SIR DUKE

THE DUKE

Dear Readers, if you have your Marmalade Sandwich packed inside your hat and you are ready to leave Paddington Station, you are a fine Bear indeed…

A wisp of warm air pushes itself through the melancholy of the day, I find myself done with what needs to be done, and I have some time, I like it when time stands still, well away from the machines making all the modern music of the day, no rushing around, and drifting to the era of yesteryear again.

Its lunchtime and I must refuel, not you understand because my gentle frame needs it, more because you know, foods good right?

Often people ask me who I would like to have lunch with living, or thereafter passed to the other side, probably because they know that I have wandered aimlessly through a cemetery or three.

Today feels no different, I’m in Newport Beach just outside Costa Mesa it’s a beautifully warm day, the Southern California it never rains here kind of day, that Cass Elliott and John Phillips warned us about. 

I’m fortunate I realize, not everyone can do this, but instead of pulling out a book and starting to read, I really will read a book sometime soon, I decide that an adventure is nigh.

Short traipses during the day can be wonderful mind excursions, and as that wisp of warm air grasps me, I picture myself as Lieutenant Yorke riding across the Rio Grande in 1897,

a simpler time when lawmen got things done their own way, the accent in my mind suddenly develops a Texas drawl, sandwich in hand its decided, I’ll have lunch with my old friend John Wayne!

Hollywood lasts forever in our minds and whether its one of the Trio of films made in the 50’s by John Ford as he directed a young Marion Morrison through his paces in “Fort Apache”, “Rio Grande” and “She wore  a Yellow Ribbon” or by the fact that Southern California is in fact the final resting place of these greats, I never did get to meet him and shake his hand, wouldn’t that have been great, for this curious pilgrim.

My old boss told a story that I think depicts the great Duke so well. He was sitting in the Beverly Hills Hotel when he heard a helicopter land in the garden, he got up to see who it was and out stepped all 6 ft 4” of John Wayne in full Cowboy wear, revolver at the waist, as Wayne strolled to the Hotel he caught sight of my boss who had just finished filming a movie himself called “Alfie” stepped closer and said, “son you will be a star, but if you want to stay one, remember talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much”

Words I believe John Wayne himself lived by.

Born probably tipping cows in Iowa on May 26^th 1907, by the name of Marion Robert Morrison, his family moved to Glendale CA where he went to high school, before going to USC on a football scholarship ( he had to leave school and lose his financing when he broke his collar bone surfing)

He was friends with Tom Mix a silent movie star from the 20’s who introduced him to Wyatt Earp (yeah that one)... see these Hollywood stories are so cool when you dig in..., and his slow drawl persona of talk low, talk slow and don’t say much, was modeled on Earp himself, oh I wish I could have been there to see this….

A chain smoker, a drunk, married three times, seven kids, lung cancer survivor in 1964, Oscar winner for True Grit, Freemason, Republican, kept his yacht in Newport Harbor called the Wild Goose, ranked 13^th all time male screen legend by AFI ( American Film Institute), a gentleman, generous to a fault, a true patriot and he made over 170 movies… Gee I’m exhausted, why is all this in my head, I guess I have read some books in my time !!

Wayne passed away in Los Angeles on June 11^th 1979 at the age of 72 from stomach cancer, he was buried in Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona Del Mar, Newport Beach, that’s where I am now, sitting next to the now marked final resting place of the big man himself, this spot laid unmarked by his family for over 20 years, now with a beautiful bronzed plaque, classically laden riding his horse in the wild west and the words of the man himself quoted from an interview he did with Playboy...

“tomorrow is the most important thing in life, comes to us at midnight very clean, its perfect when it comes to us and it puts itself in our hands, it hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday”    

There is something peaceful as I spend my lunch break with “the man who shot liberty Valance” ( the first time he ever uttered the word pilgrim) and also something ironic that the last film he made called “The Shootist” in 1976 he played a man dying of cancer.

If you have a few moments go have a sandwich with this Hollywood legend, see if your memories of Saturday afternoon westerns, and playing with your pretend colt 45’s in the back garden are sprung back to life.

As we find time waits for no man, I’m now whistling down the beautiful Southern Californian coast, waves crash, and in my winds eye I see Marion Morrison give me a wink as he dives his board under the curling spray of the pacific ocean, did that just happen…

#bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain

Pictures by Benny Santini Productions

CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD

CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD

Going to a place conjures up so much more in the minds eye than reading a book, don’t get me wrong reading is fabulous and fuels the imagination and drive, hence my erstwhile attempts to arm you with information in the literary form. 

After all wasn’t, I just looking for a book to read at one point!!

Not having to travel far is a bonus, yet making sure to plan your attack on the Los Angeles freeways is critical, if you don’t catch the right wave so to speak in our So Cal vernacular, you can end up feeling like Gilligan after 5 seasons, wasn’t it just a three hour tour…?

I love the mystique of what it must have been like in Hollywood in the early 1900’s as the East coast visionaries drifted West across land, tempted by the sweet smell of the orange groves and the land of Sunshine. We had it all here, Sun, Seaside, labor, cheap land  and  we had started something here the folks on the East were curious about, moving pictures… in the not too distant future sound would begrudgingly introduce itself through the silent screen stars of the day.

I mean who can blame Greta Garbo as she utters “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side and don’t be stingy baby” from the instantly forgettable 1929 MGM offering “Anna Christie”.

I traveled the degenerating road north in search of this land locked gem, and as my destination became closer the butterflies started to tumble as I saw road signs stating those famous names, I still hear Ray Davis singing about all the stars he’s seen as he walks down “Hollywood Boulevard” then “Melrose Place” yes that one  THE “ Melrose Place” and then, there it was, the biggie, El Jeffe, the name synonymous with Hollywood itself  “Sunset Boulevard” it’s still a pinch me kind of feeling, you know, that  do I really live here someone’s gonna tell me to go home we’ve got the wrong guy scenario, that you wake up in a cold sweat from, that at any point I can wander these Southern Californian famous, infamous and pop culture laden vignettes … mind blown.

Yet here I am, Sunset Boulevard, today not the glitzy ideal you have in your mind, more the, step over the downtrodden, kick the needles into the gutter and dodge the oncoming burden of the pan handling, but its still Hollywood Boulevard Baby.

It’s right there, you can still reach out and touch or catch that wonderful glimpse in Modern day Hollywood of those days of yore, those halcyon days, not as much as you used to mind you, and as time and tide wait for no one this gem I am crossing the street towards, needs you to visit also, trips to fuel the memory banks and reincarnation of life gone before, must be done soon, as this is slated for re-gentrification, a disappearing act, and will be lost to the blogs of Boomers imaginations once more.

Russell Crow stepped right across this very spot as he headed to the “Hush Hush” offices of Danny DeVito’s character in LA Confidential, are we truly at the Crossroads of the World?

Born in 1879 Charles H Crawford started his life out running Saloons and dance halls in Seattle. His desire to gain riches brought him to Southern California where he grew his seedy empire of bars, bordellos and casino’s, turning him into a small time crime syndicate of his own, flashy clothes, ritzy cars and flamboyant personality its rumored that he pretty much ran Los Angeles from behind the Mayor of the town during 1920’s. This is how Mafia kingpins are grown, not made up in screenplays, but real life, I tell you, one can’t make this stuff up!

Aren’t these the characters we wish we could meet as we gaze back on how Hollywood was carved out, illustrious, suspicious, daring…but in May 1931 at the age of 52 Crawford and his partner Herbert Spencer were shot and killed in broad daylight at Crawford’s private office at 6655 Sunset Boulevard.

For those with an eye for curiosity or playing along at home it plays out like any Sam Sneed novel and as yet still unsolved and sits as an open case file with the LAPD. I love that my mind plays the sound from Law and Order, it adds to the ambiance !

Crawford left behind a wife Ella, probably no innocent bystander in all her husband’s nefarious goings on herself, decided that she would build, on the site of her husband’s death, a cosmopolitan outdoor market.

She enlisted the help of renowned designer of the time Robert.V. Derrah, known notably for his design of the local Coca Cola building …and here’s that time and tide again, the building is no longer a manufacturing plant and has changed to become the headquarters of their Pacific Coast Business. These buildings in LA are great architectural pieces and though this is not a part of the Hollywood land you will come to love as you start your explorations, it is saved as a Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument and resisted in 1975 as building 138 on its list, known locally as “The Coke Building” in the style of “Streamline Moderne” ….. ( another side bar trip for those following along, to 1200 – 1334 South Central Avenue in downtown Los Angeles)

 Getting back to Ella, she must have had a certain flair herself as she watched Derrah design a steamboat style structure down the center of a block of Hollywood and then surround it with buildings from lands afar, I mean this is Hollywood, can you picture the likes of Cesar Romero and Boris Karloff who were at the grand opening in 1936 wandering the cobblestone roads, dressed in their “Satin and Tat” with prime Avocado, Peach, Fig and Pepper trees, lining the walkways, wishing wells, brick walls and statues, mingled with the nine vignettes of Architecture from across the globe, a Crossroads of the World if you will...

 It’s all still here, I pinch myself, I know the history I’ve done my due diligence and now I’m walking among this magnificent beast, yet there is a strangely eerie feeling that spills over me as I amble, I can’t put my finger on it, I look around and I can see where Robert Redford sat as he offered Demi Moore his “Indecent Proposal”, now starkly empty except for the cracked faded red vinyl bench seating. The epiphany, that’s it, its deserted, I’m alone.

Calling it the “Crossroads of the World” The space resides at 6671 Sunset Boulevard, it started life simply ( if ever there was anything done simply by Ella I am yet to find it) as a pedestrian shopping center, but sadly was not a success and closed in 1956.

Now was that in itself a bad thing, I don’t know, but I love how you can look back on the history of things and find the story in the history… feel like I may have used the word History one too many times there!! But that’s where it begins again and through the 1940’s and 1950’s the space turned into offices and was home to the Screen Actors Guild.

Again destined to disappear as the 60’s drew to a close and thinking the fancy days of Hollywood had set sail into the sunset, it was a guy by the name of Morton La Kretz who, in May 1977 saved it from the wrecking ball and he had a similar vision, to turn it back into its glory days. Scraping away the fashion senses of decades gone by, he spent the next several years restoring the ennead of European vignettes to what I am standing in today.

Firstly the Ocean liner center piece in the Streamline Modern facing straight away to Sunset Boulevard, curved corners, porthole windows and ships railings. Secondly, the Spanish building to the east of the ship and also facing Sunset with its red tiles and arched roof, shutters now flapping in disrepair and balconies staring out looking for a glimpse of times gone by. Thirdly, the Mediterranean Californian set up with hand painted tiles. Fourthly on the west of the ship the Italian influenced building with Venetian Arches and columns. Fifthly still connected is the French style building with stained glass windows and fleur-de-lis still visible a top the chimney.

The Sixth set up is a Moorish building in the center of Crossroads boasting Arabic pointed windows and Arabic lettering still visible. For those with memories of Quark and Strangeness you'll possibly remember the vinyl release of Alice Coopers Album Muscle Of Love...

Seventh is the set of Early American Cape Cod buildings with their high pitched shingled roofs and chimneys. Eighth (phew are you still with me) is the European Village half timbered with dormer windows, staircases and turret towers, topped off nicely in Ninth is the fully working lighthouse facing Selma Ave.

Its all still here, I do seam to have forgotten about reading a book, I’m lost in transition as this world takes me back and forth through time, and if that wasn’t enough here’s the “Hidden Hollywood” gem that few know. If you look carefully, just like looking for the Hidden Mickeys at Disneyland, every door in Crossroads is different, by design, shape, style and any other adjective you can throw their way, check out the Spider Web…

Ella’s dream came true through Morgan as he garnered exactly what you want from Hollywood the center of the entertainment industry, Jackson Browne, America, Poco and Crosby Stills and Nash had offices here. Geffen Films was headquartered here with Tim Burton using Crossroads as his offices. Also, home to Ruby Records, Dolby Sound American Film Magazine and many casting agencies, of whom a few still reside today… I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille.

Inevitably this weird place became the place to shoot your Movie, (LA Confidential, Indecent Proposal, Ford Fairlane, even Elizabeth Taylor shot Malice In Wonderland here in 1984) or a Commercial  (McDonalds in 1979 through to Mercedes Benz in 1991) or Album covers as noted, or even perform live on the roof like Big Audio Dynamite did in 1991.

Trudge the alley ways and you will see the ghosts of TV series long gone by, i'm pretty sure Remington Steel was here, or was that Monk touching every uniform fence pole….

The past is preserved in our minds eye, it’s a wonderful thing, no one to bother me as I drift back to consciousness, and perhaps symbolically as this adventure fades the globe 60 ft. above Sunset Boulevard rotates and begins to flicker….

#bennysantiniproductions   #grahamsataconcertagain
Photos and words Benny Santini Productions 

♬ I SAW HER STANDING THERE ♬

“I SAW HER STANDING THERE”♬

There is always a frenzy when you know you have to be somewhere, that internal frenzy no one else sees, but your mind starts racing and your normally solid work like concentrated demeanor is fragmented.

I have a concert at Lunch time, what in the ten types of instant cake mix?? 

There’s no reason I cant do this.... so, after joining the madding throng of tail lights jostling for relief from the freeway, I not exactly swiftly, bobble across the dirt of this fine arable tract of land next to the San Diego Fairgrounds, alight from my mode of transportation, after being meticulously directed by the fine gentleman that’s been hired for the season, he loves his job its clear, maybe insert for yourself here a sarcastic demeanor in your reading mind!! I was an inch over my boundary and I had to get it right for him, good on you Sir, job satisfaction is important.

Now, only 12 minute’s from show time, I negotiate the lines, the strollers, bags, pure excess trying to squeeze through the eye of the needle, I’m not sure these folks have the same intentions I do, with doughnut burgers, fried snickers bars and gargantuan plates of fried mass with,who knows what that cheese stuff is, poured all over the top, all awaiting them in their charge.

My goal is different, where the dickens is the stage.

With, and I kid you not, less that 30 seconds after putting my amazing grace into a seat four rows from the front, the coolest chic saunters onto the stage, over sized 70’s style Elvis sunglasses perched on the nose above that oh so distinctive mouth, whose wry smile we will see more than once over the next hour, a quite formal two piece suit finished off with silver platform shoes which I am pretty certain were legitimately from 1972, and the Aladdin Sane album photo shoot.

It’s so true she could easily be "Cass" from Tom Robbins classic “Even Cowgirls get the Blues”.

I am worried that the atmosphere is too open, there’s no stage lighting, no sound buffer from the masses walking by, oblivious to what is about to happen. I don’t know if she wants to be here, you cant tell, starting us out with “Weasel and White boys Cool” I mean come on the names of the songs folks… there is a dalliance into a couple songs from her new album “ Kicks” ( out now folks on Rickie's own label  OSOD ..Other Side Of Desire)
Her cover renditions of “Houston” and “Bad Company”. are so refreshing, I’m in deep now and I don’t know it, transfixed in the story of her running away from home in “Last Chance Texaco” and Michelle Pfeiffer’s kiss with Al Pacino in "Frankie and Johnny" for “It Must Be Love”.

Then it hits me, I was a pimply faced high school teenager, maybe  
ahead of my musical age, but forty years ago when this song put her in the echelons of the great singer songwriter Genres, where you speak of yourself in the abstract or third party, “Chuck E’s in Love”, she can play it, she can sing it, her smile now  says she’s enjoying it, and she does want to be here, that I can recall anything at all after this, I notice that I’m smiling, a pure simple smile, I haven’t done this in a while, I need to do it more. There are a few more songs and she's told us she doesn't have much time,
I find myself two feet from the stage, I see her standing there, and i'm standing looking into her eyes, I'm hoping she see’s me, I pretend she does, after all, this is a “Girl at Her Volcano”.....

 Rickie Lee Jones at the San Diego Fair June 27^th 2019  Photos and words Benny Santini Productions…

 #bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain

I REALLY JUST DID WANT TO READ A BOOK...

I really did just want to read a book…

You see it was one of those moaning grey, overcast kinda “Whys it not hot?” San Diego days that you get on the outskirts of June.

A book would be good, and then maybe sit in the sand and let life waft by as I soak up the rays of yesteryear through Old Hollywood, Pop Culture, Obscure California, Hidden treasures or where the glitz and glamour now reside after rolling off this mortal coil, whether of their own volition or some more sinister page turning mouth wateringly mysterious way!

I really did just want to read a book, you know and add to my repertoire of what my wife never fails to tell me is “useless information”, but with me life has a certain way of turning itself upon its heals and... despite knowledgeably choosing the country’s oldest continuously family operated and owned bookstore ( est. 1896 ) you know the one where they have the exact category you are looking for and the gentle folk who work there to guide you on your quest to finding what you are looking for…..

Warwick’s has its own History connected with Folklore and old Hollywood style goings on , William T Warwick born in Iowa in 1867, got his first job after graduating high school at the Des Moines Book Company and whether he dreamed of the lasting legacy or not I don’t know but before he knew it years flew by finding him married with two sons and a store bearing his own name in  Waterloo Iowa. Meanwhile…there’s that Hollywood “ism” , you know the one that pushes you into your own imagination and as with all great stories here’s the twist that you can’t make up, as noted …Meanwhile in La Jolla a new bookstore opened in 1902 mitigatingly operated by the duo of E.L. Redding and his wife Genevieve ( told you I couldn’t have thought of better Hollywood names) Originally situated on Cave Street and then moving to Wall Street before finding its resting place at 7816 Girard Ave ( pretty much where it abides today) the old store now demolished and replaced in 1985.

Sadly why we do this to our treasured memories is lost on me, but I digress… you’re probably more interested in the meet cute of the story, almost like this was taken out of the “You’ve got Mail” story plot and the little bookstore The Shop around the Corner fighting against Fox’s emporium…E.L suddenly passed away in 1934 and his wife Genevieve carried on operating the store alone until W.T Warwick sold up in Waterloo and traipsed across country to the San Diego sunshine to visit his sister, bought the store from Genevieve, renamed it Warwick’s and then married the girl !! I am for sure there was more to the meet cute than that, but history provides me with only so much detail, from afar

In the ever-developing script play adapted from real life in 1944 W.T. got himself bogged down in disputes over rent of the building and moved the store to 1038 Wall St. the building that now is home to Whisknladle, but here is where the legacy kicks in. As W.T. retired in 1950 and sold to his son Charles Wynn Warwick ( looks like end of the names using initials) and his lovely wife Louise, in 1952 they decided life would be better at the original location and relocated back to 7812 Girard Ave, the exact location I met the very helpful and somewhat mysterious L.J. LaFleur, (I tell you these names are awesome) the self-described “Clumsy Walker, Poet and Bookseller “ on this random Sunday afternoon in June. This erstwhile establishment has resided here since, though taking new on forms over the next generations and expanding, Charles Wynn had his son Bob and his wife Marian take over in 1964 ushering in the third generation. The spirit of 1976 took them to new heights and they expanded into the Burriston Shoes space next door, bringing us closer to fine, Bob turned the store to the fourth generation in 2001 his daughters Nancy and Cathy.

“Meanwhile Scene One Act One” again as is apt for cinema speak, not even this classic establishment had what I yearned for, the past, how it was formed and what it is today…. I was looking for Old Hollywood and its ilk, but, what found me instead, as I thought about the lunch I had waiting in the car, 
( Steak and Ale Pot Pie from Pop Pie,  #poppieco #inpiewecrust for those seeking to know what makes me tick, www.poppieco.com

 go give them a visit in University Height’s Steven and Gad ( at left with yours truly)   will expand your culinary pallet’s with a Green Hog as well as great craft coffee’s and sweet Chai’s or even crafty beer, maybe, just maybe, even a rhubarb crumble ice cream from Stella Jeans next door also owned and operated by these fine gentle giants……..  I fear I have driven down the proverbial rabbit trail)

....what found me was the madcap realization that, what I already had, was maybe unhealthily more than your average Joe should have rolling around the cranium, on this somewhat murky heavy-laden June gloom kind of a day. My cohort in crime this afternoon, the yet again self-described clumsy walker, poet and bookseller as aforementioned,  said  when I inquired if I was boring her with what it was I was looking for… you had me at Hello … not really that’s me just going Hollywood on you again,  my foray into the world I was looking for, rearing its beautiful topic again…you have me hanging on every word, you should write a book, have you ever thought of doing a Blog….

I really did just want to read a book “I love the English sky after long hot summer days, I like to run through the fields when they’ve finished making Hay" to quote the young one his ownself sir Cliff.... "I love meeting people that I’ve never met before…” Life’s mystery and finding it is a great challenge and though Douglas Adams would have us believe the answer to life the universe and everything is 42, I’m tending to want to float on the "fine art of surfacing"…. That moment where things are at peace with each other, your head floats calmly above the interruptions of the waves crashing at your footsteps, they don’t care they will keep crashing for eons after I take my exit cue, if this is that time for reflection on what I know and have seen  sharing it with others and including all of the Quark Strangeness’ and Charm I can muster, James Taylor you were absolutely correct in one sense, the secret to life is enjoying the passage of time and for those moments that have passed in my foray into my obscure made up i'm sure,genre, its with anticipation of recollection that I hope to share those experiences, and then maybe you too can become your own Gulliver and find the Lilliputian escape you need, even just a fifteen minute excursion to stare off a 70 ft hidden suspension bridge , or watch a movie next to Douglas Fairbanks, or tip your own ten gallon in respect to the Duke, even cut through a slot canyon on your own doorstep, or simply just finding that hidden in plain sight movie set you remember, well i'll borrow now some more lyrics as i end this first missive, this time from Steven Curtis Chapman and well “Wake the neighbor’s get the word out….” Or maybe the more apt  "Saddle up your horses we’ve got a trail to blaze."

I told you I was reading a book, right?

#bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain