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"Xtreme"
Chapter Twelve of a novel
by Claude Hall
The home of Maudell Ferguson was not really a home,
but more of a castle perched high on a hill that hid
beneath the Hollywood Hills just at the verge of
Beverly Hills. These homes had been built by
successful movie stars right before they really
started earning tons of money and moved on further
away from the gaudiness of Hollywood and founded
Beverly Hills itself. She'd followed Maud's heavy
blue Thunderbird up the hill on a road that led off
Sunset Boulevard and both waited while the gates moved
back like magic and permitted entrance into the small
estate that consisted almost entirely of a steep drive
to a parking area and the home itself with its towers
and gables and ornate gingerbread. To the side was a
flaming bottlebush bathed in the soft glow of a
floodlight that flared on automatically as they
entered the cobblestone parking area. The light also
threw the shadows of two towering palm trees against a
brick wall.
"Magnificent, isn't it," said Maud, walking over as
Susan stepped out of her little MG. "I inherited
this. One of my uncles who toyed in the movie
business left it to me in his will along with enough
money to pay for the upkeep. It's much too
huge--there's just me living here now--but, on the
other hand, I can't afford to move. So, I suffer here
in all of this enormous glitter and glamour. No maid,
but the upkeep includes a firm that does housecleaning
once a month. Poor me."
"Is it haunted?" asked Susan.
"Of course. Who would want a house that wasn't
haunted? It belonged once to a movie star from the
silent film era. She never left. You can hear her
crying on dark, cloudy nights. My son Bill says it's
just the wind. He doesn't understand these things,
I'm afraid."
A mist swept in from the distant ocean, causing the
cobblestones to glisten and Susan's face to feel damp.
Soon there would be fog rolling between the palms.
This was a perfect night for fog and a perfect
dwelling to hide in from fog.
They entered a side door that was almost hidden
because evening crouched around the gables and the
shrubbery.
But after Maud lit a fire in the huge stone fireplace
in the living room and turned on a floor lamp, the
house began to warm and became quite pleasant.
Shadows from the fireplace fought against the light of
the lamp and danced over the high, beamed ceiling.
Two very comfortable chairs and a couch surrounded the
fireplace; you could tell that this room was a
favorite room and used frequently. The walls were
lined with bookcases.
"Some of the most rare books in the world," said Maud.
"Over there, for example, a first edition of a book
of poems by Phyllis Wheatley, written and published
shortly after her Boston owners granted her freedom
from slavery. The Magnificent Montague, a collector,
and I fought over that copy and I eventually won. On
the other hand, over here is a set of books written by
J. Frank Dobie."
"Lord! J. Frank Dobie!"
"I thought that would impress you."
"I once daydreamed about searching for gold in Texas,"
Susan said. "This was, of course, right after reading
Dobie's 'Coronado's Children' which was about all of
the legends of gold in Texas."
"It's a pity you didn't find some of that gold. Then
I could sell you this house and run away to Spain and
buy more books."
"There's no gold in Texas," said Susan. "Just legends
of gold in Texas."
"More books in the study through that door," said
Maud. "I'll put the roast on to heat and be right
back."
That was a trick, of course, to get her to see the
pictures that literally covered one wall of the study.
Baby pictures. Pictures of a youth in a football
uniform. Pictures of a young adult in college. The
entire pictorial life of one Bill Ferguson was here on
this wall.
"Cute kid," Susan said as Maud entered the room.
"I always thought so," Maud said.
"He said he wrote three books. Would you have
copies?"
"He told you that he wrote three books?"
"Yes."
"He didn't," said Maud. "Not so far as I know. He
must have been trying to impress you. I think he
wrote one manual on some esoteric topic that he failed
to tell me about. I asked him. He dodged the
question. I never knew what it was about. As for
writing more than that, you may know more than he has
told his mother. Of course, he doesn't tell me
everything. Says it's better that way. Better for
me."
"He does lie a lot, doesn't he?" remarked Susan.
"All the time," said Bill as he entered the room.
"Did you show her the picture, mom, of me with
measles?"
"No," said Maud. "Not yet."
He went over and presented his mother the proverbial
peck on the cheek that has been the proverbial method
of men saying hello to mothers since time began.
"Good," said Bill. He turned to Susan. "She shows
everyone that picture! Next thing, she'll be telling
you about changing my diapers! How embarrassing. Can
we go into the kitchen? I'd feel a lot more
comfortable in a room where the only picture on the
wall is that of William Faulkner."
"A picture of William Faulkner in the kitchen?"
remarked Susan.
"My mother is very strange," said Bill.
"Funny, she and I think the same thing about you,"
said Susan.
"I'm not strange," insisted Bill. "She's strange.
And I'm beginning to believe there's something strange
about you. I heard about the murder."
"If he's going to talk about my murder, I want to see
the measles picture," Susan said to Maud.
"It's no longer your personal murder, I'm afraid. Far
beyond that. No murder, then. I promise," said Bill.
He took her by the elbow. "Let me show you a great
picture of William Faulkner."
They had dinner in the kitchen, which was large with a
high ceiling that opened onto a skylight so the night
could come in through vented windows. The counter
with the sink ran the length of the room, interrupted
only by a stove and a refrigerator. At the far end of
the room was a table and chairs beside a picture
window that presented a full view of West Los Angeles
and beyond that the bay of Santa Monica. Lights
glittered out there like a Christmas tree someone had
forgotten to disconnect.
"This place has no formal dining room," said Maud,
"because my uncle Richard never had formal dinners.
Hated them. Mostly he dined out. At the best
restaurants, of course. Occasionally, he held a
catered party here. Chasen's would do the honors.
Guests who came late had to stand and they knew that
from previous parties, so everyone came early and I
understand it was a mob scene. And quite wild. Girls
running around only semi-dressed, if that. One
person, I understand, used to take his chair with him
when he went from room to room. Probably Hitchcock."
Susan helped set the table with plates from a shelf
and knives and forks from a drawer in the long counter
while Maud prepared a salad and Bill made some coffee.
The roast, with potatoes and onions and tomatoes, was
quite good. Healthy and filling at the same time.
She soon wasn't hungry anymore, but Maud handed her a
second helping. That's when she noticed the horrible
red swelling above Bill's left eye. Maud seemed to
notice it at the same time, but merely shook her head.
Actually, it was more of just a slight movement from
side to side; most people wouldn't have noticed the
gesture at all. But Susan subconsciously kept her
senses alert. Most of the time anyway.
Susan reached to touch Bill's head. But he jerked
back out of reach.
"Ran into a door," he said.
"Some doors are definitely tougher than other doors,"
Susan said. She quickly turned her attention back to
her potato. Why had she reached out anyway? That was
much more personal than she wanted to become with this
particular human being. She reminded herself rather
quickly that she didn't like him. Not one bit!
He touched the bruise with his hand. "Doesn't hurt
anyway," he said.
Then, suddenly, he dropped his knife and fork into his
plate.
"Was it your knife?"
"Yes," she said.
"I knew I should have taken it away from you."
"Wasn't me," she said. "Anyway, it was a different
knife. Someone found it in my desk drawer."
"Just how many knives do you have, for god's sake!" he
said and it definitely wasn't spoken as a question,
but in an expression of shock.
"A whole bunch," she said.
"What was it doing there?"
His mother interrupted. "I thought you promised not
to talk about the murder."
"I lied," he said. "I've got to know what really
happened."
"Obviously," his mother said, a sharp tone in her
voice.
"It's okay," Susan told Maud. "After food like that,
I'm feeling a lot better. It was an outstanding pot
roast."
"About all I can cook," Maud said. She immediately
poured more coffee into Susan's cup. Then, after a
moment's deliberation, refilled her son's cup, too.
"But, just for the record, I'd like you to know that I
didn't invite you up here merely so that my son could
grill you like some steak on the coals."
"I'm concerned," Bill said as partial explanation for
his questions. "And the rumor was that some giboney
with an Arkansas pigsticker attacked her and she took
the knife away from him and killed him with it.
Supposedly, he was irritated with something that she'd
written."
"Ridiculous!" said Susan. "What a silly rumor!"
"Well, I hope so!" said Maud, glancing from her son to
Susan and back again.
"If the Mojo Man was irritated about anything," said
Susan, "it would have been because of something I
didn't write. The other time I found him in my
office, he wanted me to write something about him in
my column, Segway, with a picture, and I refused. But
I didn't kill him. I assure you, he was quite dead
when I found him."
"How did he get into your office?" Bill asked.
"That, I do not know," Susan told him. "But an even
bigger question is why he came back. Generally, when
you kick someone out once, that's enough. He did
mention something though about getting my job. Maybe
he'd come up there to interview for it."
"Why did you have those knives around in the first
place, for goodness sake?" said Maud, then, glancing
toward the ceiling, "Knives!"
"She's the daughter of Walter James?" her son lashed
out.
"So?"
"You know who Walter James is," her son insisted.
"No, I do not," said Maud, her voice flat. "I know an
awful lot about William Faulkner and even a little bit
about William Heyen, the poet. That's just about it."
"He was a cop down in Texas," Bill said, "who didn't
believe in guns. He was an expert with a knife and
quite good with a bullwhip."
"He was not a cop," Susan said.
"I suppose you can handle a bullwhip, too?" Bill
stated and, again, it wasn't quite a question.
"Of course," Susan said. "And just for the record, my
father was great with a bullwhip."
Maud held up a hand, palm out, to call a halt to the
debate before it could get angry.
"If he wasn't a cop, what was he?" Maud asked.
"A Texas Ranger," said Susan.
"That's not a cop?"
"Not in Texas," Susan told Maud. "In Texas, a Texas
Ranger is something special. Just short of a
superman. The old joke--and it's been around for more
than a hundred years--is that you send one Ranger to
quell one riot."
"Not much of a joke," Maud said.
"It's only humorous, I suppose, if you're the Ranger
that they send to the riot," Susan said. She noticed
a great deal of whimsy in her voice. Perhaps too
much.
Bill seemed miffed.
"So, he wasn't a real cop. Same difference."
"It is not," said Susan.
"Children!" said Maud. "Enough!"
"Anyway, my father never fought with knives. Never
even pulled one out of its scabbard, so far as I know.
And as for the bullwhip, he used it for tricks to
amuse people, get their attention, mostly kids where
he'd do a show. He was actually a pacifist."
"Not likely in the crime business," Bill said, as if
refuting even the slightest possibility.
"Actually, they called him a walker and a talker.
Today, they're sometimes called negotiators.
Especially when it comes to hostage situations. It
was a great deal more than that with him, of course,
because he would walk into almost any situation, no
matter how tough, and start talking like some
reincarnation of Will Rogers. My father had a lot of
the Irish gift for the gab in him and some said he
carried the real Blarney Stone in his pocket. He got
the idea about talking from Dee Harkey, an old-time
sheriff of Carlsbad, New Mexico, who never fired a
shot during his entire career."
"Bull!" said Bill. "That's merely because this Dee
Harkey never met anyone tough."
"How about John Wesley Hardin?"
"I don't believe it."
"His autobiography is in many libraries," Susan said.
"Well, I heard your father was a super hand-to-hand
combat expert. Taught people how to defend
themselves."
"He knew judo, yes, but what he taught was passive
resistance. It was my uncle Charles who was not
passive. He not only believed in guns, but in
shooting first. You wouldn't have liked my uncle
Charles. No one who knew him very well liked him.
But they damned well respected him."
"You must have loved your father very much," Maud
said.
"It was especially difficult to watch him try to fight
cancer. Here was an enemy, for once, who didn't want
to talk. I was there during the last few weeks of his
life and with him when he died."
"Took a very tough lady to do something like that,"
Maud said.
"Yes. But in many ways, I wasn't tough enough. I
thought there was supposed to be a picture of William
Faulkner in the kitchen."
"There is, my dear, but you'll have to find him.
These old homes all have histories. Some good, some
bad. They are treasures that, in my opinion, should
be maintained. I found it somewhat distressing when
they broke up the old Harold Lloyd place. It wasn't
far from here, you know. Faulkner and Howard Hawks
were drinking buddies. Perhaps Hawks lived here at
one time. It would be interesting to find out."
A careful search revealed that the kitchen, indeed,
had its "picture" of William Faulkner. It was a
mosaic of pieces of red brick skillfully and
artistically blended into the red brick of the wall.
There he was, baleful eyes, mustache, hunting jacket,
pipe in hand. In effect, a literary art masterpiece!
"Just the home for a book dealer, eh?" commented Bill.
"His books are much more valuable now than when he
wrote them. He didn't sell that many copies, you
know."
"Ah," said Maud, "maybe so. But these days, well, if
you had one of those first editions, well...."
"I don't want to talk books," said her son. "I want
to know more about that murder."
"You weren't invited here to talk murder," his mother
countered. "And you promised earlier that you
wouldn't. Any more violations of the rules of the
evening and I will invite you to leave."
"Just one more thing," he said to Susan. "How would
you kill a man with a knife?"
"I've been wondering that very thing," Susan said.
"It's not like they do it in the movies or on
television. First, the knife was driven clear up to
the hilt. Someone with muscle. You certainly can't
throw a knife that hard. Not even from a fairly close
distance, say six or seven yards. Second, he wasn't
expecting the blow. No grimace, no contortion, he was
sitting up straight. He looked as if he was expecting
something better than a deadly thrust of a knife. In
fact, he's staring down at the knife hilt as if
surprised. And I've also reached the opinion that the
person who killed him was behind him."
"Why? How?"
"Whoever held the knife held it like an amateur, but
precisely like someone who knew what they were doing.
They probably put their left hand on the Mojo Man's
left shoulder and then reached around him and plunged
the knife into his chest. Not only would this have
provided better leverage, but fairly accurate aim and
the knife would have gone in between his ribs as I
noticed it."
Bill grinned at his mother. "She would have made a
great cop." Then he turned back to Susan.
"Could you have done something like that?" Bill asked.
"Child's play," she said.
"Why wasn't it a professional killing?" he wanted to
know.
"Too messy," she said. "Professionals prefer bullets.
If and when they use a knife, they have a tendency to
avoid the ribcage, which it not only difficult to
penetrate, but less efficient. They tend to drive the
knife into the heart from the soft belly just below
the ribcage."
"That's a relief!" said Bill. "So, you didn't kill
him."
"Of course not," said Susan. "Probably, someone
tricked him into sitting in the chair, got around
behind him, stabbed him when he wasn't expecting it."
"How could you think such a thing!" his mother
demanded furiously of her son.
"Mom, you don't know this girl!" Bill said. "She
carries a gun and a knife in her purse. She is not
some little teddy bear. Those baby-blue eyes are
really the eyes of an assassin."
"I don't know her? Now you're insulting both my
judgment and my instinct. My instinct tells me she's
a very pleasant person. My judgment says that anyone
who likes books--especially Albert Camus and William
Faulkner--is a fairly nice person. And, anyway,
mother knows best. Haven't I always told you that?"
"But she's the daughter of Walter James," said Bill.
"I don't care if she's the daughter of Jesse himself,"
she said. "Leave her alone!"
"I don't particularly like Faulkner," said Susan.
"Camus will do fine," said Maud, patting her on the
shoulder. "Would you like some more coffee?"
"Yes, thanks."
"Women," said Bill.
They had their last cup of coffee in the living room,
sitting in front of the fireplace, and by now coastal
clouds had rolled in from the bay at Santa Monica and
become the fog that drifted against the hills,
surrounding the house. The breeze that pushed the fog
groaned in the cornices and gables of the old house
and Susan thought that the noises did, in a way, sound
like some ghost crying. But the crackling flames of
eucalyptus logs burning in the fireplace chased the
gloom away or at least held it back temporarily and
the evening was pleasant sitting there.
Maud wove a story about meeting Tony Bennett and Susan
talked about reviewing his show so many times that she
knew at precisely what note he was going to take off
his jacket and what song he would take off his tie.
"My heavens!" said Maud. "A striptease."
"Not that far," said Susan with a laugh. "He's a
great artist, though."
She talked about Bob Dylan going rock at Forest Hills
Tennis Club on Long Island.
"This was quite some while before Woodstock and Dylan
was already a legend in Greenwich Village of
Manhattan. He performed in those small clubs such as
the Cafe au Go Go with his guitar and a harmonica
around his neck on a device so he could play it
without using his hands. Then, there was a rumor that
he was going to go rock and everyone protested and
when he came out at the tennis club, it was packed.
Maybe 12,000, maybe 15,000. And he had only his
guitar and his harmonica and they cheered and loved
him. But after the intermission, he came back with
his band and they plugged in their electric guitars
and everyone in the stands booed. That was probably
the night folk music died, only no one knew it for
several months to come."
Bill was studying her again, like he had in the
restaurant days ago. His eyes were piercing, as if he
was searching for something that he wasn't quite sure
he would find.
"Were you at Woodstock?" he asked.
"No. And it's strange how Woodstock is now considered
a great cultural god-happening, a historic event.
That wasn't what happened at all. The music festival
was organized by Art Rapp and three of his friends. I
considered Art sort of a ripoff. The reporter who
went that I talked to had nothing good to say. A few
days or weeks later, I covered a music conference at
which Bill Graham was one of the speakers. He talked
about the cow dung, about flies, about lack of proper
restroom facilities."
"Who is Bill Graham? Just for the record."
"A major rock music promoter," explained Susan. "Owns
the Fillmore, a music hall, in San Francisco. Knows
all of the west coast artists. He said you couldn't
hear the music if you weren't close to the stage, but
people were so zonked out on drugs they weren't
listening anyway. It was not a fun place to be. I
took out his cusswords and wrote the story for a
special issue, a conference section in the magazine.
However, by the time the special section appeared in
the magazine, the image, you know what I mean, of the
festival had changed. Bill called me up and claimed
he hadn't said all of the stuff I wrote. I told him,
'Bill, I've still got my notes. Don't give me all of
that nonsense. I know what you said'. He just didn't
want to look bad with some of the acts that appeared
at Woodstock on stage. Now that Woodstock had grown
from a nothing to a something."
"I guess there are a lot of drugs floating around in
the music business," Bill said.
"There are a lot of drugs floating around everywhere,"
Susan said. "I remember when the president appointed
Bud Wilkinson, the ex-football coach, head of a
special committee to solve the drug problem. How can
one person or even one committee cure a sickness? The
nation is sick, the world is sick. It's not just in
the music business nor the problem of a few wild jocks
in radio. It's everyone's problem."
"Drugs part of payola?"
"Everything's part of payola. You get guys that will
take it, you'll have guys that will give it. And give
anything. I heard one story about someone visiting
Alan Freed's apartment in New York before the big
scandal that made all of the news and he had all of
these bicycles he'd received as gifts. That's what
they were. Gifts. A while back a radio station
program director in Connecticut was sent some tickets
for an around world trip for two. They were sent to
the wrong person. That's how I knew about it. The
wrong person merely put the tickets in another
envelope and mailed them to the program director. The
moral of the story is that some of the people involved
in payola aren't all that bright."
Bill seemed quite interested in the tales about radio
people, about men climbing flagpoles to do their radio
shows and guys riding Ferris wheels to set new records
for the Guinness Book of Records, and guys crawling
into a coffin with a bunch of rattlesnakes just to
build up a radio's station's audience in Tucson,
Arizona. But she grew tired. Fatigue was like a
blanket. She found it more and more difficult to get
the words right. Even the coffee, quite strong,
didn't fight the almost overwhelming and the weight of
the impossible events of the day. Eventually, he made
her excuses to Maud and said goodbye.
Bill suggested that he drive her home. She refused.
"If you need a place to hide out," Maud told her,
"here's an extra buzzer for the gate below and an
extra key for the house. Take any of the upstairs
bedrooms. There are three or four up there. Even a
small study with a couch in the attic."
Susan took the buzzer and the key and placed them in
her purse and thanked Maud.
The top on her MG was down and the seat was damp in
spite of the blanket, but the fog lashing against her
face kept her awake until she got home and collapsed
on the bed of her apartment in Tarzana.
(continued next week)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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May 24, 2004
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
Let's see...I've pissed off Ken Dowe, Chuck
Dunaway,
Larry Ryan and John Rook. And some pennyante radio
guy up in New York State. People who, under the guise
of patriotism, seem blind as long as it's someone else
getting murdered, someone else sick, someone else
hungry. Who can I viciously insult this week? Good
thing Bush is always available. Right?
Much too often these days, I see an actress on CNN
interviewing a reporter. Reporters used to cover the
news. Now, more and more, they are the news. At
least, the only "news" we get. Sometimes, the
reporter is even promoting a book they've written from
their great expertise such as the "war" seen from
their hotel room in the "green zone." What this
really means, of course, is that CNN is gloriously
short-changing the audience. And we're letting them
rather than demanding the real stuff. But if you pay
attention, you sometimes find some news anyway in the
"crawls." Monday, May 17, one of the crawls mentioned
that 24,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan filed for
disability benefits in March. Is full coverage of
this kind of information verboten on television news?
I wonder why these men and probably women, too, never
get interviewed on CNN. The reason, of course, is
that interviewing someone who has recently had a leg
blown off doesn't build ratings and who gives a damned
about the real war and the real truth anyway, eh? I
mean, it was a magazine that first covered the prison
abuses. CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox evidently avoided the
story! The White House knew about the situation for
months! In my opinion, some of the big-name newscats
should refund most of their salaries. Monday, May 17,
someone found a shell that may have contained a nerve
gas and a big uproar erupted about weapons of mass
destruction again. It was an old shell, baby (1991),
and there were no artillery pieces around capable of
firing it. Not one!
Iraq has become ridiculous! It's not a war; it's
tanks and helicopter gunships against old AK-47s and
homemade bombs along roadsides contrived from leftover
artillery shells. Latest I heard, on a foreign news
channel, was that more than three-quarters of the Iraq
population wanted us gone. Molly Ivins, in a recent
Working For Change article, pointed out, "It's quite
difficult to convince people you are killing them for
their own good."
The anti-Bush resentment first expressed in public by
the Dixie Chicks is growing. The Baltimore Chronicle
(May 13) just came out with an editorial calling on
Bush to resign. But first, the guy who wrote the
editorial, Ward Reilly, an infantry veteran, wanted
him to fire his cabinet.
Ah, come on November!
A note from Raul Cardenas,
EnviroRaul@aol.com: "Thanks
for the information and newsclips. I have two of
Molly's books and have re-subscribed to the Nation and
buy Z and the Progressive whenever I can find it. I
have even sent a generous contribution to the Kerry
campaign. This is the first election I ever thought
it was important to take a stand against someone who
was tearing at everything that is American in the name
of patriotism and gives me the 'trust me' bullshit. On
a daily basis we are now losing about as many men as
we lost in Korea, 4-5 when the war ended, and it is
crowding 850 dead and probably about 6,000 casualties.
Nor is there any sign that it will abate or that our
lessons in democracy are useful. Disastrous ineptness
and the present prison scandal goes back to last year
and the price of gasoline soars. We are off to Texas
for a short holiday next week--our grand daughter
graduates from Kindergarten and is all of 6. I will
see Ted Klein, whom you may or may not remember. He
is writing a book called 'River' about the Beatnik
house on E. 19th where he lived with Fernando after
our apartment broke up and you headed for New Yawk. I
hope things are well for you. Courage."
Regarding casualties, see above somewhere--24,000
applying for disability benefits in one month alone?
Ghastly number! And then some soldier who returned
from Iraq and refused to go back was court-martialed.
How come Bush got away with desertion and this kid
went over and got back alive and then was
court-martialed and he wasn't a soldier...just in the
National Guard. Poor kid. Tell me why Bush was not
court-martialed. Most guys I knew had a word for the
Bush type. The term had something to do with the
excretion of chickens. I was going to refer to Bush
as a purple bastard, which has little descriptive
powers though derogatory to some extent. My wife
Barbara wanted me to use the term yellow coward. But
I believe the allusion to chickens is quite explanatory. And
fits well enough. A man who'd allow a kid to be court-martialed
for something of which he, himself, was guilty? What else?
But why isn't the number 24,000 being bandied about?
If Raul doesn't know the real figure, the general
American public doesn't know. You certainly aren't
going to hear it from that dodo who tells the general
press what Bush is thinking (as if Bush is afraid to
appear before the media himself). These wounded and
maimed American soldiers are being literally and
figuratively hidden...kept in the closet.
OTHER MATTERS
Regarding the best radio program directors. Gerry
Cagle, gerry.cagle@musicbiz.com:
"If I can't vote for
myself, then I can't vote for the best! I always
thought different PDs brought different levels of
'genius' to the top. None of us were good at
everything. I thought I was the best at promotion. No
other PD that I know of created the promotions I did.
However, I never thought I was that strong with
formatics. I 'stole' most of the formatic layouts of
my stations from others. Paul Drew was the best
mechanic ever. His stations all sounded perfect and he
was a stickler for making sure all the 'little things'
were taken care of...the little things were the most
important. Best at philosophy and the research of
understanding the audience was Buzz Bennett...hands
down. He taught us all something we never
considered...the philosophy of programming. Most
exciting stations: Jerry Clifton. There was, quite
simply, none better than he about putting it all
together. Best on-air PD? Scott Shannon. All were
great at one part of the total...it would be
impossible to be great at all...different
personalities were needed for different things. The
current PD that comes closest to these...Michael
Martin in San Francisco. Okay, I've written enough!
By the way, there won't be any more great PDs. They're
all going into other businesses. Who can blame them?"
LorieJC2@aol.com wrote:
"My father James Hillbun
(Pinky) worked with Johnny Holiday at KYA many years
ago. I'm looking for a comprehensive history of KYA
radio to give my father who is 82. Can you help me?"
I wrote Lorie that I was presently in touch with at
least two people who worked there--Tom Cambell and
Johnny Holliday. Johnny has a book out that you can
buy via Amazon.com..."Johnny Holliday: From Rock to
Jock. " But I know of no comprehensive tomb on KYA.
"You might touch bases with Johnny at
Jholliday6@aol.com.
Please give your father my
compliments even though I suspect he didn't know me.
And my very best to you."
Jim Rose,
rosekkkj@earthlink.net: "Your COMMENTARY
reaches a huge audience! I received an email today
from GARY PENN, who was at KXOL when I was there in
the early to mid-70s! GARY said he saw my email
address in your article! Quite a surprise! There are
so many, many fine memories of Radio happenings and
wonderful people from all over the great state of
Texas...well over 30 Radio Stations since 1964! When
I was lured away from WFAA-820 Dallas in August of
1968 to go Program KBUC FM-AM in San Antonio, this was
finally my chance to use all that I had wanted to do
at a big market Radio Station! My first absolute
supreme duty was to immediately ditch the awful
'Cosmopolitan Country' jingles that haunted KBUC!
Everything should be laid out with form to try and
make it as easy as possible for the DJ. None of that
having to constantly have to search here and there for
things that should be right at hand. I saw my work
was cut out for me at KBUC. There was a silly riff
between management and JOHNNY BUSH that had been going
on before I got there! JOHNNY BUSH was almost as big
as ELVIS in San Antonio at that time! CRASH STEWART
was JOHNNY's manager. We met, I said as long as I was
PD, there would be no more of what had happened in the
past. I asked CRASH to please bring me every JOHNNY
BUSH record he had! I added all JOHNNY BUSH records I
could find! All of JOHNNY's recordings met both my
criteria, too. A more contemporary sound was what was
visualized. I mixed in the BYRDS, BOB DYLAN, THE BAND
and others. This was long prior to the much publicized
Progressive Country formats. That name didn't even
exist. I had no name for my concept. It was just
something that had been in my mind for quite awhile
that I wanted to try when the right Radio Station came
along. I personally auditioned every single oldie 45.
Took a lot of time, but was refreshing because of my
love for music. I picked through and chose all oldie
tunes with up-tempo twin fiddle intros for POWER
rotation. If a record had significant harmony, they
were put in as IMAGE. If none of those features, a
record had to be by a MAJOR artist and had to have
been a huge hit. I put those into their own category
for mid-half hour rotation. Once, the GM told me that
we were too ROCK and nobody at our competition, KBER,
would tune us in! I told him I didn't want any of
KBER's listeners. I wanted people who listened to
KTSA, who were more quality listeners! Ideas were
rolling out as fast as a freight train! I told the GM
that KBUC needed a newspaper. Being quite a salesman,
that became HIS idea! That's OK, I wanted everything
possible to bring KBUC success. I named the paper the
KBUC KICKER, because in San Antonio at that time,
being a KICKER was prominent with teens. In the
summer of 1969, I asked the GM if he knew where I
could find an up-tempo instrumental version of
'Cotton-Eyed Joe'. The GM got a local artist, Al Dean
and the All Stars, to go to Nashville and record the
'Cotton-Eyed Joe' on STOP Records! Evidently my idea
was on target! We started selling copies at the Radio
Station, because record shops wouldn't stock it. We
sold every copy we could get! Reordered and sold them,
too! No telling how many thousands we sold! Then,
somebody came up with the idea to record 'Cotton-Eyed
Joe' with Beaumont's ISAAC PEYTON SWEAT! It went on
from there. No one recognized where the original idea
came from. Again, that was OK. I was simply trying
anything that popped into my mind to make KBUC hip and
cool with the younger people. It worked! Once,
CHARLIE LOUVIN called and asked me what he needed to
record to get me to add his new records to KBUC's
playlist. CHARLIE was experiencing a dry spell with
records. I suggested to CHARLIE maybe pick a good
up-tempo ROCK song with good harmony from around 1960.
That's what I had been looking for from any COUNTRY
artist. CHARLIE recorded 'Little Boy Sad' on DECCA,
which was originally sung by JOHNNY BURNETTE in 1961.
CHARLIE's version was great! It went right into
KBUC's hot rotation and was a hit for CHARLIE! Also,
in 1969, WADE PEPPER was the Southwest Promotion guy
for Capitol records. WADE called, said he had a new
recording artist from Canada that might just fit my
format. I told him great, send it to me. The artist
was ANNE MURRAY. The record's 'A' side was 'Just
Bidin' My Time'. On the flip side was 'Snowbird!' I
put both sides in rotation because they were very
good. 'Snowbird' went off like a rocket! By the time
the rest of the nation began playing 'Snowbird' it was
already an oldie at KBUC! There is so much to tell!
I could write a book simply covering the 2 1/2 years I
spent at KBUC!"
Lord, some good memories, Jim! I remember Wade Pepper
and quite fondly. And, of course, I still have a
picture of me and Cliffie Stone, the publisher of
"Snowbird," with the Sons of the Pioneers on my wall.
The picture was taken at Cliffie's ranch backside of
the mountain from LA, probably a housing development
now. Lloyd Perryman was head of the group at the
time. Cliffie had just finished up producing an album
by the group for Granite Records.
I used to listen to Charlie Walker when he was disc
jockying down in San Antone, but can't remember the
calls. And Harry "Mushmouth" O'Connor once jocked in
San Antone.
GETTING OLD
I'm sitting here with three CDs...reliving my past as
I write a novel that has a great deal to do with my
past. Strangely enough, although I'm drawn to the
music, I can't listen to it while I'm writing. The
music is too compelling. So, I pause in writing and
listen to Bob Wills. This CD is titled "Bob Wills and
His Texas Playboys for the Last Time." A lot of the
songs were written by Cindy Walker, one of my favorite
writers that I interviewed on the phone some 30 years
ago for a Billboard special called "World of Country
Music." These issues are collector's items as well as
great academic resources for country music. Not
because of me, but because of the articles written by
the late Paul Ackerman, then music editor of Billboard
and, as far as I'm concerned the man who gave all of
Billboard a sense of ethics and a sense of quality.
When he died, in effect the Billboard died. It was
still making a fortune. But it had lost the rock
foundation and, on sand, was being washed away. I've
always been grateful that Ackerman took me with him to
Nashville and I helped in those five or six specials.
I also interviewed on the phone a gentleman songwriter
named Leon Payne for one special...the grandfather of
Jimmy Rabbitt, renown these days as a disc jockey.
Anyway, I'm sitting here listening to "Bubbles in My
Beer" written by Cindy Walker and played by Bob Wills
and his Texas Playboys. It's difficult to describe
the emotion that this music brings to me. More a life
than a music. The CD also features "I Can't Go on
This Way" written by Fred Rose, another of my favorite
writers. I'll bet Larry Scott and Bill Ward
appreciate this CD as much as I do.
As for Roy Orbison and Friends with "A Black and White
Night--Live," if you don't cry on "In Dreams" you
aren't a friend of mine. Same with "Leah." Hell, I'm
going to cry through most of the CD. "Crying," a
masterpiece. "Running Scared." "It's Over." When it
comes to rock, "Oh Pretty Woman" is one of the major
reasons rock records sometimes don't sell very well;
you expect something like this and you aint' gonna get
it. Roy Orbison performing "Oh Pretty Woman" on this
CD is the ultimate of the entire rock idiom. A lot of
great musicians were on this CD, including Bruce
Springsteen and Elvis Costello. But of special note
is James Burton on guitar. I believe that the first
time I caught James Burton was in a baseball park in
Austin, Texas, circa 1955-57. He was playing in the
band of either Gene Vincent or Sonny James. But stood
out. I think it was Gene Vincent. Whoever, the
"star" had to step off the small foot-high impromptu
stage and let Burton play. Later, Burton just
happened to perform on the millionsellers of Ricky
Nelson. Then was responsible for the musical comeback
of Elvis Presley. I met Roy Orbison with some guys
once in Nashville and got to shoot the bull with him.
By then he was married to the German beauty and she
stood there in a red gown; everyone in our small group
was talking with Roy, but looking at her. Never met
Burton. Would have enjoyed doing so. Phenomenal
performer! As for Roy Orbison, his death was an
astronomical loss to music. I loved Johnny Cash from
the first time he stepped on the stage of the old
"Louisiana Hayride" broadcast live Saturday nights on
KWKH, Shreveport. Enjoyed Elvis, too, though I've
always thought that either he or someone around him
let success destroy a great portion of his phenomenal
talent. Hank Williams? Another one hard to replace.
But Roy Orbison was from another planet. Few in the
same rowboat.
I once wrote an article about Linda Ronstadt for a
friend of mine, Jonathan Fricke, who had a monthly
rock tabloid distributed by radio stations. Sort of
wish I had a copy of that article. I think it was
cute. Cute, to me, means entertaining rather than
noteworthy because of quality. Anyway, I bought a CD
by Linda a while back in Best Buy here in Las Vegas,
one of the first pieces of music I've bought in years
and years. "Canciones de mi Padre." Gift certificate
from one of my sons.
I should confess. I know that Linda is sans doute a
little old lady today. But I remember her from her
days with the Stone Ponys and "Up to My Neck in High
Muddy Water." And she was still fairly young the
night I caught her performing at the Palamino in Los
Angeles in naught but a print dress and barefooted on
the stage. John Sebastian and I went backstage to
talk with her after the show. By then, frankly, she
was a superstar and out of place in the Pal. But,
god, what a great show! You get more of a performer
in a place like the Pal...stuff you can't get in
concert.
Anway, here I am years piled on top of years later
listening to Linda sing some old Mexican songs. Part
of my pre-Billboard days includes old adobes along the
Rio Grande and Cuco Sanchez and Virginia Lopez.
Bartenders used to refer to me as "El Colorado Grande"
and I was grateful they didn't cut my throat and toss
me out back. You know tequilla with a slice of lime
and some salt on the back of your hand? To this day,
I go crazy listening to "La Bamba." Once heard Johnny
Rivers do almost 40 minutes on "La Bamba" in the Copa
in New York City when he replaced the recently killed
Sam Cooke. Ah, Linda, why didn't do you "La Bamba" on
this CD? If not for John Sebastian, then for me?
Still, I listen to Linda singing "La Cigarra," "Rogaciano El
Huapanguero," and "La Charreada" and you catch a certain spirit
that reminds one of a wild and frivolous weekend at La Barra de
Navidad (a place too wild for you, BME). In the old days when
Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, was worthy of a short story I
sold
to Manhunt for $40, I wandered first with Adrian
Roberts, who was majoring at The University of Texas
in medieval history of central western Europe, then
with Fernando Corral, a Korean vet who earned a Purple
Heart but wanted only to be a bullfighter and ended up
living back home in Mexico, then with Raul Cardenas,
another Korean vet who ended up earning a Ph.D. and
teaching in those myriad colleges of the Manhattan
area. We lived the music that Linda sings on this CD.
But that was when we were all young and I live now
only in the songs sung by Linda. But it's not a bad
place to live. For I still--a while longer--have my
memories.
AND LAST
Bill Mouzis, BMouzis@aol.com,
of KHJ fame sends this
joke. Don't think I've ever printed a joke here.
Usually, I just forward them to Joey Reynolds,
G1boney@aol.com, of WOR
fame. But, here we go: This
jazz musician dies and goes to hell. The devil is
delighted to see him and comes to the gates to pick
him up in a limo. The musician looks in the back seat
and there's a beautiful new Bach trumpet with his name
etched on the bell. "Where are we going?" he asks.
"Well, if you don't mind," says the devil, "there's a
gig tonight and I'd like you to sit in." "Fine," the
musician says and a few minutes later they pull up to
a sold-out show in a massive stadium packed with
cheering fans. The musician takes his place onstage
and as he looks to front of the stage he sees that
Sarah Vaughn is the singer. Then he looks over sees
that Buddy Rich is on drums, Joe Pass is playing
guitar and J J Johnson is on trombone. "Wow, what a
lineup," he says to the devil, "Am I really in hell?"
"Yup," the devil replies. Satan turns to the band and
says, "OK, band, on the count of three...'Tie a Yellow
Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree....'"
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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