Brookswords

Lynda Kay at Amoeba Records

Saw Alt-Country crooner Lynda Kay at Amoeba Records in Hollywood a couple days ago. She put on quite a show, wowing the crowd from the start when she walked onstage in a golden suit and under amazing hair--looking just as she does on the left. Kay was also tugging along a big ol' Gretsch--she's affiliated with that great ol' guitar company in a publicity campaign. Here's a clip from that show, followed by a clip of Kay singing a hot Rockabilly number, from a concert in another city. When she performed it at Amoeba, it brought the house down. Finally, there's her Gretsch video. She appears in very  different guises in these. At one moment, she's the reincarnation of Patsy Cline; at another, she's the still alive & well Wanda Jackson. But that's nothing--she used to perform an act where she changed costumes 8 times, as noted in this week's  LA Weekly--which chose her one of its "People of 2010", and to grace one if its 4 covers. The picture they used was a cropped black & white version of the picture above. (Where I pick up my Weekly, her cover wasn't the one that was in the bin, dang it!)

The Gorilla That Missed Him

I recently wrote about a noteworthy gorilla that I once met, and how, in subsequent years, I would return to the zoo and try to see if he remembered me. Now, here's an amazing clip about the reunion of a gorilla and his former caretaker. 5 years before this reunion, the gorilla--named Kwibi--was reintroduced into the wild after spending his early years at a wild animal park. When the two are finally reunited, Kwibi not only remembers his former caretaker, he holds him in a warm embrace--and almost doesn't let him leave!

"That's it, man. 14 years right down the drain".

Elvis loses it onstage, at the beginning of his comeback tour in 1969. Apparently he thought he'd really messed up--at the end, he says "That's it, man. 14 years right down the drain". (14 years earlier, he had his first his first hit records.) But this was in the days before Youtube, where every mistake by a celebrity goes viral.

Also, well put together slide show. The family portrait from when he was a baby is very stark and kind of alarming. Smiling seems to be the last thing on their minds. But then again, probably to be expected for a poverty ridden Southern family during the Depression, haunted by the death, at birth, of Elvis' twin brother. It looks as if it could have been taken by Dorothea Lange. I guess, judging by the smiles & laughter seen in this clip, he was making up for lost time.

Be My Baby Everlasting

I'm not surprised that Be My Baby is reemerging in new forms--apparently it's a favorite of some musicians who were born long, long after it was a hit song for the Ronettes in 1964. At this point it's not so much a song as an archetype; its first three beats are one of the most recognizable openings in Rock history. When Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys first heard it, he was so overwhelmed that he had to pull his car off the road. Here are three clips, contrasting the original and a couple recent versions. First, there is the Ronettes at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1964, the year the song came out. Note the moment when Ronnie Spector's eyes drift heavenward, as she is seemingly overcome with sheer joy. Next, one of my younger daughter's favorite Indie groups, We Are Scientists. (At their shows, they sell t-shirts that say "I Are Scientist". Next time she sees them, I want her to buy me one.) Finally, there is the Dum Dum Girls a 'group' that is actually one woman, Kristin Gundred, stage name Dee Dee, with ever-changing back-up musicians. She labels her retro sound "blissed-out buzz saw" and I love it. Dee Dee's retro credentials are pretty sound; her producer also produced Blondie --who once hung out next to me at the beginning of her career, between sets at the bar of a music club in Berkeley where we watched the main act, Muddy Waters, and I was too shy too say a peep--and the Go-Gos and wrote "My Boyfriend's Back".

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The Day I Met Koko's Dad

All Fourth Graders in the L.A. public schools read a selection from "Koko's Kitten", a book about a gorilla that learned how to communicate using sign language. And many students are more than a little surprised to hear me recount how once I met Koko's Dad, long before he was a father.

Here's how it came about. When  I was a little tyke, my favorite movie was the old, black & white King King. I can even remember the afternoon I first saw it, alone, on a program that tended to show old movie classics. One day they showed King Kong. I was not at all prepared for what I saw. I was too young to have heard anything about the movie, so it overwhelmed me--and the ending stunned me. I hadn't a clue that those airplanes were going to come out of the blue and shoot the magnificent Kong down. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. (Years later, the ending of Dr. Zhivago hit me similarly.)

In a way, I guess, to assure my post-Kong recovery, I became a nut about gorillas. I drew them all the time, entered a kid's art contest--and won--for a drawing I titled "King Kong Running At People". I asked my Dad, who was an editor at Associated Press, to bring me home anything and everything about gorillas. (In the pre-internet world, I was lucky that he could do for me what a Google news search does for everybody  today.) I said I wanted to be a gorilla for Halloween, so my Dad brought home a gorilla costume. (It was actually, as even my First Grade eyes could tell, a kinda tacky knock off called "King Congo". But I pretended to love it, not wanting to hurt his feelings--I had actually been expecting a full gorilla suit.)

Then one day my Dad came home to say that he learned at work that the San Francisco Zoo was about to get two young gorillas. I had the gumption to ask if I could go in the cage and play with them after they arrived! Looking back, I'm surprised to this day that he took my request seriously. As it turned out, one of his friends was a fellow who was a photographer for both the AP and the zoo. This photographer talked to the zoo director and, incredibly enough, the director said yes!!

Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that this wish was so swiftly granted; I was a quite gifted extortionist around that time. For example, before every birthday party I was invited to, I always talked my parents into buying me the same gift I was getting for a friend. Needless to say, my friends always received very good presents. Looking back, I'm surprised I wasn't extorting rent from neighborhood lemonade stands. (After becoming a parent and later as a teacher, I added bribery to my repertoire; Tony Soprano would be impressed by my resume.)   

So, one bright Saturday morning, me, my Dad, my little sister, the man who bought the gorillas for the zoo, and the photographer who engineered this encounter entered the rear of the ape enclosure, behind the cages where the public viewed the apes. From inside a darkened cage, a full grown orangutan tried to grab my arm as we ventured toward the gorilla area. After we stepped into the gorilla cage--with a large crowd outside watching--the young gorillas, a boy and a girl named Bwana and Missy, came up to us. Interestingly, the two young gorillas were most interested in the two young people. The larger female, Missy, was very docile and affectionate. At one point she rested her head on my sister's shoulder.

The boy was another story. He was very excited and at one point playfully pushed me. But, since gorillas are 5 times stronger than humans, I went flying, and crashed into the opposite end of the cage. The crowed roared in laughter, which I didn't exactly appreciate. Bwana must have realized his mistake, because he didn't try playing with me like that again. Typical of his behavior that day, in the first picture he's hanging upside down from the top of the cage as I'm feeding him.

Bwana would eventually become a fully grown gorilla with a harem of three females, and one of the children he fathered was Koko. (Koko's Mom wasn't Missy, but another member of the harem named Jacqueline.) I would regularly visit the zoo until eventually moving to Colorado and then Reno. Whenever I'd visit I'd call out his name and when he looked back, I liked to think he remembered me. Certainly few--if any--children were let into his cage after that morning. In later years, he developed a familiar habit of resting his chin on his hands as he stared out at the crowds and was given a nickname--'the thinker'.

By the way, students really enjoy the pictures from the day I met Koko's Dad. Sometimes, they're most impressed by my vintage Converse tennis shoes!