OLD FRIENDS, OLD DEMONS, OLD VICTORIES

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On my first night in New Orleans I rendezvous with Paul Zahl (on the left, of the The Zahl File) and Bill Bowman (on the right, of The Saturni) at Bill’s house in The Garden District.  I first met these guys 50 (count ’em, 50) years ago — we hadn’t been together in the same location in over 30 years.  All those years blew away like mist — our gray hair and middle-age paunches just seemed like parts of some hilarious disguises we had adopted to weird each other out.

We initially bonded in 7th grade over horror films and the magazine Famous Monsters Of Filmland.  Within months of meeting each other we were planning our own homemade 8mm monster movies.  During rollicking conversations on this visit, it suddenly occurred to us that there might have a been a connection between a) the fact that we all had angry alcoholic fathers and b) this passion for monster movies — for a magic realm into which we could escape, battle demons vicariously and emerge unscathed.

Actually, there was no “might” about it — it’s one of those truths so obvious that it can lie unnoticed for half a century, then suddenly reveal itself and elicit a resounding “duh!”  The insight also explains why we have never lost our passion for monster movies, because those childhood demons still haunt us, even though all of our fathers have now passed away.

What can I say except that, like our ancient friendship itself, “It’s alive!  It’s alive!” — and that 50 years can, viewed in a certain way, pass as fast as the blink of an eye.

STEAK

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At the Saltgrass Steak House, a favorite stop on any cross-country drive that takes me through Amarillo, Texas. Just across the way is a Country Inn that has smoking rooms and good wifi.

I was served by Kelly, an adorable young lass who was working her first night as a waitress, hoping to land a permanent position at the restaurant. When I told her she was doing a great job she pumped her fist and said, “Yes!”

Texas.

SPOON DRESS

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The painting above lives in the New Orleans home of my friends Adrienne and Bill. It’s by Rebecca Rebouché, a Louisiana artist:

I got to meet her on my recent visit to New Orleans and see more of her work at the Jazz Fest, where she had a booth.

You can see a selection of her work at her web site — Rebecca Rebouché.  It uses folk motifs and surreal juxtapositions to create an eerie combination of the whimsical and the mystical.  It’s sweet, with dark and unsettling undertows — like flowers found deep among the twists and turns of a haunted bayou.

It’s all quite wonderful, but Spoon Dress is the one that stayed with me most insistently on my journey home, mixing with the memories of my magical time in The Crescent City — the girls in their summer dresses dancing to sinuous swamp music, a spoon breaking the crust of the legendary bread pudding soufflé at Commander’s Palace.

[All images © Rebecca Rebouché]

THE EGYPTIAN

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This is not one of the great Hollywood epics but, boy, is it fun. If you watch it on a decent-sized TV in the Blu-ray edition by Twilight Time, the lunatic spectacle of it all will carry you comfortably through its general silliness.  You can bask in the technical virtuosity of the 20th-Century Fox studio at its zenith, marvel at director Michael Curtiz’s elegant professionalism, and gaze in awe at what stars could do with less than stellar material . . . and at how non-stars, like the ill-chosen leading man Edmund Purdom, could be given a kind of imputed charisma by their surroundings. The whole thing is just a hoot from start to finish.

Elsewhere on this site Paul Zahl (of The Zahl File) has written a more sympathetic evaluation of the film — Walking In Memphis — with some fascinating observations on Jack Kerouac, who saw it when it first came out and hated it!

[Let me take this opportunity to apologize for the erratic formatting of many old posts here — the unavoidable by-product of a switch to a new blogging platform.  I am trying to regularize the formatting of these old posts to the degree that it’s possible, but it will take me some time to get around to all of them.]

ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE

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The first time I ever heard Levon Helm’s voice was on a jukebox in a bar in New York City in the summer of 1968. That voice took me home, back to the South, where I was born. The song was “The Weight”, and I’d never heard anything quite like it. My friends and I were startled by it, put another quarter in the machine and played it again. The record sounded like roots music, sort of, like Dylan, sort of — like the past and the future tripping off in a graceful dance, in perfect harmony with each other. You got used to surprises in 1968 — but hearing this record was one of the most delightful of them. It made me think, “America is going to be all right.”

And maybe some sweet day you will walk that Milky Way . . .

Goodbye, Levon, and thanks.