Thursday, August 29, 2013

Camp Hero Montauk State Park At Montauk At The Eastern End Of Long Island



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Hero_State_Park

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montauk_Project

The video below is interesting also. Some young people go inside the radar tower and climb to the top where the radar antenna is located.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

tuba skinny Clifftop Festival 2013

New Tuba Skinny From Lugano

IF You Need Anything Just Whistle

We went to the Southampton Library Book Sale yesterday. They sell donated books twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
    I have been reading about James Jones last book titled WHISTLE which came out after his death in 1978. He died in 1977 here in Southampton at the hospital.
    When we went in the book sale I went straight to the fiction and looked under the J's. They had only one James Jones book for sale and it was WHISTLE. It was a first edition hardback from 1978.
It was in perfect condition with the book jacket. It was priced at 3 dollars. I bought it.
I had just been talking about the book on the way to the sale. I was thinking I would not find a copy and would just have to wait and check it out of the library at home. And lo and behold here it was waiting for me in Southampton. I was looking for it and it was looking for me.
  The title refers to a hospital for wounded veterans where the medics would tell the men "If you need anything just whistle."


Thursday, August 22, 2013

James Jones Part 1

James Jones Part 2

James Jones Part 3

Whistling Past The Graveyard

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=227


Gary Cooper is buried here in Southampton N.Y. He died and was buried in California.
His wife remarried and when she decided to move back to New York where she was from she had him dug up and took him back with her. She is buried here also next to him. Good photos on Find A Grave.com in the link above.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Gotta Travel On.... Sung By Billy Grammer Written By Paul Clayton

When Grammer and his wife were living in Washington D.C., he was hired by Connie B. Gay as a singer in support of Gay's WARL radio program: Town and Country Time. When Gay was preparing to replace the session guitarist, Grammer demonstrated his own guitar prowess, and was re-contracted in a duel-role as both singer and lead guitarist.[2]
After being signed by Monument Records in Nashville, Tennessee, Grammer scored a big hit with the million-selling single: "Gotta Travel On",[1] written by Paul Clayton. The song peaked at No. 4 on the U.S. Pop Singles chart and No. 5 on the Hot Country Songschart in 1959. That same year, he became a regular cast member on the Grand Ole Opry.[3] Grammer named his band after his most notable hit as The Travel On Boys. "Gotta Travel On" was used as the opening song by Buddy Holly on his final tour in January and February 1959, which ended in tragedy.[4] He recorded the first chart version of Bobby Bare's "Detroit City", entitled "I Wanna Go Home". It hit the Billboard country chart in early 1963.
Grammer founded RG&G (Reid, Grammer & Gower) Company in 1965 with Clyde Reid and J.W. Gower.[5] RG&G made the Grammer guitar from 1965 until 1968, when a fire consumed the factory in downtown Nashville. The company was then sold to Ampeg, and a new factory was erected down the street from the old one. The company was renamed Grammer Guitar, Inc. (GGI). GGI produced the Grammer guitar until 1970. His guitar was installed into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville on March 1, 1969.[1]
On May 15, 1972, Grammer and the Travel On Boys played at the rally in Laurel, Maryland where Alabama governor George Wallace was shot. Grammer and his band played the"Under the Double Eagle" march as Wallace mounted the stage to speak. After he spoke, Wallace mingled with the crowd, and Arthur Bremer shot a concealed handgun at the presidential candidate. The outcome was Wallace's paralysis, leaving him using a wheelchair for the rest of his life.[6] "I've said all along, if they wanted to do something like this, they do it under these circumstances," Grammer said, weeping, after the incident.[6]


http://expectingrain.com/dok/who/c/claytonpaul.html



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clayton_(folksinger)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Grammer

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Heart Beat (Full Movie) This Is About Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, And Carolyn Cassady



I saw this movie 33 years ago in 1980.  I think it is one of the best movies about The Beat Generation. It is based on a book of the same name by Neal Cassady's wife Carolyn Cassady.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Cassady

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Tuba Skinny Playing On Royal Street In Front Of 823 Royal My First Apartment in New Orleans




823 Royal was the first apartment that I had in New Orleans. Jack Newell and I rented that in January 1965. Jack was a merchant seaman at the time and was "on the beach". That is he was without a seagoing ship at the time.
I was waiting to go in the Peace Corps.
I went looking for work in the meantime and found an employment agency and a fellow working there by the name of Peter Dassinger Jr.
He sent me out on one sales job interview at a motel on Tulane Avenue. All the salesmen were in the bar drunk at 10 a.m.
Then Peter asked me if I would like to work in a Hollywood movie as an extra while I was waiting. I said yes. He also hired Jack Newell and we reported to an address on Bourbon Street to get our costumes to be extras in the movie THE CINCINNATI KID.

The place we had rented at 823 Royal Street was the slave quarters in the rear patio. The patio had a brick wall all around it separating it from the nearby residences.

Below is what I wrote about this a year or two ago.

In January of 1965 I worked as an extra on the film The Cincinnati Kid in New Orleans. My friend Jack Newell also worked as an extra. We got about a weeks work out of the job. MGM fed the crew and the extras 3 meals a day. Jack and I reported to a place on Royal Street to get our costume clothes from the 1930s era. Our first assignment was to drive the old cars 1930s vintage on and off the Algiers ferry. Then we did a scene that called for us to arrive early on a Sunday morning for the shooting of the jazz funeral parade which is used in the opening credits of the film. We are not at the graveyard but we are at the big parade that comes after the funeral. This took all morning and each time it got better as more and more booze was consumed. MGM paid all those extras with vouchers. They also provided a nice breakfast before we started that morning. We were both about 24 years old at the time.
We did another scene right outside Jackson Square. Since I was lined up next to Ann Margret I got to talk briefly with her and I asked her about Elvis Presley since she had just finished making Viva Las Vegas with him. I asked her what Elvis was like and she said he was a really nice person.
One morning we went in the Royal Orleans Hotel to get coffee for breakfast and Karl Malden came in and asked for something. He was tying his tie. I nodded at him and he nodded back. Since Tuesday Weld and Steve McQueen(who never showed his face except when filming)and other stars worked on this film it was somewhat of a surprise to me that the actor that created the biggest stir was Edgar G. Robinson. When he showed up to do the scene with the organ grinder and the monkey all the local Jackson Square people really wanted to see Edgar G. Robinson. He seemed to be the biggest star of all.
McQueen shot the scene at Preservation Hall where he looks in and sees Sweet Emma the Bell Gal singing with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.






We had nothing to do but sit around in the back patio and watch him go in and out of his dressing room further back in the patio.
Tuesday Weld was very pretty. I remember her sitting in a chair outside Jackson Square and one of the MGM makeup women kept brushing her blond hair.

Below is the great scene in the movie where Ann Margret is cutting up pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to make them fit.
Karl Malden tells her she even cheats playing solitaire.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Xavier Cugat - Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words) - Caricatures - 1964



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Cugat

He was a cartoonist also. Read about it in the link above.

[HQ] Yo Te Amo Mucho - And That's That (Holiday In Mexico-1946)


Check out his chihuahua in this film clip. It speaks at the end of the clip.

Jayne Mansfield Automobile Wreck Site


Double click on the video to enlarge it and go to Youtube. Be sure and read the comments.
The actual crash site was one mile west of the Rigolets bridge. So this is about 4 miles further west in the video. Comments section discusses this error.

I used to drive this section of old Highway 90 on the way to New Orleans from Mobile and Biloxi.
Driving at night in almost total darkness and going over the Rigolets bridge was a spooky experience.
But it also meant you were getting close to New Orleans.
I remember small isolated fishing camps strung out along the highway whenever water would appear. It was like driving through a series of connected islands.
It was always a great relief to come into New Orleans via the old Chef Menteur highway. Streetlights would appear and then large billboards advertising Pat O'Briens and Brennan's Restaurant and other French Quarter attractions.

Death of Jayne Mansfield





Click on the above pictures to enlarge them.
Here is a fine website about Jayne Mansfield. Included in this are some good information on her final performance at Gus Stevens in Biloxi. Also links to some of the crash scene photos.
I read somewhere once that she was filling in for someone else who could not make it that weekend.
Many years later I saw the car she died in on exhibit in a carnival. Along with the car itself was a copy of the police report. These death cars used to be a popular attraction at fairs and carnivals,etc.
In Mobile at the Alabama State Fair I saw a limo that was billed as belonging to Hitler and Eva Braun. It always helped if there were bullet holes in the car like the Bonnie and Clyde car that was put on exhibit after they were gunned down in an ambush.
Many of us have fond memories of Gus Stevens Restaurant in Biloxi,Miss. Without a doubt the finest supper club on the Mississippi Gulf Coast when it was open.
I saw Brother Dave Gardner there. In fact he got his start there as a drummer and then a singer before he became a full time comedian.
We talked with him once out in the parking lot. He was a really friendly and funny guy.
Mose Allison got his start in some jazz clubs in Biloxi.
Dr. Hook and the Medicine show in an earlier formation was the house band there under the name The Chocolate Papers.
Here is a link to some information on The Chocolate Papers and George Cummings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cummings
Lavern Baker performed at Gus Stevens around that time in the late 1960s. The Chocolate Papers was the house band at Gus Stevens in Biloxi at that time.
Here is a link to Dr. Hook.com. In the picture at the top of the page you will see the Chocolate Papers. All the other pictures at the top of the page are of Dr. Hook.
http://www.doctorhook.com/
Here is the link about Jayne Mansfield. Some of the crash photos are quite graphic. Be warned.
http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/m/Mansfield/jayne_mansfield.htm