NYC Blog: Men's Fashion, Retail and Visual Merchandising | The Bespoken: For Gentlemen

Talk To Me

The other evening I was invited to MoMA’s latest opening “Talk to Me: Design and the Communication Between People and Objects” (July 24th through November 7th ,2011)   I’ll go to any opening…even the opening of an envelope. If you can’t make it to the exhibit, visit the on-line journal at MoMA.org/talktome. Anyway, a show on “things” as in new products is just my ticket!

As with all events these days, there was an open bar, actually, five open bars, with three waiters each, which still wasn’t enough for the swarming masses of “in” crowd wannabes who lined up in disorderly rows of thirty pretentious people deep. It’s amazing what people will do for a free drink these days. (No, I was not in line too!)

Does this say something? The lines were not as deep for the show, as it was for the bar. I kept thinking who cast this party. Hundreds of cute 30-something guys, you know the look, mid-management types in their skinny Mad Men suits and Thom Brown style skinny jeans, no socks, (yuck) unshaven and nerdy black frame glasses, just like the guys on the TV commercials for Chase Banks, V-8  and Verizon, bona-fied metrosexuals and avowed guy-guys. You know men who act so straight you think they have to be gay. The kind of guy you want to do, until he tells you he presses his jeans. As for being pompous? I overheard the word “jejune” three times from different guys. For every available male there were two neurotic girls in bright summer print dresses from the DVF collection, naturally with towering chunky heels, constantly pulling the center parted hair out of their faces, sipping their vodka and cranberry juices through the mixer straws, while hiking up their bras,  klass with a capitol “K”. As with all things MoMA there were the corporate membership sponsors, the well heeled and financially endowed, you know, silver haired men in Zenga double-breasted suits with their second wives. How do I know it was their second wives…? They had the five telltale signs of every second wife, one too many collagen injections in their pouty lips, they were twenty years younger, over streaked blond highlights from Louis David, black lace bra underneath their Roberto Cavalli dresses and tennis bracelets galore. A tennis bracelet at an art opening?

But what about art and technology as in things, and the retail trade….

Talk to Me  explores communication between people and things, devices like cell phones and computers that are designed to provide us with access to complex computer systems and information networks, that behave as instructors, or a kind of guide or interpreter of extemporaneous information.

All objects contain information that goes well beyond their immediate use or appearance. Think about the way that “facebook” has reconstructed the idea of what constitutes “friendship”. Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers help us develop and improvise the dialogue.

Talk to Me  presents a glimpse of the future, but it’s not a future I readily embrace. It’s a future of hand held devices that think for us. It’s a world of plastic, rubber, metal and tempered glass, its slick, glossy and sterile. Gone are romance, sentiment and beauty. Yes, it’s a world where your phone can say “God bless you”when you sneeze. If a phone can understand what God is? Yes, your teapot can absorb the overhead light to keep its contents warm, your teapot will even jiggles like it has Parkinson’s to keep the tea steeping, so you don’t have to re-heat. And yes, a recycled tree branch sling shot you can pre-program with a “splat”, a colorful message you project on the side of a building with light that disappears when the receiver is turned off. Sans graffiti it’s all the rage in Madrid and Sao Paulo.

 There are undoubtedly great uses of technology, talking thermometers for the blind, prostatic limbs for fallen military, aps that direct our movements and help us make informed decisions, an ap that interprets “Tagging” graffiti like language, and things with multi uses, perfumes that promote healing, fibers that retrain heat or keep you cool. There are kiosks and ATM’s so if there is no strip mall you can shop for sunglasses in the Serengeti or thermal gloves at Gulag Archipelago.

Talk to Mefeatures several hundred potential new technological innovations to whet our appetite. Remember when we were satisfied with Pong and PacMan?

More to the point…Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects  was motivated by a simple, yet revealing question: "What if our devices kept talking back to us after we disposed of them?” Though the exhibition offers a glimpse at where these dead devices go, there's another important story concerning our e-waste that is not addressed, the human health risks posed by the toxic pollutants that are released by discarded and recycled electronics. A 60 Minutes Report examined a "wasteland" in Guiyu, China where gadgets from the United States that are meant to be "recycled" but are disposed of, thus contaminating the air, water, and soil with toxic chemicals such as mercury and cadium. 60 Minutes likens the town to "a sort of Chernobyl of electronic waste where you can't breathe the air or drink the water, a town where the blood of the children is laced with lead."

Welcome to our future.

The Postcard: The 20th Century Version of Twitter

Political parties, celebrity marriages and professional careers fall faster than a pile of bricks when a “Tweet” goes astray. You need not be former Congressman Anthony Weiner, cyber bully Perez Hilton or anger management participant Chris Brown ranting to find yourself up a creek without a paddle. One might think how much damage can be done with just 140 characters? Answer…Plenty.

“Tweeting” may seem like a technological novelty, a harmless pursuit, but that’s far from the truth. Too bad former Congressman Anthony Weiner, cyber bully Perez Hilton or anger Management participant Chris Brown didn’t live in the 20^th Century. If they might not have felt the public heat because they would have sent the 20^th century version of a “tweet”, which was called a “postcard.” It was a 3.5” by 5.5” card (the approximate size of a cell phone) with a photo, (perhaps risqué) and with just enough space on the back side for about 140 characters, “Dear Zelda, Having a great vacation. Gatsby sends regards! Party was fabulous! Wish you were here! Laughing out loud. Miss you! F. Scott” They would have placed a three cent stamp on it, and chances are the only other person privy to the contents was the postman or maybe a nosey neighbor. Today however, people delude themselves and somehow think that “tweeting” is private, like a right of privacy…when in truth, it’s far from it. Tweeting is as public as the pillory.

Deltiology (postcard collecting) is claimed to be the third largest collecting hobby next only to stamps and coins. “Tweeting” is almost equally as popular!

You might say that “tweeting” has become an addiction, and reflective of our narcissistic culture. That may be, but in the 20^th Century there was a mania for postcards too. Postcards were sold everywhere, for everything and sent for every occasion, including marriage proposals. Not too much has changed, most people sent postcards to announce the most mundane and innocuous information like the weather in Altoona or the progress of the Presidents Memorial at Mount Rushmore. In the year ending 1903, the Post Office is estimated to have delivered about 39 million pictorial cards; by 1906 the number is thought to have risen to 264 million.

As for smart or bawdy humor, Ashton Kutcher, Justin Beiber and the Kardashians do not hold a copyright on the market…the top-selling postcard of all time was said to be a drawing by illustrator, Donald McGill with the caption: He: "Do you like Kipling?"
She: "I don't know, you naughty boy, I've never kippled." It sold about 6 million copies! Between 1904 and his death, (1962). McGill sold more than 350 million cards over his life time.

Oh to be sure, just like “twitter” some postcards were erotic (for their day) and many had gag humor which was racy and culturally misinformed. Political correctness seldom stands the test of time. But amid all the well intentioned humor, there were also criminal offenses, including a case of smuggling in which cards embossed with morphine and cocaine were mailed to a New York prison. And in 1912, local postmasters were permitted to confiscate some of the more risqué cards, such as those showing "feminine ankles, lovers in romantic attitudes, (kissing) and pictures of animals portrayed “without fashionable attire.”

My mother used to say, if you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything. So be careful what you do say. For those of you not yet informed, The Library of Congress has purchased the “twitter” archives and updates The Library of Congress every day. That’s right; every “tweet” you’ve ever made, and will ever make will be available and easily searchable on our National Library’s Database.

 

Where The Customer Isn't Always Right!

Picture it, ancient Athens, togas galore, Sophocles is presenting Oedipus the Kingwhen Nero gets bored and decides to see what his BFF Caligula is doing later on, so he breaks out a stone tablet and starts chipping a message away. LOL

  

Picture it, it’s a cold wintery night in Norway and the final dramatic act of A Doll’s House is running when all of a sudden Henrik Ibsen just has to let his wife Suzannah Thoresen know that he’s running a little bit late, heat up the glug, so he pulls out his Morse Code prompter and starts to dot and dash out an important text message in the mezzanine. It even rattles Nora!

  

Now picture this, it’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m at the Lowes Movie Theater to see Super 8 which I’ve only waited for, for two years. A train collision has just occurred and an alien has escaped in the sleepy hamlet of Lorraine, PA in 1979. Naturally, it’s the perfect time for the guy sitting next to me to call his best bud to let him know how “smokin’ hot” Elle Fanning is. FYI: She is only fifteen years old.

  

No! I didn’t dump my popcorn on his head!

  

I am in good company. Frances McDormand, Pattie Lupone and Brian Dennehy have stopped Broadway productions when audience member’s cell phones have not only gone off, but they had the audacity to take the call.

 

I’m all for empowering the consumer and promoting technology, but for everything there is a time and place. I know we are addicted to social media and need to connect to each other whenever something really important happens like the birth of a baby or buying a bagel, but enough is enough.

I recently read about the Alamo Drafthouse, which is a chain of dine-and-screen movie theaters in Austin, Texas. They too have struggled with how to best deal with impolite moviegoers who insist on disrupting the movie experience of others. The latest assault to the enjoyment of moviegoers is the use of smart phones in theaters which create noise and bright lights that divert attention away from the screen. Alamo Drafthouse (like everybody else in the world) has a rule against texting and talking in their theaters.

Here’s where it gets good…. a young women was booted from their theater for texting, and then left an aggressive, profanity-laced message on the theater's voicemail. She still didn’t “get it”. Alamo Drafthouse decided to make an example of her by showing how her feeling of "entitlement" crosses the line. They took audio of the woman's voice mail, transcribed it, and turned it into an in-house preview that warns theatergoers against cell phone use during movies. It’s brilliant!

Legally she may be free to text in Texas, but not in a private theater. According to Tim League, the Alamo-Drafthouse's founder, the woman in question was warned twice about texting during a screening, and then, in accordance with company policy, was escorted out without a refund. "I don't think people realize that it is distracting. It seems like nothing, but if you spend as much time as I do at the movies, you realize the entire theater sees it and it pulls you out of the movie experience. It's every bit as intrusive as talking."

This woman is now the star of a PSA released by the company, and its spread virally around the country.

Okay, the language is salty, so take it from where it comes. I’ve never been to the Alamo Drafthouse, but I might go just to Austin this summer support their socially responsible endeavors.

Don't Talk - Angry Voicemail (Uncensored)

alamodrafthouse For more info on the Alamo Drafthouse, visit www.Drafthouse.com. ... "Alamo Drafthouse Cinema" "Don't Talk" texting PSA Austin ...

by AlamoDrafthouse | 2 weeks ago | 2,000,835 views

 
Dear Readers,

Based on your continuing affirmation and supportive  comments I’m developing my site. I  Just recently launched another site, “The Be:longings Of A Gentleman” My Life Through Possessions, Objects & Everything Else www.thebelongingsof.net  This new site delves into the magic and meanings of objects. My hypothesis is simple…

Everything has story. Everything in our life has some meaning, incidental or profound.

There are many things that belong to us, and many things we long for. Sometimes they are one in the same. The things that belong to us, tend to survive us, the things we long for, tend to disappear with us when we go.

For one year I will photograph, and tell you a story about something in my 750 square foot apartment. In doing so, I hope to tell you my story, my autobiography as seen through 365 different things.

The big question is…which 365 things will I select?

Sincerely,

The Bespoken For Gentleman

PS: Please feel free to “friend” me on facebook, www.facebook.com/ronald.knoth so that you can follow me and receive posting updates. If you are a professional in the fashion, retail and design world you can “connect” to me on linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ronald-knoth/2/167/608

Beverly Hillbillies 90210

Come and listen to a story about a Co. named Mattel 
Poor marketers, thought that imitation was just swell
Then one day they was copyin’ Elly May
And up through the ground came their reckonin’ day..

Donna Douglas, pig tails, rope belts.

Well the first thing you know ol' Donna’s a millionaire,
Kinfolk said "Donna move away from there"
Said "internet is the place you ought to be"
So she loaded her the truck and moved to Googleee.

Lawyers, that is. Infringement suits, Barbie Dolls.

I love a feud, Hatfield and McCoy’s, Capulet’s and Montague’s, and today’s Donna Douglas nee Elly May Clampett versus Mattel.

Donna Douglas is a now, 77-year old actress who once played Elly May Clampett on the CBS television show, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971). It was one of the most popular shows on the air at the time, and Douglas appeared in all 274 episodes. Ms. Douglas alleges that Mattel is using her likeness without her permission. Mattel (makers of Barbie) is marketing its Elly May Collector Barbie with a photo of Douglas portraying the character in the packaging. The suit seeks compensation for illegal usage of her name and likeness. Reuters reports she is seeking $75,000 in damages. However, the lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, and a court order barring Mattel from using her "name, likeness, image and distinctive attributes." As per the federal suit filed last Wednesday in Baton Rouge, LA.

Douglas says she never endorsed the doll, or gave Mattel permission to use her name to promote its sale before the toy maker introduced the doll in December 2010. I’m not sure what accessories are packaged with the doll, but to be certain there are no critters or cement pool playhouses.

The genteel Douglas lives in Zachary, near Baton Rouge, and continues to make public appearances and speaking engagements in connection with the show, according to one of her attorneys, Charles von Simson."Depending on their age, people remember the show immediately, and they remember her. It's something she gets a lot of fan interest from." Von Simson said Mattel made other "nostalgia dolls" of iconic TV characters, including Barbara Eden's from "I Dream of Jeannie" and the late Elizabeth Montegomery's from "Bewitched.

In a 2009 interview, Douglas said she felt at ease playing the role because, like her character, she grew up a poor Southern tomboy."Elly has always been good for me," the Louisiana native said. "That was a slice out of my life, a very happy slice out of my life."

I’m all for “Girl Power” Granny wouldn't cotton to such high falutin’ antics, where’s the shotgun? You go Elly May!

Well now it’s time to say good-by to Mattel and all their greed.
And they would like hope us folks forgive their dastardly deeds.
You're all invited back again to your local Toy R’ Us
To have a heapin' helpin' of our avarice and fuss.

Corporate that is, Milburn Drysdale style!

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

Isn’t It Obvious?

The other day my sister asked me, if, when I was growing up I remember anyone really famous that was gay? Meaning that today, it’s certainly more acceptable for gays and lesbians to be “out“. Her question is a legitimate one, and one posed by many people. I never struggled with finding famous people to look towards for inspiration. Granted, much of gay and lesbian history has been hidden “closeted”. Some of it begs the question is the public oblivious or simply disinterested in it. I always felt there were role models, plenty to pick and choose from. While I may have felt alone, I knew intellectually I was in very good company.

It is easy to look back as dismiss the past as being nothing but a dark and unwelcoming world. Indeed, as a culture we have come far. But in truth the period of the late 1960’s and 1970’s was a time of progressive thought. A time of activism too.

Much of the information I received about being “out” or what constituted being gay came from TV. There was the made for TV film That Certain Summer (1972) with Hal Holbrook, Martin Sheen and Scott Jacobi. Followed the next year by PBS’s An American Family (1973) with son, Lance Loud. It was always obvious to me that Paul Lynde (Uncle Arthur) and Agnes Moorehead (Endora) were gay on Bewitched. Which was followed by casting gay actor, Dick Sargent (as the second Darrin). They may have played straight in Samantha  Steven’s living room, but half the fun of the show was Moorehead’s drag queen persona, and Lynde’s fabulous bon mots. The Stevens' dilema was one of being "closeted" keeping Samantha's secret, that she was a witch, but it didn’t begin and end there. There was the Hot l Baltimore (1975) with its gay couple, George and Gordon, an older couple, who shared a single room with a double bed. While they were not out to the public, there was Richard Chamberlain on Dr. Kildare, George Takei on Star Trek, Lily Tomlin on Laugh-In with Alan Sues, Paul Winfield in dozens of episodic shows, Terry Sweeny and Danitra Vance on Saturday Night Live and father of the year, Robert Reed on The Brady Bunch. Reed who would flirt with the public later playing one of TV's first transgendered patients on a two part episode of Medical Center. There were reoccurring characters on the popular Barney Miller, who started out as stereotypical “swishers” but were reintroduced and “mainstreamed”.  They collectively became an important arc of the series stressing tolerance and acceptance (albeit for straight acting gays). Soap (1977) introduced a relative newcomer in a major role, Billy Crystal as Jody. Often rumored as being gay, Tony Randall portrays a gay man surviving his companion on the series Love, Sidney. Granted, one needed to read between the lines, but the silver framed photo on the mantle was a dead give away. I, like many American’s prior to the advent of the VHS, was riveted to my TV set when PBS aired Brideshead Revisited (1981).

Television was just one place to draw upon life stories. I may have been raised in a small town, but we had a good library. In that library, I read about the lives of and the work of many great people. People with lives to be admired. This list is woefully incomplete, but represents many of the people I drew inspiration from.

Lord Byron, poet
Walt Whitman, poet
Oscar Wilde, playwright
Marcel Proust, author
Colette, author
Gertrude Stein, poet and author
Alice B. Toklas, writer and gourmet
Federico Garcia Lorca, playwright
Cole Porter, musical composer
Virginia Woolf, writer
Jean Cocteau, writer, director.
Charles Laughton, actor and director
Tennessee Williams, playwright
James Baldwin, author
Andy Warhol, artist
Herman Melville, author
Tchaikovsky, classical composer
Willa Cather, author
Bessie Smith, singer
Noel Coward, playwright
Christopher Isherwood, author
Harvey Milk, politician
Bayard Rustin, civil rights activist
Edna Ferber, playwright and author
Elton John, composer
Langston Hughes, author
Martina Navratilova, Athlete
Greg Louganis, athlete Olympian
Billie Jean King, athlete
Hans Christian Andersen, children’s author
Frida Kahlo, artist
Rock Hudson, actor
Ralph Waldo Emerson, author
Janis Joplin, singer, composer
Rudolf Nuryev, dancer
Waslaw Nijinsky, dancer
Dag Hammerskjold, Swedish UN Secretary
Rainer Maria Rilke,  poet.
James Dean actor
Montgomery Clift, actor
Paul Cadmus, painter

Now I have to ask you...isn't it obvious?

ALL MY PRODUCTS

Call them soap operas, or a daytime drama, but by any other name they would smell as sweet, maybe even lemon fresh like Pledge spray wax or Joy dishwashing detergent. We might dismiss the “Soaps” as fodder, but rest assured the end of an era, like vaudeville is upon us. Two of America’s most beloved TV shows have been cancelled! Unfortunately, these shows were once totally sponsored by the makers of Ivory, Tide and Wisk, but are no longer solely owned by the likes of Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive or Lever Brothers. Soap operas which were named after the company's focus on using them as a vehicle to sell soap and other new and improved household items are gasping their final rinse.

Back in the era of domesticity, Spic & Span, Dove, Biz, Camay, Dash and Tide promised a world free from the embarrassment of waxy yellow buildup, where we could see our reflection in our dinner dishes, we were rescued by a white night or white tornado, and no longer had hands as rough as sandpaper or lobster claws.

ABC has announced that as part of a continued shift away from daytime drama programming, "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" will be cancelled, faster than Erica Kane can drive off a cliff or get over bout amnesia. Soap operas will be replaced with less costly talk shows and lifestyle programming. Their replacements will be "The Chew," (The View, The Talk) which is about food, and hosted by Mario Bataldi, and "The Revolution," a makeover show, hosted by Tim Gunn. Non-scripted reality is replacing scripted reality. Give me a slimy black-mailer or evil patriarch any day. Oh wait a minute…maybe that’s what ABC is doing.

Soap opera ratings have seen a steady decline in ratings since the 1990’s. A daily average of 6.5 million viewers watched soaps during the 1991-92 TV season, while just 1.3 million watched in 2009-2010. Ergo, soap sales have seen a decline in market share. Guess what, mom is busy pulling in a second income, she’s not spray starching our pinafores. But even if mom was at home she’s watching cable, in truth, all of the major networks and their TV shows have seen a steady decline in ratings/viewership. But those other shows are being cancelled. So what’s really up?

In a scathingly brilliant publicity stunt, iconic vacuum company Hoover has announced that it is pulling ads like a carpet from below our proverbial feet from ABC in protest over the cancellation of long-running daytime dramas "All My Children" and "One Life to Live."

"We will discontinue our advertising with ABC this Friday, 4/22," Hoover VP Marketing, Brian Kirkendall wrote on the company's facebook page. "We're making every attempt to pull our spots from these programs sooner." VPM Kirkendall writes: "I want you to know from me personally that we hear you loud and clear. My wife and mother are both passionate viewers of All My Children and One Life to Live, as are many of my colleagues here at Hoover. Laudable, but I doubt anyone at Hoover is hanging out in the break room watching Vicki Riley (Erika Slezak) lapse back into schizophrenia.

The Revenge of Erica Kane…

Hoover is not only promoting its public protest on Facebook, it has also set up an email address to allow consumers to voice their disappointment at losing their "Stories" at  SaveTheSoaps@Hoover.com.

Hoover is speaking for many of us, the disenfranchised that enjoy our guilty pleasures and want to visit the world of Pine Valley and Lanview, where we can wash off the filth of revenge, greed, avarice, marital infidelity, teen pregnancy, justifiable homicide, with  a box of new and improved Wisk

Beany and Cecil

The French have an expression, “chacun a son gout”, which translates into “a matter of taste.” Today I‘m feeling very chacun a son gout, about an old cartoon series I once adored, Beany and Cecil. Like escargot, you either love it a hate it... it’s all a matter if taste. PS: I don’t like escargot!

I hadn’t thought about Beany And Cecil  for a very long while. There were like a poem you once memorized, it’s retained in the recesses of your mind, but it’s not exercised. Then I saw a film clip on the PBS TV series, “Pioneers of Television: Local Kids TV Shows”, and like a Pandora’s Box, all sorts of joyful memories began to spill out. Oh dear, my nostalgia is someone else’s history. Beany and Cecil  harks back to a time of youth, unending days laid out before you, now I am a grey haired gentleman, but old friends, companions once lost  had returned to my Westphalia like a Candide. Beany and Cecil are still young. Like Peter Pans they have not aged!

I was not yet in the first grade, little more than a toddler when I recall a sea sick sea serpent named Cecil, with a lisp of all things, (oh the irony) and a little cherubic boy in a Beany, with the ability to fly (my one great wish) were central figures in my imaginative life. They came into my life when I too was beginning my odyssey into childhood, and through years of reruns they remained as constant and true as a wind-up clock. I was not a sad child, but I recall they still managed to take me out of myself, my drab Connecticut life, and deliver me to a world where I was happier, more content and understood.

I loved them both. I saw myself or at least aspects of myself in them both. I imagined myself in their word. They personified what I aspired to be, adventuresome. But alas, that may very well be what every six year old boy thinks they want to be.

Beany and Cecil eschewed the mainstream, convention, and the status quo, for that alone I loved them, but then they elected to live outside the confines of the real world, oh be still my heart.

Why was I drawn to Beany And Cecil? I was always attracted to beauty and style. Beany and Cecil was not just stock animation; there were design references to mid-century designers like Ray Eames and my idol, Charley Harper. The show looked stylish. There was the star * cluster that turned into the 60’s hippy icon, the Riki-Tiki flower. The color palate of the show is turquoise, pink and teal. The graphic have those atomic inspired prints that reference TV sets, fish and bamboo leaves. Furniture is illustrated like a Danish modern catalog, sleek and low to the ground. It’s all hip again. Eero Saarinen where are you?

 

Beany and Cecil were not just for kids, rest assured I didn’t latch on to the innuendos, double entrendres and topical references, but I knew there was adult humor, and I wanted in. My intellect, if any, cried for it.

Beany and Cecil was created by animator Bob Clampett who spoofs himself in the opening credits with his beatnik flat top, turtleneck and nerdy horn rimmed glasses. ...in a Bob Clampett cartooooonnnn! Clampett was a rapscallion; he got fired from Warner Brothers for his bawdy humor and inability to play the corporate rube. Clampett had been inspired with the idea for Cecil when he was a boy, after seeing the top half of the dinosaur swimming from the water at the end of the 1925 film, "The Lost World".

While I am impossibly old, I do not recall when the show first started as a live puppet show called, Time for Beany (1949 to 1954) where the basic premise and characters were well developed.

I wasn’t the only person sitting in front of a cherry wood colonial console. Beany and Cecil  first aired in 1962, the 26 shows (including 78 cartoons) and were repeated on Saturday mornings for the next five years. The show was wildly successful and among its devoted viewers were Princeton academic and the father of relativity, Albert Einstein.

The shows musical store periodically stands out and is very high brow,  one episode featured Tchaikovsky's instantly recognizable celesta  piece, Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, from The Nutcracker. Other famed pieces of the Nutcracker were used in the series as musical interludes such as the Chinese Dance and Dance of the Reed-Flutes. Many other well-known classical music pieces were featured in the show as well, including The William Tell Overture, Ride of the Valkyries, and Flight of the Bubblebee. Some of the background music was also recycled from Leave It To Beaver and some early Walter Lantz cartoons. Damn you, Woddy Woodpecker

Beany Boy was a young, cherub-faced blonde haired boy with a propeller beanie (yes, I had one too) that allowed him to fly it was marketed as “The Beanie Copter”. (I couldn't get off the ground in mine) Beany was a good-hearted, upbeat kid, not like me. In most episodes, Beany would be kidnapped by the villain, crying "Help, Cecil! Help!" to which Cecil would reply "I'm a-comin', Beany-boy!" as he raced to the rescue.  I too wanted to be rescued. Granted, life on Brubaker Road in our brick salt box cottage with green awnings wasn’t really so bad, or was it?

Cecil was a seasick sea serpent, (which I loved that idea) a large green Loch Ness sort of thing with a slight effeminate lisp. (It's so me!) He was fiercely loyal to Beany, but not terribly bright. Cecil's trusting good nature invariably winds up with him being taken advantage of by bad people, and he often ends up absorbing a great amount of physical abuse (getting smashed flat, losing his head, having his skin burned off, being shattered to pieces, not unlike me and my younger brother), but it all happens within the laws of cartoon physics. The end of Cecil's tail was never seen in most episodes; it always extended off-screen, or was hidden behind an obstacle. This is likely a joke reference to the original Cecil, a hand puppet whose tail was likewise hidden because it didn't exist.

Beany did not seem to have any parents and was unencumbered by parental guidance. How appealing was that to a six year old? Beany did have his uncle, Captain Horatio Huffenpuff, also called "Uncle Captain", and was the Captain of the Leakin' Lena, which takes Beany and Cecil from one destination to the other. The Captain is always willing to instruct Beany and Cecil on their latest assignment, but is rather cowardly and refuses to put himself in any personal jeopardy, locking himself below deck or under a box labeled "Capt. Huffenpuff's Hiding Box" for most of the episodes.

Just like real life some rain must fall and an evil villain must be present to move the narrative along. Enter stage left, Dishonest John, or "D.J." was the prototypical villain of the show. He is dressed like a Simon Legree, and he is constantly scheming to foil Beany and Cecil's adventures. His catch phrase is a sinister "Nya-ah-ãhh!", and he occasionally refers to Cecil as a "tall toad" or "big salami" referring to his big, limbless body or perhaps Cecil striking resemblance to an unfurled (and unnamed) appendage. Whenever Dishonest John's schemes are revealed to the heroes, Cecil tends to respond with an aghast "What the heck! D.J., you dirty guy!”I tried that once with my father, guess what, it didn’t fly! When Dishonest John receives his inevitable come-uppance, it is usually just as painful as the abuse Cecil has endured in the rest of the episode. Dishonest John carried a business card that read: "Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Special rates for Sundays and holidays". Which to my mind, would be perfect for a few people I know in the fashion industry.

The show was rife with reoccurring characters like “Davey Cricket” A frontier cricket with a coonskin cap that lives in the backwoods of Eight-Nine-Tennessee, parodying American frontiersman Davy Crockett and specifically Walt Disney’s uber popular and sanitized popular TV series

I also loved “Go Man Van Gogh” who was a stereotypical cartoon beatnik and who lived in the jungles of Wildsville on the Hungry I-Land. (Wait a minute...my Barbra Streisand sang at The Hungry I, for those of you too young to catch the reference, The Hungry I was a hip nightclub in the early 60’s)  He often paints various things with his paintbrush, or toothbrush whichever is handy  including paintings, vines to swing on, and fake backdrops to fool enemies He also often plays a set of bongo drums and scat-sings and speaks with various beatnik stereotype slang.

Rounding out some more cast members was “Careless, the Mexican Hairless” who was  Cecil's jovial pet Chihuahua Careless, was a gift from a barber friend of Cecil's in Tijuana, Mexico. Like contraband and Mexican jumping beans, Careless is so named because of his tendency to knock things over when he happily jumps and dances. He sings to the tune of the Mexican folk song "El Jaraabe Tapatio"  and is a stereotypically hyperactive Chihuahua. He is called a Mexican Hairless for comic effect; the actual breed is distinct from Chihuahuas and is in fact,  much larger.

And last, but not least was “Beepin' Tom” a tiny green  alien who flew about in an open-top flying saucer. Named for his habit of making beeping sounds. When he spoke, he would hum the first line of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and then sing his phrase to the tune of the next line. A high pitched, speeded up voice similar to Alvin and the Chipmunks, was used for the character and the words he sang/spoke appeared as a rebus  in a word balloon over his head. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read yet.

You can find most of the Beany and Cecil episodes on youtube. I’m half certain that there must be a DVD of all the episodes out there too. I’ve been regaling myself with re-watching episodes online. It’s not the same as the magic of a TV set. A TV back in the day when the tubes had to be warmed up and you had to manually change the channels. Granted, I do not hear my mother complaining that I’m sitting too close to the TV set and will go blind and die of radiation poisoning. Even at six I didn’t buy that malarkey. But at my desk I am six or seven or eight, rediscovering a colorful and stylish world, full of adventure.

Thou Shalt Not Return Christmas Gifts

 

The truth comes out…

It is an age-old tradition that the day after Christmas, despite our feigned exhaustion, we, who have convincingly and sincerely thanked friends and family for their thoughtfulness, generosity and  well-chosen gifts, head out to the malls to return them all. We are all phonies! Has Christmas become an exercise in futility, or just plain selfishness?

It’s not a modern dilemma. I imagine that in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago Mary and Joseph packed up their baby to head downtown to return all that frankincense and myrrh on the 26th. After all, how much myrrh does a carpenter’s wife really need? Joseph needed a new tool belt and ratchet set. The Bible tells us that Bethlehem was packed with people in town to report for the local census. It was probably a boon to the salespeople in the bazaars. Things may have been so packed that the Holy family had to find lodging elsewhere. Luckily, they were not in New York City. With the Euro so tight, tourists were everywhere (except home) like bedbugs. Note to expectant parents, the only Inn there is room at, is the Holiday Inn on West 57^th. The revolving door at Macys made it clear that despite being open twenty-four hours straight for three days that there was no room there. Next time you need to swaddle, try Pret A Manger in Rockefeller Center.

I did not return anything, but I did receive a 50.00 VISA gift card that was applied to JC Penny’s, where I purchased a set of six white washcloths marked down to 5.99, a bargain! With the remainder I bought two fitted shirts at Express, marked 40% off from the original 59.99.

I was on a quest to find an electric blanket. Macy’s had electric blankets, which were being sold for 149.99 (same deal at JC Penny’s), but I am not a rube, or a tourist from Turkey. I found the same electric blanket online, on EBay for 74.99 and in beige! Macy’s the day after Christmas is sort of like limbo. It’s not quite hell, but you know which direction you’re heading, and it ain’t heaven.

As for many happy returns, despite a record snowfall of just over two feet, (nothing keeps people from shopping) Macy’s, Zara, H & M, Club Monaco, and Banana Republic were packed. By the way, the day after, all those people who could make it to the malls and shopping centers despite the inclimate weather we're unable to get to work. Bah, Humbug sounding more like Caesar Augustus, cried Mayor Bloomberg, go to a Broadway show or out to a restaurant.

Bless me father for I have shopped. The last time I bought retail was six months ago. What is my penance? Six Hail Macy’s?

Where Was I? The Life of Joe Mooney

I never heard of him, but that means precious little. When it comes to jazz, I am not even a neophyte. This month’s meeting of the New York Sheet Music Society www.nysms.org focused on the work of Joe Mooney. The only Mooney I ever knew from was Mr. Mooney on The Lucille Ball Show. What I know about Joe Mooney, the jazz icon, would only fill a teacup, but oh, what a teacup it would be. 

The NYSM event was hosted by Will Friedwald, noted author and music critic. A devotee of Joe Mooney, Friedwald writes for The New York Times, the Village Voice, Newsday, the New York Observer, and The New York Sun, and for Entertainment Weekly, and New York. His books include Jazz Singing: America's Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond, Sinatra! The Song is You: A Singer's Art, Stardust Melodies: the Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs and Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: An Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons, among others.

Here is what I do know; Joe Mooney was born March 14, 1911, in Patterson, NJ. (A local boy.) He was a jazz and pop accordionist and organist. I too was thinking… a jazz accordionist? This does not sound too promising. I hear bad Bar Mitzvah music, and shades of “Lady of Spain” (insert involuntary shudder). While I am uncertain what caused it, Mooney went blind around age ten. One can only imagine the trauma and its affect on a ten year old. Joe and his brother Dan, played together on radio broadcasts in the late 1920’s, and recorded between 1929 and 1931 as “The Sunshine Boys” and “The Melotone Boys“, both sang, while Joe accompanied on piano. They continued performing together on WLW in Cincinnati until 1936, after which Dan Mooney left the music industry for something more reliable and steady.

 To “get” Mooney, you need to know he had a very dry sense of humor. He was attracted to the satirical, or as Mr. Friedwald states “You need to be prepared to laugh out loud”. Mooney had lots working against his success. He was not a great vocalist, not that attractive to look at, while he was a versatile musician, he wasn’t a prodigy, he wrote a few songs, but really wasn’t a songwriter; however he had had an unerring ear. Mooney had a point of view, a perspective that was unexpected. His phrasing was unique. His talent for arranging raised mundane material into art level masterpieces. He was ahead of his time…musically.

Mooney comes on the scene in the late 1920’s. Capturing this period is one of the undisputed reigning queens of the NY cabaret scene, KT Sullivan, whose renditions of two Jerome Kern (music) and PG Wodehouse (lyrics) songs with which Mooney had great success. Bungalow In Quogue from the play Very Good Eddie. (1915) FYI Quogue is the native American meaning clam.

Let's build a little bungalow in Quogue

In Yaphank or in Hicksville or Patchogue.

Where we can sniff the scented breeze,

And pluck tomatoes from the trees,

Where there is room to exercise the dog.

How pleasant it will be through life to jog

With Bill the bull and Hildebrand the hog:

Each morn we'll waken from our doze,

When Reginald, the rooster, crows,

Down in our little bungalow in Quogue.

Or the equally charming Nesting Time in Flatbush from Oh Boy!  (1915)

 

When it's nesting time in Flatbush,

As you heard me say before,

You will see the janitor

With the girl whom I adore.

On the seventh floor, on the seventh floor,

We will start to bill and coo,

When it's nesting time in Flatbush,

In Flatbush Avenue.

I had forgotten how sardonic (tongue in cheek) Kern and Wodehouse could be. Clearly 1915 was a productive year for them both. It’s not surprising the Mooney who heard these great songs in his youth would revisit them during that great period called “the Jazz Age”.

In 1937, Mooney started work as a pianist and arranger for Frank Dailey, a role he reprised with Buddy Rogers in 1938. Through the early 1940’s Joe Mooney arranged for very popular Paul Whiteman, (father of Margaret) not to mention Vincent Lopez, Larry Clinton, Les Brown, and The Modernaires. With steely determination Mooney often relegated to the back row where he was seen as a novelty, opted to break free, and he put together his own quartet in 1943; where he sang and played accordion with accompaniment on guitar, bass, and clarinet. The band opened in New York to universal praise and rave revues. Financial/commercial success did not follow his artistic success. Mooney had developed a distinctive style, but there was no one to market it. Granted, a Decca contract was secured and fame and fortune seemed to beckon. Unfortunately, outside of the big city, it was almost impossible to find the sympathetic venues, which were so necessary for Mooney’s special sound, and by 1948, it was all over. The war was over, Americans wanted everything new, Big Bands, and the Big Band sound was considered passé. Mooney was only in his late 30’s when he became a kind of “has been”.

 

 

In the 1950s, Mooney sang with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra and played with Johnny Smith in 1953. Joe did make a brief comeback in New York in 1950, this time on Hammond Organ and with a young guitarist called Bucky Pizzarelli, but again it did not take. Plugging away, he recorded for Carousel (two titles in 1951), Atlantic (1956). He recorded again in 1956, and the middle of the 1960’s and Columbia (1963-65). His covers of other peoples work are extraordinary. Hearing them today, they still seem fresh. There is a kind of laid-back sexiness, but again this comes at a time when being hip, is just ahead of where the culture is. After moving to Florida in 1954, he concentrated more on organ. Occasionally he would travel to New York for television work, or to record, but he mostly worked in Florida, including at his club “The Grate Joy“. At the height of his fame, Joe Mooney was admired by both Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett who frequently were in the audience appreciating his special talent. Alas their respect and support did not lead to gigs.

Lest I not promote Alex Leonard, pianist, Iris, bass, Karen Oberlin, vocalist, Aaron Weinstein, violinist, and Quinn Lemley, vocalist, all whom lent their talents to illustrate the cannon of Mooney classics. Collectively they demonstrated the affection this cult hero, Mooney generates. After hearing their interpretations I headed straight for the internet and ordered Joe Mooney on The Rock, The Greatness of Joe Mooney and Lush Life.

If you are not familiar with Mooney’s work, time permitting visit www.youtube.com for some of his classics, there’s not a lot there, but what is there makes you eager to hear more.

Joe Mooney died of a stroke in 1975, at the age of 64.

PS An announcement from The Actors Temple, www.theactorstemple.org Jewish Synagogue where Eddie Cantor, Sophie Tucker, The Three Stooges and Shirley Winters once worshipped. Like many small religious institutions keeping their doors open remains difficult. Your prayers are welcome, so is your attendance at any one of their events concerts, shows, and fundraisers.