In catching up, I should tell you that I'm on
KNX Radio in LA daily doing quick movie business
reports and on CNNfn's program 'The Biz', which is
seen Mondays at 9:30 a.m., Pacific, also focusing on
movies. We tape my KNX segments over the phone, which
isn't as much fun as it was doing it live there or, at
least, taping there for the past few years, but I'm
spread so thin that I need to spend less timing doing
these and the phone helps a lot in that regard. My
Hollywood Reporter column runs online Wednesdays and
Fridays. You've probably heard me doing the voiceovers
on movie previews that run on American, United,
USAirways and America West. I'm also involved in
movie-related advertising in various media in the U.S.
and the U.K. these days. Marjorie and I are still
living in LA (having basically rebuilt our home to
make it what we wanted it to be). Geoffrey lives in
Boston and is getting married in New York next
October. Alyson is studying film in Arizona.
Everyone's well and I hope you and Barbara and your
family are, too. I read with interest your item on the
website re: George Albert and seeing the reference to
his son, whose name you no longer recall, I thought
I'd write to tell you that George's son was Mel. I
remember them both quite well from the period of time
when you were exploring the possibility of buying
Cashbox and I was eager to join you in the venture
because we both felt it could be turned into a
goldmine and run much better than George & Mel were
doing. That didn't, of course, happen. I did, however,
come close to landing a deal (which I needed at the
time) with Cashbox to join them to run marketing. In
the end, they never delivered although we came so
close to having a deal that I thought we had one! Oh,
well. I was probably lucky that it didn't happen as
other good things did a while later. In any case, I
was happy to see your name and look forward to staying
in touch!"
Charlie Kennedy, charliekennedy53@yahoo.com:
"Belated
thanks for tipping me to Musashi. Soon as I get my
head out of the doggone show prep, I will investigate.
Until then, I resolve to be inscrutable in 2004.
Looking forward to more of your entertainment,
information and thought-provocation."
Ah, you caught me! It's thinking that I advocate!
(to be continued)
Claude Hall
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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