A Fine Healthy Serving of Useless Information, Open Wide Please
Let’s see if we can tie this together with a big rope, some bungee cords, a lot of yarn, and perhaps some pretty red ribbon:
During WW2 the United States best air ace was Richard Bong (no relation to the marijuana smoking device) who shot down 40 enemy planes in his P-38. Dick later died test flying a jet in North Hollywood, Cal.
The German Ace of Aces was Erich Hartmann who shot down 352 enemy planes was nicknamed Bubi (The Kid), which has no relation to Sir Mike Stiefel, who holds court in the great state of North Carolina. Hartmann had a daughter named Ursula (who is not related to the Queen Mother of All Groove, Ursula Banning who calls the shots from her pad in Montecito, Cal) nor is Erich connected to arguably one of the funniest Saturday Night Live players 
Phil Hartman, who went to Westchester high and Santa Monica College and opened his own graphic design firm where his designed at least 40 album covers for bands such as America, Poco, 
and Steely Dan’s Aja (not confirmed) before hitting his true calling as a comedian. The crazy ones 
are fun to run with for a while, but Phil paid a high price when he tied the knot to a real wacko – his 3rd wife Brynn Ordahl who shot him 3 times in a coke freakout as he lay sleeping before offing herself. His ashes were strewn over 
Emerald Bay in Catalina.
Phil also designed the logo for Crosby, Stills, and Nash, but he did not design the goofy “cartoon 
bird” logo for one of my favorite baseball teams the Baltimore Orioles. The “Cartoon Bird” logo came out in 1965 and was on the hat for Brooks, Frank, Boog, Jimmy P, Earl and even Cal. The same group of animators came up with the updated characters of one of my favorite cereals Rice Krispies (Rice Bubbles in Australia.) The original cereal came out in 1927 and the characters Snap, 
Crackle, and Pop (Kiks, Raks, and Poks in Finnish) have changed a bit over the years (who can forget the 4th guy in the group Pow who represented claimed “explosive nutritional value”, but was soon 
dropped like a hot potato.) In 1963 the Rolling Stones recorded a short song for a Rice Krispies commercial. The same group of animators also came up with Tony the Tiger, the Jolly Green Giant and the Hamms Beer bear.
But Pow is dead and so are about 200 poor souls stuck on Mount Everest. Their bodies are now used as landmarks and trail markers. “Green Boots” 
(see photo) died in 1996 and now serves as a waypoint marker that climbers use to gauge how near they are to the summit. “Green Boots” got separated from his group, sought refuge in a mountain overhang, and shivered in the cold until he died. In 2006 English climber Dave Sharp joined “Green Boots” when he stopped in the overhang to rest. His body eventually froze in place rendering him unable to move, but still alive. Over 40 climbers passed by as he sat freezing to death thinking that he was already dead. Eventually some heard faint moans, realized he was still alive, but alas, it was too late.
So from Fighter Aces to Phil Hartman to the logo for the Baltimore Orioles to Rice Krispies to Dead people on 
Mount Everest, that’s a bucket of useless information poured over your head. To help you lather it in pour yourself something cold and refreshing (I suggest an Anejo rum and soda water with three limes), take those damn shoes off, flush away those brain cramps, and just drift for a while. You will thank me later. Groove.
I always thought I would be a better gangster than a spy. The spy thing is too much sneaking around in a trench coat trying to lurk in the shadows of the night. Always vulnerable, like a puppy on an iceberg, a spy often is a traitor and who wants to groove with a traitor? Gathering information, creeping around, perhaps your shoe is an intercontinental ballistic missile (better than “his bow-tie is really a camera”), not that fun – just not a good line of work. Not to say that being a gangster is any day at the beach. Most die young and violent deaths without the joys of friends nor family. But both our pals the gangster and his good friend the prostitute, brought some of the common sense and good times that we all enjoy today.
Here it is the High Holiday Season, and you can bet Christmas songs will be heard – either through the muffled sound of department store speakers, booze soaked carollers, or the jaunty humming of a family member while cooking with tremendous magnificence. Christmas songs will be heard, waft around for a while in our cluttered heads, then hopefully drip out our ears in a timely manner. And for sure, two of the songs that will be heard will be “Jingle Bells” and “White Christmas”.
Jimmy Pierpont was a guy from the Boston area and like so many others, made a run for the gold in 1849 leaving his wife and kids for the California Gold Rush. Jimmy tried mining and came up empty so he opened a photography studio in San Francisco, which like his mining career, went up in flames. After failing at the Gold Rush, Jimmy returned to the East, grabbed
played in space) and broadcast their rendition of “Jingle Bells”. Astronauts are known whimsicle jesters and great guys to throw down 7 or 8 Anejo and sodas with at the Shangri-La Hotel. Next time the opportunity comes up, give it the nod. Jimmy never made a lot of dough off “The One Horse Open Sleigh” though around the world it remains one of the most recognized and performed songs ever written. Jimmy called it a day August 5th, 1893 in Winter Haven, Fla and was elected to the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. But if he had lived long enough and things got bad, he always could have borrowed some scratch from his nephew J.P. (Pierpont) Morgan.
Next time you are headed out to Palm Springs and feeling a quart low, please stop at two or three of the 45 fast food arenas in the Banning, California sector. If done correctly you will leave this burg with a seaweed slippery glaze to your skin. But besides its wonderful name (Yes, I have been offered numerous political and military posts there – none that I have deemed appropriate….yet.) and the massive amount of fast food choices, the City of Banning has an odd claim to fame. The City Fathers say that the great Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” there while at the Briargate Lodge, a claim which I see no reason to doubt. (Those creeps down at the Arizona Biltmore have also raised their squeaky voices claiming the song was written there, and of course there is the laughable idea that he wrote it at his home in New York state.) Irv Berlin was a Russian born (full name: Israel Isidore Baline) composer and lyricist who wrote some of the great ones: “Blue Skies”, “Putin’ on the Ritz”, “God Bless America” and a song that both my sisters have tortured me 
with “There is No Show Business Like Show Business” while thinking they were conjuring up the ghost of Ethel Merman, but in reality sounded more like the very dead ghost of a booze addled Ethel Mertz (wife of Fred.) But none of Irv’s hits were 
close to “White Christmas” as far as popularity. The Bing Crosby version has sold over 50 million records, thus being the best-selling single of all time. Irv has another act that will never be topped: he is the only oscar award presenter and award winner to open the envelope and read his own name (for ” White Christmas” of course, from the movie “Holiday Inn” in 1942.) The awkwardness you could have hung Jimmy Pierpont’s organ on, so the powers that be at the academy will not let that happen again.
request their rendition each and every time you see them (also available by phone and phone messaging ). Groove.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning, crisp and clear, and I was drawn to the venerable Santa Monica pier. I wanted to check on my theory (still under investigation) that the pier fishermen who dress better, will catch more fish. It 
is important when one ventures into that sector of this fair city that it is done early before the pier feels the roar of it’s juices, then proceeds to throw up on itself.
replaced by a soulless venue. But when you think of the H.O.L., think Trader Vic’s but without any semblance of class, filled with waiters who were incurably addicted to fumbling, whose clientele were sopped with both despair and elation depending on the hour, and was run by those who had an incredible tolerance for the uneven. The movie “The Searchers” stared John Wayne, Ward Bond (both friends of my grandparents), Jeff Hunter (who lived in the Palisades) and of course a young Natalia Niko Laevna Zacharencho (also known as Natalie Wood). The movie also has an interesting musical connection – after seeing the movie at the State Theatre in Lubbock, Texas and hearing John Wayne’s character utter “That will be the day” four times in the movie, a young Buddy Holly was inspired to write his number one hit of the same name.
Somehow this all brings me to the end of the Santa Monica pier, where the crust level increases and poorly dressed fishermen, whose hands shimmer with bait fish scales, have as much luck catching fish as a group of alley cats belting out a major cord on key. A big smiley face with chiclets for teeth holds on to a fiddle in an old poster. His name is Spade
Cooley. Spade was huge in his day as an American Western swing band leader, actor, and television personality – hitting it big in the 40’s and 50’s. He and his band battled Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys to be “King of the Western Swing”. In 1948 he hosted his own variety show, broadcast on KTLA from the Santa Monica Pier Ballroom, thus according to some, 
was the first variety show on television. His guests included Frankie Lane, Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, and the Chairman himself, Frank Sinatra. The Main Spade was very successful at the time, having brought in his future wife Ella Mae Evans (no relation to Dale) on vocals. He packed them in too – sometimes up to 8000 folks would come for the show and dance with their fellow bolo tie and boot crowd. Spade gave his band members country names like Smokey Rodgers, Cactus Soldi and Pedro Depaul, even though the majority of them were cool city cats from Cleveland, Brooklyn and Milwaukee. It wasn’t till 1956 that Spade’s ratings suffered because of the new guy on TV, Lawrence Welk .
Spade bought a huge pad out in isolated Willow Springs, in the Antelope Valley, where he parked Ella Mae and the kids. After
seeing the success of Disneyland, Spade wanted to make a huge water park on his property called “Water Wonderland.” That didn’t work out and Spade’s world started to unravel. The marriage between he and Ella was going down the toilet due to Spade becoming a huge booze bag and the wandering eyes of both Spade and Ella. It all came to a head when Ella confessed to an affair with Roy Rodgers (did Dale know? Did Trigger know?) It was April 3, 1961, and Spade’s jealous rampages meant bad news for Mrs. Cooley. He beat her, interrogated her, burned her with his cigarettes, and eventually killed her. The authorities were called and the dark-souled Spade was sent to the Big House – found guilty of murder by his peers after using the old “fell in the shower” line to explain Ella’s beat up body and cig burns. (Has that “fell in the shower” excuse ever worked ?)
Spade was sent to San Quentin then to a softer Vacaville prison where he was a model prisoner. Ron Reagan became governor of Cal in 1966, waved his magic wand, and Spade was going to be a free man. In 1969 the parole board voted unanimously to parole the country crooner effective on his 60th birthday. He did less than nine years for killing his wife. Four months before his release, Spade was granted a 4 day furlough to perform in Oakland at a benefit concert for the Sheriffs department. The crowd loved his performance and from the side of the stage he remarked “I think it’s all going to work out for me. I have a feeling that today is the first day of the rest of my life.” WRONGO (my Dad’s saying) – Spade grabbed his chest, dropped his fiddle and fell dead at the age of 59 of a heart attack.
had hoped, that the ” fell in the shower” excuse never works (Greg Hardy), that you can call a Spade a spade, and that the theory that nicely dressed fishermen catch more fish is still being explored and tabulated. Groove.
![IMG_4001[1]](https://groovecentralla.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/img_40011.jpg)
GrooveCentralLA 